The Tempest live streamt

Whoever came up with the idea of live streaming top theatrical performances into cinemas around the country and beyond deserves all the riches of Heaven bestowed upon her/him. If nothing else, it permits us masses to retain a fuzzy glow about something, even as our human rights are removed, the NHS and schools are sold off for profit, and our children's wages line the pockets of slum landlords.

The first live stream I saw was a 2011 performance of John Hodge's 'Collaborators', a satire based on the relationship between writer Mikhail Bulgakov and Joseph Stalin, in which Simon Russell Beale played the dictator with a (to me very familiar, and therefore terrifying) West Country accent. It was SRB again in a live stream of King Lear three years ago, also at the National, and again three nights ago, playing Prospero in the RSC's latest production of The Tempest.  

Guardian/Tristram Kenton

This time Beale's got his work cut out, being pitted against a jaw-dropping array of special effects that I'd never thought to see in a theatrical production (even one being shown in a cinema). How does an actor impose her- or himself on a whirl of bats, mad dogs, drowning fathers, and fiery spirits, while a pine tree imprisons Ariel before the audience's eyes, tightening and cracking its branches? Rough magic indeed. He manages it, however, as the commanding and mostly calm (but sometimes frighteningly rageful) eye of the storm, ultimately conquering his desire to control others and converting his need for revenge to pity. A humanity that trumps all digital wizardry.

Not all the casting was great. The courtiers were fairly forgettable, Miranda tended to bleat at moments of high tension, Ferdinand resembled Jimmy Carr and was similarly irritating. Stephano and Trinculo were hilarious, however, even though the latter's costume made him look as if he'd stepped straight out of the video for The Prodigy's Firestarter. I was even enthralled by the betrothal masque, through which I usually doze. As for Caliban - well, Caliban made me cry, though that's nothing new. 

In fact, the production stirred a seething of emotions. On a personal level, the settling of post-divorce legal wrangling a few days earlier also put an end to a baleful, 36-year enchantment, allowing me to inhabit fully my brave new world.  More broadly, the intimations in the play of Shakespeare's withdrawal from the theatre, mirrored by Prospero's breaking of his staff, recalled more recent losses, underlined by the first anniversary of David Bowie's death, and I wept a little for all our lost magicians.  And now that the Brexit button is about to be pushed and those who would turn this country into John Of Gaunt's island fortress hold sway, the rest of us must, like Prospero, find a new way forward, where every third thought shall (not quite yet) be the grave.   

To the Ends of the Earth ...

... or at least Land's End, mainly because the Northerner hadn't been there.

'There are no service stations in the whole of Cornwall,' I announced en route. 'Though there are lots of snack vans. The more St Piran's flags they fly, the dodgier the food.'

With that, a brand new service station hove into view.  There was a McDonalds, Subway, Costa Coffee and not a flag in sight.  On the plus side, the toilets are designated in English and Cornish.  No one speaks Cornish - at least not as their native tongue.  I love that. 

'Cornwall! I hear you have a chough problem. Well, worry no longer. Chasing a speciality.'

Sez Ted. 

No choughs at Land's End -not that we saw, anyhow. Lots of jackdaws, though. 

'Psst. Bonio!'

'Do you mind? I am being romantic!'

If Dartmoor and Bodmin are the granite spine of the West Country, are these the toe nails?

Looking towards Irish Lady and Pedn-Men-Du in the middle distance, with Cape Cornwall and the Brisons in the distance.

A Tor by any other name ... or Dartmoor-on-Sea. 

Dancing at the end of the earth

Longships and the lighthouse in the background. 

The Peal

Enys Dodnan

After all that wondrous beauty ... 

... it was time to go to the pub in Sennen.  Let's call it the first pub in England, rather than the last, eh?

A quick visit to Minack Theatre along the coast where some youngsters were battling the elements with a few scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream, delivered rather woodenly.  To be fair, they were up against it. (I made a mental note to come and see The Tempest here.) 

 Porthcurno. No Teds allowed. 

Then a dash across the toe-hold to Zennor and the Church of St Senara, with its circular, pre-Christian churchyard.  






Senara was wrongly accused of adultery by her husband, a Breton King, and tossed into the sea in a barrel.  She was visited by an angel whilst floating off the coast of Cornwall and gave birth to a son who, funnily enough, also turned out to be a saint.  Are you thinking Danaë and Perseus?  Yep, me too.  

In the church tower there are some interesting gravestones.  One has a lovely engraving of the four winds on it, and another covered the grave of Matthew Thomas who was killed at the age of 44 in Wheal Chance tin mine in 1809.  But of course we, like everyone else, were there to see the Mermaid Chair.  And here it is.

Close-up of the Mermaid?  Oh, all right then. 

Really, the story of the Mermaid is that of Mathey Trewella, a fine young man and the best singer in the parish.  He caught the attention of a woman who for many years had periodically visited the church in Zennor, yet never seemed to age at all.  She too had a beautiful voice that was the match of his.  One day he followed her and never returned.