Well, I’m a believer.
But it always surprises me how many of the musicians and artists in my collection have spoken of, or recorded music about their belief in Jesus’ teaching and his death and resurrection and the way it changed everything. I decided to brainstorm and then sort the list into alphabetical order:
Continue readingWhat: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST), Stratford-Upon-Avon
Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
When: February – March 2024
So, when I come to assess a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I am considering a play that I have acted in, directed and produced on a professional level. Whatever else this means, it means that I am coming to view a play that I have strong opinions about. I consider that I have a firm understanding of the play’s strengths.
This I think is important to establish in the critique I offer – not least because I think that Eleanor Rhodes’ direction of the play is remarkably uneven.
Continue readingA little over a year ago I wrote an article about Bob Dylan’s “Saved” album which received a wide readership and was generally positively received:
https://twilightdawning.com/2016/02/15/bob-dylan-saved-reassessed/
My intention had been to write a similar article about the 1981 album “Shot of Love” and then to go on and write a series of articles or a book about the albums and tours since then looking particularly at Mr Dylan’s use of Old Testament and New Testament imagery but also other imagery he used commonly across many years which helps us to understand and appreciate his work.
Unfortunately, I got bogged down in the article on “Shot of Love” which is still not finished although I keep returning to it and tinkering with it. I hope it will be completed as I think I might have some important things to say but who knows when.
This week, as has become his habit when a new album is due. Dylan’s staff published on his website a new interview he has given to Bill Flanagan:
http://www.bobdylan.com/news/qa-with-bill-flanagan/
Mr Flanagan seems to be a writer that Bob particularly trusts and he has given him several important interviews over the past decade. This new one is intended to herald his latest album of standards, the 3-disc set “Triplicate”.
I first met Paul Cookson in the early 1980s at an Arts Festival called Greenbelt. Back then he was writing poems for adults and selling them in self-published booklets on the “fringe” area of the festival.
A couple of years later he had found his true vocation and graduated to writing poems for children. We started doing schools presentations of his work about 15 years ago and when I opened the theatre “Ravenscourt Arts@ Ravenscourt Baptist Church”, his performances became a regular if occasional part of our repertoire at the theatre as we have invited Paul to work with local schools groups.
This tradition continued in March 2016 as over 800 young people joined Paul over 6 events and laughed, worked with words, invented rhymes, and wrote their own poetry.
What: Paul Cookson Poetry Workshop
Where: Ravenscourt Arts, Hammersmith, London
When: June 2,3,4, 2014
Just under 300 children booked places for the poetry workshops which were scheduled for the 1st week of June in Ravenscourt Arts. Paul Cookson was the poet and Darren Hirst the M.C. as the schools’ groups came and went, over a three day period.
twilightdawning 