Hi, I’m Julie.
I am a retired Principal Lecturer. I continue to research contemporary Shakespeare performances. In retirement, I no longer teach Shakespeare but I now get to visit new places. I love theatre, outdoor swimming and writing about those experiences in my blogs.
The Sixties as a decade isn’t really my era, but I did grow up with the music, because I played my parent’s vinyls as much as I could when I was a teenager. This is why I found this exhibition so interesting and went back for a second visit. I heard of many of the artists, but didn’t always have an…
Read more Beatles to Bowie (The National Portrait Gallery, 12th December 2009 and 16th January 2009)
The production looked like a very traditional proscenium arch comedy with its elaborate set. The plot contained all the elements of a farce, the confusion, character types and even some entering and exiting through different doors in the set. There was a play on the fact that it was a modern-day production of a seventeenth-century text. Not so subtle devices were …
Read more The Misanthrope (The Comedy Theatre, 16th January 2010)
In the Doctor Who two parter, ‘The End of Time’, the time is clearly ‘out of joint’ for the Doctor. He has been having fun instead of being there to sort out the Master’s usurpation of the human race. In trying to set this right, the tenth Doctor hurtles towards his own death. Does this remind us of the…
Though I enjoyed the South Bank programme about the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) because of my interest in the Company and its work, I did start to feel that it was more like a promotional DVD, than an in-depth study. It is sad to see a long running show axed and I hope other shows take its place,…
This is the first year of my blog. I found time to write about some things more than others. Here are my cultural moments and events of 2009 ? Theatre (Shakespeare) The Tempest (RSC) – Courtyard Review and again on revisiting it in Sheffield Hamlet (RSC) at the Novello All’s Well That End’s Well (National) Othello (Northern Broadsides/West Yorkshire Playhouse)…
‘Yes, atmosphere is my style’. This quote from Turner was refered one of the final rooms of the exhibition and I found it very apt in summing up what I felt about this exhibition. Turner embodies the awesome and sublime that is the aesthetic of the Romantic movement. I think what interested me most about this exhibition is not…
Read more Turner and the Masters (Tate Britiain, 14th December 2009)
This is an amazing exhibition of Spanish Art, displaying artists and sculptors who attempted to bring the human and physical elements to the scared. What is really exciting about this exhibition is that normally many of the exhibits are in situ. I really liked the way that the exhibition tended to juxtapose painting and sculpture. There are some…
Read more The Sacred Made Real (National Gallery, 12th December 2009)
I felt that I was privileged to be able to attend the premiere of the Illuminations/BBC TV film version of Greg Doran’s RSC Hamlet at the BFI (British Film Institute). This blog is about the experience of being there at the screening, and I’ll wait until after the Boxing Day, when it is aired on…
This was a very complex and interesting play. I heard someone in the audience say that you had to really concentrate, so I did and was really prepared for the twists and turns. I tend to agree with Michael Billington’s review that the play seemed to be set in time and no where, and I found this made…
Read more Speaking in Tongues (Duke of York Theatre, 12th December 2009)
I came across this ice sculpture at St Pancras station and as I was on my home to watch the X Factor. I think it was there to make us think about climate change and the ice melting at the poles, but I was wondering what it was meant to say about the television programme the X Factor? Could…
Julie Raby: A Dyslexic Writer 