burntcopper | Masterclass in Evil

Stephen Berkoff, Shakespeare's Villains - A Masterclass in Evil. Combined lecture, monologue and performance. Fun, fascinating - anecdotes about acting and performance and opinions and observations and reasons on various villains rounded off each time with a monologue of the villain he was talking about. And because he's a very physical performer, he was overacting something terrible. Gestures through the roof. Not to mention a fantastic bit where the supposed American sitcom star playing Hamlet and the actress playing Gertrude discover she's forgotten the locket. (scene between Gertrude and Hamlet where he points to two pictures - one of Hamlet sr., one of Claudius for dramatic effect to illustrate his point. In previous times it was normally two portraits on set, in modern times it's often a locket) cue lots of gesturing and mouthing of words to each other frantically. Berkoff playing both parts. Audience in stitches. Some interesting points - in the first act, he went through the usual suspects of Iago, Macbeth, Richard III, Shylock, second act was mostly devoted to Hamlet. Hamlet a villain I hear you say? Well, as he pointed out, he did kill six or seven people, some on purpose, some through his actions. Which makes him a serial killer. And Polonius, his first victim, got about one line said 'sorry, thought you were someone else, wrong place, wrong time.' Scuse me? Future father-in-law here.... The bodycount is Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Ophelia, Laertes, Gertrude and Claudius.

Also visited Tapas bar, which neither Anna nor I had been to, and for anyone who's in Reading, we recommend. Good night.

But of course we had to come back to this. To which I can only sigh a bit about, as we could all see it coming.