Post by Steve on Mar 14, 2016 14:14:43 GMT
I attended Saturday night, and this was another enchanting night out, hearing actors bring old letters back to life.
There was a wonderful mix of letters, both dramatic and comic in tone, though this year the weighting was more toward the latter than the former.
My three biggest laughs of the night came courtesy of Jude Law reading Fred Allen, Benedict Cumberbatch reading Robert G Ingersoll and Toby Jones reading Winston Churchill:
(3) Fred Allen was a comedian, so I don't know how much of his 1932 letter to the State of New York Insurance Department was true, but his description of how he sustained 5 accidents in two minutes was so clever and witty that I was gasping with surprise. Jude Law did just enough of an American accent to set the mood, but not so much as to detract from the content, which he infused with just the right amount of coiled up sarcasm and feigned indignation that I was rolling with laughter;
(2) Robert G. Ingersoll, one of 19th Century America's great agnostics, may not have had much truck with God, but in his letter he expressed immense love for a bottle of whisky: "In it you will find the sunshine and the shadow that chased each other over the billowy fields. . . for 40 years this liquid joy has been within the happy staves of oak, longing to touch the lips of men." Benedict Cumberbatch is always at his best when he's impetuous and energised, lighting up, as he does like a 1000 watt bulb. He excelled last year as a libidinous soldier aching for home comforts, and this year he transferred every ounce of his boyish enthusiasm to that bottle of whisky that Ingersoll pined over one hundred years earlier. Like Law before him, he applied just enough of an accent to conjure the place and time, but his full fervour was devoted to that demon drink, and he left me thirsty for some;
(1) My biggest belly laughs of the evening came as a surprise. I never thought of Winston Churchill as a funny man, more of a depressive with bipolar disorder, selflessly stifling his vulnerabilities to bolster his Country, but his 1919 satirical Letter to the Editor of the Times, published as a riposte to the Duke of Rutland (who advocated praying for rain), brought the house down. Toby Jones' comic timing was impeccable, holding every sarcastic morsel of Churchill's witty words in the air like hovering feathers, before bringing them down suddenly like hammers. This reading was special, because it made Churchill alive again, in a way I never realised he ever was.
That letter is here: www.winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/15-finest-hour-125/2435-from-the-canon-pray-for-rain
Of course there were readings during the evening that did not hit the spot. Danny Boyle's reading was subdued and lacked inflection, insufficient to actualise the potential of the material, though the audience (including myself) were delighted to see him, and we cheered him anyway, perhaps because he did Britain so proud at the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony.
There were dramatic letters of note too:
(2) Caitlyn Moran, perhaps egotistically, but entirely justifiably, read a hugely moving letter she had written for teenage girls, suffering from anorexia, body-image problems and general self-hatred: urging those girls to live only for "the next minute," and promising them they will "blossom;"
(1) The only letter to bring tears flooding to my eyes, though, was written by a mother, Chrissy Hart, her daughter dying of cancer, to JK Rowling: "You taught her that for every chemo she has to go through, there will be the opportunity to fly across a lake on a hippogriff." The letter was read by Carey Mulligan, with that compassionate, authoritative, mournful, deep reverberating voice that might spark a tear if she was reading the phone book, but when applied to the misfortunes of a dying girl, and her mother's endless love, was as heartbreaking as it is possible to imagine.
That letter is here: www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/35797409/mum-of-young-cancer-patient-writes-thankyou-letter-to-jk-rowling
Other excellent readers included Meera Syal, Maureen Lipman, Ferdinand Kingsley, Judge Rinder and Hassan, a Syrian Refugee, who made an impassioned plea for compassion, and who ended up the envy of teenage girls everywhere, embraced like a sandwich by both Jude Law and Benedict Cumberbatch at once.
Letters Live was as compelling an event this year as last year, so I will definitely go again if it returns in 2017 (and I am alive).
There was a wonderful mix of letters, both dramatic and comic in tone, though this year the weighting was more toward the latter than the former.
My three biggest laughs of the night came courtesy of Jude Law reading Fred Allen, Benedict Cumberbatch reading Robert G Ingersoll and Toby Jones reading Winston Churchill:
(3) Fred Allen was a comedian, so I don't know how much of his 1932 letter to the State of New York Insurance Department was true, but his description of how he sustained 5 accidents in two minutes was so clever and witty that I was gasping with surprise. Jude Law did just enough of an American accent to set the mood, but not so much as to detract from the content, which he infused with just the right amount of coiled up sarcasm and feigned indignation that I was rolling with laughter;
(2) Robert G. Ingersoll, one of 19th Century America's great agnostics, may not have had much truck with God, but in his letter he expressed immense love for a bottle of whisky: "In it you will find the sunshine and the shadow that chased each other over the billowy fields. . . for 40 years this liquid joy has been within the happy staves of oak, longing to touch the lips of men." Benedict Cumberbatch is always at his best when he's impetuous and energised, lighting up, as he does like a 1000 watt bulb. He excelled last year as a libidinous soldier aching for home comforts, and this year he transferred every ounce of his boyish enthusiasm to that bottle of whisky that Ingersoll pined over one hundred years earlier. Like Law before him, he applied just enough of an accent to conjure the place and time, but his full fervour was devoted to that demon drink, and he left me thirsty for some;
(1) My biggest belly laughs of the evening came as a surprise. I never thought of Winston Churchill as a funny man, more of a depressive with bipolar disorder, selflessly stifling his vulnerabilities to bolster his Country, but his 1919 satirical Letter to the Editor of the Times, published as a riposte to the Duke of Rutland (who advocated praying for rain), brought the house down. Toby Jones' comic timing was impeccable, holding every sarcastic morsel of Churchill's witty words in the air like hovering feathers, before bringing them down suddenly like hammers. This reading was special, because it made Churchill alive again, in a way I never realised he ever was.
That letter is here: www.winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/15-finest-hour-125/2435-from-the-canon-pray-for-rain
Of course there were readings during the evening that did not hit the spot. Danny Boyle's reading was subdued and lacked inflection, insufficient to actualise the potential of the material, though the audience (including myself) were delighted to see him, and we cheered him anyway, perhaps because he did Britain so proud at the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony.
There were dramatic letters of note too:
(2) Caitlyn Moran, perhaps egotistically, but entirely justifiably, read a hugely moving letter she had written for teenage girls, suffering from anorexia, body-image problems and general self-hatred: urging those girls to live only for "the next minute," and promising them they will "blossom;"
(1) The only letter to bring tears flooding to my eyes, though, was written by a mother, Chrissy Hart, her daughter dying of cancer, to JK Rowling: "You taught her that for every chemo she has to go through, there will be the opportunity to fly across a lake on a hippogriff." The letter was read by Carey Mulligan, with that compassionate, authoritative, mournful, deep reverberating voice that might spark a tear if she was reading the phone book, but when applied to the misfortunes of a dying girl, and her mother's endless love, was as heartbreaking as it is possible to imagine.
That letter is here: www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/35797409/mum-of-young-cancer-patient-writes-thankyou-letter-to-jk-rowling
Other excellent readers included Meera Syal, Maureen Lipman, Ferdinand Kingsley, Judge Rinder and Hassan, a Syrian Refugee, who made an impassioned plea for compassion, and who ended up the envy of teenage girls everywhere, embraced like a sandwich by both Jude Law and Benedict Cumberbatch at once.
Letters Live was as compelling an event this year as last year, so I will definitely go again if it returns in 2017 (and I am alive).
