Last friday was the 31st of August. On that day in 1969 I painted a not-very-good picture, infatuated with a married girl called Pam and waiting to go to Nottingham University where the not-very-good picture was subsequently shown in a student art exhibition. The key feature of this picture, as I recall, was the hard circle of paint skin lifted from the surface of an old oil-paint tin which I had found in the garage (which I had helped my father build) and stuck to a piece of hardboard. All pretty grimy.
Last Friday was much brighter. I took my wife to Upton on Severn, Worcestershire. It’s a pretty and undeveloped town with a tower that still bears the scars of the 1660 Civil War when Oliver Cromwell took the town. She found a charity shop open so she was happy.
We went because I wanted a map of the Pre-Alps and there is a wonderful map shop there. The walk I had planned along the River Severn was disappointing. We didn’t go far upstream along the Severn from the rusting bridge. The walk is un-used, barren and sterile. We went back over the bridge and walked downstream but, apart from the magnificent views of the distant Malvern Hills and the evidence of the recent flooding caused by global warming there isn’t much to see.
We came back to Coventry via Stratford and we stopped off the Dirty Duck for a plate of chicken salad and chips. Afterwards we walked up to the The Courtyard Theatre where they were playing Twelfth Night and the interval drinks were set out all round the bar waiting for anyone who cared to drink them. I bought a copy of the BBC DVD of the play in the shop and tried to watch it on Sunday evening.
For these past many years WS hasn’t communicated with me. The effort of understanding him never seemed rewarded. I couldn’t see the point of studying him. After watching the DVD three times I’ve changed my mind. I think his plotting is interesting although of course it’s all very dated and driven by unlikely character motivation. Why, for example, would the Viola pretend to be a eunuch and serve the Duke? Such a high-risk strategy is unexplained yet it is key to the plot. If I’d been writing it I would have found a more plausible explanation, perhaps the Duke’s eunuch had just died and there weren’t any more on the island or whatever.
When I was seventeen I spent a lot of time studying King Lear when I should have been learning physics. Anyway I was sufficiently impressed that I’ve ordered all the BBC DVDs, 37 of them for about US$6 each, so I can finally work my way through them when I’m cooking dinner.
He also has the asset that he has the same initials as me! WS.
