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Archive for September, 2016

Review of Ron Howard’s film Eight Days A Week (linked), a superb documentary on The Beatles touring years, with an additional 30 minute film of Shea Stadium 15th August 1965. Lots of thoughts on my own early fascination with The Beatles.

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Review of Imogen (Shakespeare’s Cymbeline Renamed and Reclaimed) (FOLLOW LINK) at The Globe Theatre. Perhaps the most controversial production of 2016 with a setting of drug gangs in East London. Exhilarating theatre. But is it Shakespeare‘s Globe as we know it?

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Two Gentlemen of Verona – Globe 2016

Review added of The Globe / Liverpool Everyman touring production of Two Gentlemen of Verona (FOLLOW LINK). Set in 1966, with a pop band on stage. We saw it at the candle lit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, for a weird contrast in styles.

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Someone will call you back …

Article added to RANTS on Someone will call you back … i.e. the fact that nowadays you never get through to companies on the phone. They call you back at THEIR convenience.

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Review of The Rover   (FOLLOW LINK) by Aphra Behn, at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford. Aphra Behn was Britain’s first woman playwright, and this 1677 play is full of fun … dance, English cavaliers, three feisty sexy sisters, Latin American music, proud Spanish dons, sword fights, a laugh a minute. It has everything. It runs until February. One to see … watch out for RSC Live to cinema too.

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Language Learning In Britain Past link

As the article on The Dead Hand of the CEF has been read by so many, I thought I’d add another Language teaching Rant. Language Learning in Britain Past  (LINKED) is about how my own negative experiences of language learning shaped my beliefs on how to teach English as A Foreign Language. Do comment on the article, not on this post.

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Dedication review

Review of Dedication – Shakespeare & Southampton, currently premiered at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton and running for a month. The play explores the relationship of Shakespeare and the 3rd Earl of Southampton through alternate versions of the rumours and speculations on their relationship.

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The Dead Hand of the CEF – link

One for language teachers, a new ELT article on “The Dead Hand of The Common European Framework” on textbooks … and in French, Spanish and German textbooks as well as English ones. Please comment on the article itself rather on this post.

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Review of The Entertainer, by John Osborne. (FOLLOW LINK) The last play in the Kenneth Branagh Company season, starring Kenneth Branagh as music hall comedian Archie Rice, a part often considered Sir Laurence Olivier’s greatest role. So how did he do? Five stars for us.

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Review of No Man’s Land by Harold Pinter (FOLLOW LINK), 2016, with Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart. In spite of the fulsome reviews and the presence of both Gandalf and Captain Picard, we both disliked Pinter’s intrinsic play. We are completely out on a limb here! Reviews disagree.

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