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Far From The Madding Crowd (theatre review)

- Far From The Madding Crowd - English Touring Theatre. Exeter Northcott Theatre, until September 27.
posted by Natasha Kuler-von-der-Luhe of shetribes.com

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To be honest, I never finished Thomas Hardy’s celebrated fourth novel, Far From the Madding Crowd. I, like many an inexperienced ‘classics’ reader, lost my footing in the shallows somewhere and was soon floundering around in plot. I am, however, moved to try reading it again having just returned from the Exeter Northcott Theatre, where four hundred pages of drama, desire and despair were woven together in a fabulous new production by English Touring Theatre.

Successfully adapted by Mark Healy and directed by Kate Saxon, Far From the Madding Crowd sees the spirited Bathsheba Everdene (Rebecca O’ Mara) inherit the farm of her late uncle, causing local moustaches to twitch with indignation when she decides to manage it herself. A headstrong and determined heroine, she is also a wonderfully three-dimensional character; as imperfect as the rest of us, with a stubborn streak a mile wide.

Her playful nature soon lands her in hot water with prosperous but lonely landowner William Boldwood (Stephen Billington), and swaggering Sergeant Troy (Adam Croasdell). It is not long before she is tangled in a situation that spirals rapidly out of control, pursued like a fox by the obsessive Boldwood and infatuated with the handsome, arrogant young soldier.

Throughout her trials, it seems the only person she can really trust is morally-upright, capable shepherd Gabriel Oak (Phil Cheadle). Although her pride sees them fall out more than once, he is a blunt but tender figure who tries to anchor her wilder flights of fancy without clipping her wings.

Eerily atmospheric, played out on a striking, skeletal set and beautifully lit, the performance was confident and daring, with highly enjoyable dramatic confrontations. And during the electrically charged scene I shall refer to for the sake of the unwary as ‘the coffin’, my jaw was rigid with tension and genuine unease started raising the hairs on hundreds of goosebumps. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom; the auditorium rippled with laughter more than once and I was captivated by some excellent action sequences with wonderful props.

Although the heavy editing necessary with most, if not all, classical adaptations can mean that some of the emotional depth of the characters must be sacrificed to time, the company was confident and engaging, easily drawing the audience into a story that might otherwise be too dense for the stage.

I caught up with producer Rachel Tackley during the interval. Flushed and bright-eyed, she declared herself ‘delighted’ with the production: “It’s so easy to be overwhelmed, particularly with a production of this size… the nerves were really jangling this afternoon but they’re all doing so well.”

And so they were. I won’t lie about time flying when you’re having fun, at two and a quarter hours this is a long play, but well-carried by brilliant design and sympathetic, believeable characters at both ends of the human spectrum – from quiet, sensible servant Liddy (Laura Elphinstone) to the naive and tragic Fanny Robin (Jennifer Bryden). The company have pulled together a smooth adaptation without damaging the integrity of the story.

There was but one cloud on the horizon. Tackley introduced us to the play onstage beforehand, announcing it as a world premiere (at which my euphoria threatened to send me sailing across the room); but proceeded to ask us to bear with them should hitches occur and they had to ’stop, and then quickly start again’. Please, please don’t apologise for the performance before it’s even begun. Because as far as we, the audience, were concerned (and my phone sound recorder bears enthusiastic, electronic witness to this as I pounced on unsuspecting people at the bar) it was some top-notch story-telling.

Copyright Natasha Kuler-von-der-Luhe 2008.

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September 12th, 2008

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Ancient Greek Computing

The weekly technology column from those good people and gurus of geek at Plymouth’s Orange Crate

Orange Crate

After researching the South Pacific island of Niue last week (if only from our office in Plymouth), I thought I’d stop off for a virtual holiday in the Greek islands on the way back. And once again I have found the source of this week’s technology article in the most unlikely of places.

Antikythera is a small island located South East of the Ionian Island of Kythira, between the Peloponnese mainland and Crete. The last national census recorded the island’s population as 44, and Antikythera hasn’t really been famous for anything since the 1st century BC when it was the base for a group of pirates. Until relatively recently…

The Antikythera Mechanism is an ancient device that was discovered in 1900 in a wreck just off the coast of the small island. Dated at around 150BC, it is widely described as the first ever mechanical computer. For a long time nobody really knew what it was for, and even after a century of research there is still much debate.

What we do know is that nothing as structurally sophisticated as the mechanism was seen after this for another thousand years, and in the complexity of its workings it resembles an 18th century clock! Constructed upon theories of mathematics and astronomy, it consists of a series of dials, rings, gears, and hands which appear to have calculated a broad range of data.

By entering a date using a crank (which is now gone), the Antikythera mechanism could track the movement of the solar system and accurately predict the positions of the sun, moon, stars, and the dates of eclipses, amongst other things. Recent research has revealed that another dial even tracked the four year Olympiad cycle! To achieve this data would obviously require that the mechanism worked according to a heliocentric view of the solar system – a theory that was most definitely not widespread in 150BC….

Furthermore, the device has a series of plates attached to it that contain over 2000 characters and appear to act as an instruction manual for the user. The discovery of this had heralded the notion that the mechanism was created by a trained scientist and mechanic for use by a non-expert, possibly a navigator or traveller. But this is only one theory. Several examples of devices such as this are referred to throughout classical literature, often in connection to Archimedes, but the Antikythera mechanism is the only one still in existence.

You only have to look at the list of institutions and academics involved in the current research, as well as the large companies such as Hewlett-Packard who are supporting it, to see the international importance placed upon the Antikythera mechanism. Check out the Antikythera Research Project’s website for more information about this amazing piece of technological history.

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September 12th, 2008

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