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.
There are lots of reasons for taking part in the Race for Life events. They are great fun, and and preparing and taking part keep us all fit. There is something exciting and encouraging about 5,000 people getting together in one place to take part in a sporting event. At one time, I thought that…
The reason, I wanted to blog was because I wanted to respond in writing to things I’d seen or read or experienced. The intention was never to write reviews like those found in newspapers, but to comment on what I had thought about while watching, reading or viewing. When I walked out of the Jude…
Film and Theatre are very different, and this is why it felt so strange in a cinema watching actors with bold gestures projecting their voices so the back of the stalls can hear them. The experiment, I think was a success, but only because I was always mindful that this was a live stream from…
Read more Phedre (City Screen/National Theatre, 25th June 2009)
On encountering Antony Sher’s large work The Audience in the foyer of the Lyttleton Theatre at the National Theatre, I realise that the subject matter also touches on my own life as at points I’ve encountered the portrayals characters in the painting. Richard III was the first play, I saw at the RSC, and twenty…
Read more Antony Sher Exhibition (National Theatre, 20th June 2009)
In the intimate space of the Donmar, A Doll’s House felt so much like a proscenium arch play. What I mean by this is that, as the audience, we are not invited into the world of the play. It is a play about secrets that happen behind closed doors, and I felt that I was…
making space Breeze of the Morning, Cannonball Tree, Seychelles, Hillside from a Persian Rug, Lavender Border, The Rose…..I Wish My Garden Was really Like ThisBaby and Butterfly, Crossing, The Sun Shone From a Different Place, Summer Breeze, OppositionLenin in Lehnstuhl, Pruning, St Bartholomew Exquisite Pain, Crucifixion and Mountain, Lung Cross Section……Inbetween, – cats and dogs-…
Read more Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2009 (20th June 2009)
I really find this play a difficult play to get to grips with. I am glad that I found it funny and strange and that I am still puzzled by the ending. Loved seeing the Theatre Royal production. Thought they did a great job. My memory was of the Peter Hall directed film before this.…
Read more The Homecoming (York Theatre Royal, 17th June 2009)
As I am reviewing lots of different productions of the same play, I thought I would make some comments on watching different versions of the same plays close together. Recently, two The Winter’s Tale and hopefully it’ll be the Jude Law Hamlet in a few weeks following hotly on from that Tennant Hamlet. Last year…
‘O call back yesterday, bid time return’ The line is above the stage as you take your seats. It’s a line from Richard II and not The Winter’s Tale as you might expect when you’ve come to see The Winter’s Tale. The scene in front of the audience is a very domestic scene. The family…
The Richard Long Exhibition, ‘Heaven and Earth’ explores the patterning and textures of landscape. We are asked to think about whether Long ‘creates a work in the landscape or out of it’. The patterns on maps which outline his walks are works in the landscape, but where he has created sculpture with stones and twigs…
Read more Richard Long Exhibition (Tate Britain, 6th June 2009)
Julie Raby: A Dyslexic Writer 