Whitecross St Party

In its third year the Whitecross St party is like no other, the street becomes a giant canvas and theatre featuring the works of both established and emerging artists. This year the theme was the "rise of the non-conformists". Dancing, music and food stalls line the street. Paka and his fire horse one of the many artists that kept the crowds enthralled.

Theatre Breaks

This week I went to the Harold Pinter Theatre in Piccadilly to see "South Downs and The Browning Version". It was organised for me by London Theatre Breaks, who specialise in show and hotel deals in the capital.

The Plays:

Following a critically acclaimed and sold out run as part of Chichester’s Festival 2011, the
double bill of Terence Rattigan’s one-act masterpiece The Browning Version and David Hare’s specially
commissioned companion piece South Downs has now transfered to Harold Pinter Theatre

Anna Chancellor and Nicholas Farrell lead the casts in these plays which
examine life in boarding public schools. Rattigan’s own Harrow School and Hare’s own Lancing
College provide the backdrop for two moving and resounding stories, one told through the
eyes of a master and one told through the eyes of a boy. Both revolve around unexpected acts
of kindness which place the harsh and at times cruel worlds of these schools into stark contrast.

South Downs is set in the 1960's, John Blakemore superbly played by Alex Lawther, a precocious, bright and inquisitive student who is in trouble for writing a letter of protest to the newspapers. He is not liked by the other boys, but his response is "I don't like me either". His only friend abandons him. A dashing and popular prefect with a movie star mother and Blakemore's life takes an unexpected turn.

The Browning Version steps back 20 years. Nicholas Farrell is outstanding as Crocker-Harris the classics master, known as Himmler of the lower fifth, who is forced into retirement without a pension. His dysfunctional marriage to the wealthy Millie, played by Anna Chancler and his lack of self esteem take an unexpected turn with the small act of kindness from a pupil.

This production is certain to pick up awards. I urge you to see it you wont be disappointed.

The Mouse Trap

Now in its 60th year, this is the longest running show in the world. just goes to show how we all love a good who dunnit

Rehearsing at the Scoop

Next to City Hall is the Scoop. A modern day open air amphitheatre. It plays host all year round to a wonderful array of activities and events, most of them free to the public. In September and October it will be the site of outdoor cinema in the evening (yes "bring you own blankets and wrap up warm" guidance has been issued). The play "The Mother" is what's on now and these two are in rehearsals for it. The play is a new translation of Brecht's classic play by Mark Ravenhill, one of the UK's most celebrated and controversial playwrights, and looks set to cause waves of its own as this year's street protests dictate the political agenda at home and abroad.

Lend Me a Tenor

The other night I went to the splendidly refurbished Gielgud Theatre. The interiors of many of these old London theatres are almost like an artwork in their own right and it's worth attending a show just to get inside.

I saw Lend Me a Tenor a musical comedy of mistaken identity, charades and surprising romance. It was a fun production and made all the better by it's fabulous set and surroundings.

Find out what's playing with London's theatre Guide

Mrs Klein

The play Mrs Klein by Nicholas Wright is currently enjoying a well-reviewed revival at the Almeida Theatre, London.

The play had its first production at the National Theatre in 1988. Two years previously Phyllis Grosskurth’s somewhat controversial biography of Klein had appeared, based on extensive research in the Klein papers while these were still in the care of Hanna Segal of the Melanie Klein Trust.

The Melanie Klein Trust gave the Klein papers to what was then the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in 1984. These were catalogued (the catalogue is now available online), and in 1987 Nicholas Wright did research on them for his play. They were also consulted by designers for both the original and the current productions. Since the receipt of the first and largest batch of her papers a number of additions have been added, including family letters and other papers from her grandchildren.

The Klein papers reflect her life and her career as an influential psychoanalyst. They include notes on the cases she saw, both from her early years of practice in Germany and the later part of her career in England – it is interesting to see how quickly she made the shift from keeping notes in German to keeping them in English. The collection also holds manuscripts of her books and articles, drafts of articles, and unpublished lectures, notes on analytical technique and theory, appointment diaries, a brief autobiographical memoir, press cuttings, and numerous photographs of Klein, her family, and colleagues, also of the small toys that she used for child analysis (as well as numerous original drawings by child patients).

There is a significant group of files concerning the Controversial Discussions within the British Psycho-Analytical Society, in which Klein and her daughter Melitta Schmideberg, also a psychoanalyst, were ranged on opposite sides: the play centres on the tensions between mother and daughter at an earlier phase of their lives. Apart from this episode, however, there is surprisingly little surviving correspondence between Klein and her professional associates.

Besides her own papers, there is material relating to Klein in Archives and Manuscripts among the papers of John Bowlby and Donald Winnicott, both of whom were analysed by her, the papers of S. H. Foulkes, and those of Michael Fordham. Her published works may be found on the Library shelves.

Creative Youth

Continuing the summer theme of the past week.
As part of their summer season Steam Industry have co-ordinated with the Latin American youth forum, holding a number of creative workshops that provide an opportunity for young people to tell their stories of settling in a new country.

These young South American refugees got the opportunity to present their experiences (good, bad, and teenage dramatic) to the public at the Scoop (an outdoor theatre next to City Hall).

The continued adventures of Wound Man

Late medieval anatomy works often contain a standard set of illustrations, copied and recopied from text to text. Typically, these depict the body front and back; the skeleton and muscles within it each from the same two viewpoints, and so on. Strangest to our modern eyes is the illustration that usually comes last: the Wound Man, a compendium of all the injuries that a body might sustain. Captions beside the stoic figure describe the injuries and sometimes give prognoses: often precise distinctions are drawn between types of injuries, such as whether an arrow has embedded itself in a muscle or shot right through. (The latter is better – the arrowhead can be cut away and the shaft withdrawn smoothly, whilst the embedded arrow will tear the muscle with its barbs when pulled out.)

Once seen, never forgotten: the Wound Man feels like an old friend to many Wellcome Library users, and the example here from our MS.290 has adorned several items of Library publicity. It’s interesting, then, to see him appearing in a new twenty-first century context: as part of the current Queer Up North festival, the one-man show The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley sees our medieval figure reimagined as a superhero, a “freelance social interventionist” (now decently clad in a posing pouch). The centuries pass and Wound Man endures, dealing with everything that life can throw at him, an example to us all.