The
highlight of today was at the end of it, when I tuned in to YouTube to watch
the NT Live production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream an experience I urge
you emulate by going to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Punzss5sHto
and enjoying a free production. Though the hope is that you will have enjoyed
the production enough to contribute at the end of it. These productions are only possible because
everyone involved has waived their fees and allowed the performance to be
freely available for a week.
Every Thursday
that these productions have been available I have joined a virtual audience and
enjoyed some superb performances. Yes,
watching on a screen is not the same as being in the theatre, but it is a
privilege to be able to see productions that I missed when they were first
produced and only experienced through reviews!
One of
the USPs of this production is the playing of Oberon and Titania where Oberon
has his eyes anointed with the magic flower and he falls in love with Bottom’s
ass (so to speak) rather than Titania.
Puck is
an amazing actor and dominates the stage when he has the opportunity, and he
has many opportunities!
This is
a performance ‘in the round’ and it must have been an immersive experience if
you were a member of the audience near the stage.
An
excellent, thought provoking, energetic, funny, delight of a performance.
Another beautiful day of sunny weather and
heat. Toni is back from visiting his
parents and so to celebrate we went out to one of our favourite restaurants
and, as it was Thursday, we had paella.
We watch
people in town and worry about a general laxity about the wearing of
masks. In this country it is an offence not
to wear a mask in situations where physical distancing is not possible, and it
is mandatory on public transport and in shops.
There
have been localized hot spots on infection and, although we seem set on a
trajectory of determined progress to the New Normal, we are constantly worried
by the ever growing numbers of infections and deaths throughout the world.
Spain
is set to welcome foreign visitors, and it seems prepared to accept visitors
from places like the UK where the virus is nothing like under control. Ironically, if tourists from the UK come to
Spain they will find that they have freer movement in Spain than they do in the
UK!
I do
understand that people are desperate to salvage something from the summer as
far as tourism is concerned, but I do wonder at the cost that the economic
activity will demand.
All we
can do is behave according to the rules and hope for the best.
