Richard II

"In a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next," says York in Richard II. Currently, however, eyes (not only of men) are far from idly bent on David Tennant's performance as the King: we have tickets for the live relay in a fortnight, the first such from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. There are queues for returns at the box office, and that will no doubt also be the case at Cineworld.

On Radio 4's Today programme, Maroussia Frank and David have just been talking to Rebecca Jones about the large ring David is wearing as Richard. Maroussia had inherited it from her husband Ian Richardson, who wore it in the iconic 1974 John Barton production, where he alternated with Richard Pasco in the roles of king and usurper: she felt it appropriate that a second Scottish RSC "Richard" should have it, especially - no doubt - bearing in mind that Ian's ashes are interred beneath that very stage on which David Tennant ("son" of Richardson, as it were) has next entered.

As a car-less tour guide at Charlecote Park in the early Summer of 1962, I made it my business to be especially nice to the last party I was taking round in case I could cadge a lift from one of them, back to Stratford. From there, it was usually easy to hitchhike home. One sunny afternoon, some actors were in this final posse, and I ended up with one of them in his Austin A30.

From a stage photograph I spied in the glove compartment, I realised it was Ian Richardson: though I had seen him several times in plays at Stratford, I would hardly have recognised him. "That was a bit of a matinée performance you gave us, I thought." He spoke in a soft, Scottish accent, quite different from his evil-sounding Don John or high-pitched Oberon. ("I had great difficulty persuading Peter Hall that I was right for this part," he told me: Titania was Judi Dench, Helena, Diana Rigg, etc. etc.)

I had asked for a lift to Stratford, but having explained that I lived at Arrow, Ian offered to take me the extra eight miles home. "Would you like to come in?" my father asked him, when we arrived. "Why not?" he replied. After two gins, my parents apologised, "but we are all now due to go for a drink up at Oversley Castle... perhaps you would like to come too?" "Why, yes," was the eager response, and so it was that we had the pleasure of Ian's company for the evening: as it progressed, so his tongue loosened.

I went back stage a few times after seeing him perform subsequently, the final occasion - shortly before his too early death - being after a reading of Shakespeare's Sonnets in our Town Hall. Never, of course, did I quite manage to recapture the easy atmosphere of that Summer evening.

My photograph was taken in Bristol Cathedral on Monday: there are a number of fragments of mediaeval glass preserved there. "Within the hollow crown, that rounds the mortal temples of a king, keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp." One might almost suppose that Shakespeare wrote these lines having visited Bristol and seen this curious image.

Arbury Lodge

Astley belongs to the family which owns neighbouring Arbury Park. (Landmark Trust have a 99-year lease.) The properties are divided by quite a busy thoroughfare - the roadkill, bottom left, bearing this out. I biked along there this morning, to admire the view of the Castle from across the lake, but also to see if there was a way in to Arbury Park: on the map, it looked as if it was worth exploring. I was disappointed - no room for doubt is left by either the notice on the gate or its electric operating mechanism.

This turned out to be the first of a number of "incidents" today. We were all going to the matinée of The Winter's Tale at Stratford: one of the party however pulled out ("dogged" - by misfortune). We parked in our usual place, convenient for the ferry across the River Avon: it wasn't running. The theatre programme says "no photography" - I always assumed this meant during the play. At the end, I took a photograph of the curtain calls: a steward came and demanded that I delete my image whilst she looked on. "It infringes the actors' copyright" apparently. Finally, driving back to Astley in the dark, I was baffled by the labyrinth of roads around Coventry, and took a wrong turn down a side street: blue lights flashed behind me. The fresh-faced officer edged near to smell my breath... but turned out to be there just in case I was lost - and guided me back in the right direction.

"The Tempest"

"I have bedimm'd the noontide sun..." says Jonathan Slinger's Prospero, as we sit ensconced inside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre through a fine, bright Saturday afternoon watching The Tempest.

As we've found before in Stratford's revamped main house, some of those magic words were lost to us this time also: we were in the extreme left corner of the Circle (as you look at the stage) - this may have had something to do with it, or are we just getting older and deafer? Slinger's admirably wide-ranging voice seemed to drop almost to a whisper at times. He has little of John Wood's presence, but the virtual twinning of Prospero and Ariel - Father and Holy Spirit - was inspired.

The Dramatis Personae listing Sebastian as King Alonso's brother makes it feel wilful at first to cast a high-heeled, curvaceous Kirsty Bushell in the part. But this is all part and parcel of a brilliant production by David Farr: a highly poetic and mysterious play is given to us full of real theatre - indeed, this Tempest is one of the best RSC renderings we have caught in recent years.

The Meckler "Dream"

My first "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was the then 28-year-old Peter Hall's 1959 production at Stratford-upon-Avon - in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. It was a pastoral "Dream", as I recall. On the evidence of the matinée yesterday on the same site (but in a rebuilt as well as renamed theatre), I doubt many of the cast of the production by Nancy Meckler will be as well-known to theatre-goers 50 years hence as Charles Laughton (Peter Hall's Bottom), Ian Holm (Puck), Albert Finney (Lysander) or Vanessa Redgrave (Helena) are today.

Yes, there were a couple of understudies yesterday, but this does not account for the loss of so much poetry. I exonerate the stand-in Bottom, Felix Hayes, and Alex Hassell, an excellent Demetrius; but few of the others, bent as they were on displaying more larynx than lyricism, gabbled lines often jarringly shouted.

Meckler has some fine credits to her name, but her Gothic production (designed by Katrina Lindsay to place the emphasis on "night") smacked less of 24th June than Walpurgisnacht: the dismal Puck even carried a broomstick. It was amusing to have alternate readings from Folio and Quarto spelled out at one point, but what was the dramatic value of Bottom and Flute revelling so explicitly in each other's erotic capital? This was a production of effects, but little magic. There were moments when it took off ("Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently"), but precious few.

I expect all this carping comes from age and from having a slight ear infection. After all, most of the others in the audience seemed to enjoy themselves hugely. (As of course I did, really.)

Romeo and Juliet

We were treated to an evening out on Monday - Romeo and Juliet at the just-reopened Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford. From my tour last December, I knew already how extensive the rebuilding has been. And very impressive it is also for its main purpose of presenting Shakespeare! My seat was in the back row of the Circle right at the side, no distance from the stage. The balcony scene took place just below me, and it mattered not at all that I couldn't see the back wall. Possibly, though, I wouldn't wish to sit any higher up.

The exhilarating production by Rupert Goold disturbed me, though it clearly entranced the Worcester school party alongside me. Goold deliberately alienates us with a mixture of period and modern dress, and an unconventionally plain-looking (grunge being their motif) pair of lovers. His cast throws away many beautiful lines, or plays them against their normal dramatic sense. The programme book contains just a couple of essays, on martyrdom and suicide, which threw little light for me on the production's values or its intended relationship to previous interpretations.

Altogether, the evening lacked a sense of history, which for the reopening of such an historically important place of theatre was disconcerting.

Phoenix of Avon

My photograph, taken this afternoon from the old bridge across the Avon at Stratford, shows the remade Royal Shakespeare Theatre, which opens in earnest next February. By the waterside, the line of the Scott building has been restored, with the café resited in the stalls bar, and a wide outdoor terrace opened up in place of the café. The dressing-room block has been refaced: in 1955, stagestruck, I saw Vivien Leigh on one of those little balconies during an interval of Twelfth Night: she was playing opposite her husband Laurence Olivier. The restaurant - excellent food and of course views - is now in the glass-faced box overlooking both the river and former theatre car park: it paid to be on good terms with Victor there - as with Leslie Mitchell in the box office. The tower is of course totally new, and I think rather regrettable. I would say the same for the octagonal crown over the refashioned auditorium.

Inside, there is plenty to admire. The layout is on the same lines as that of the Swan next door, but altogether less claustrophobic. The seats look really comfortable, and of course none is any distance from the stage - as in the Courtyard. I can't wait to hear what the sound is like.

One major disappointment: try as I might, I can find nothing in the literature to indicate what steps have been taken to make the refurbished RST energy-efficient. Heating the cavernous new shop/foyer area seems likely to cost a bomb.

name dropping

A friend of mine at university once described another as one who not so much drops names as hurls them. Caroline is the exact opposite: she hates it when I so much as suggest I know anyone at all celebrated, but as she doesn't read my blog, I am going to risk doing it all the same.

Last Saturday, Agnes had a friend to lunch who turned out to be the great-niece of Christopher Lee, a.k.a. Dracula; and the niece of the actor Harriet Walter, whom we have always much admired.

Last night, we were invited to dinner by Lady Ottoline Morrell's grandson; and here is a photograph of the celebrated artist and art historian John Golding. He was a fellow-guest at the delicious and delightful lunch to which Caroline and I were invited today.

Enough names?