Seconds

My second outing to King John last week, a fortnight after that noticed at reference 1.

Started off by checking the fish at the bridge over the Hogsmill, to find them present left, but a little thin right.

Then a little business at the police station where I was amused to see that the various police people coming and going had to do their coming and going through the public waiting room. No staff entrance for them. Unlike the Rose, where there was a stage door round the back, a stage door equipped with sheets upon which the cast were supposed to tick themselves in and out. I was assured that this was nothing to do with their pay, it was not a discrete form of clocking on, rather health and safety.

Toured the street food stalls which now make up most of the market at Kingston, finding most of it meaty, spicy or gooey. Luckily there was a baker's stall which could sell me a couple of small baguettes, flavoured with cheese and olives. Rather good at £2 a pop; much better than the other stuff on offer.

Followed by quite a decent Sauvignon Blanc from the Rose, served by a very pleasant but not-so-young barmaid. Followed by a rather officious volunteer at the door who made me go around to the other one, despite there being plenty of time and space for me to manage from the wrong door. Audience gray, more female than male, with very few school children in evidence, which surprised me as I had thought that it was half term. Maybe King John as a lesser play has been expunged from their syllabi.

Acting much the same as last time, although the English lords seemed to have a little more presence this time around - although not as much as Burt Caesar managed as the papal legate, a presence which made up for his rather heavy diction. While the Duke of Austria seemed more foolish than regal.

Having a couple of large shoulder held cameras in front of the stage from time to time - with their pictures being piped into the two screens above - still irritated. They were a distraction and added nothing for me.

Things sagged a bit towards the end of the first half - as it did the first time around - but I continue to think that it is a good play, built as it is around the tricky problems of medieval royal authority and succession, in particular the undesirability of having a child king. I was impressed by the way that John, despite his faults, managed to make a reasonably good death (having been murdered by a parson), with his seven year old son succeeding as the long reigning but not very good King Henry III. A minor, but the lords quite rightly decided that patriotism trumped the minority.

An interesting speech in which King John upbraided Hubert for taking him at his word regarding Arthur - which prompted memories of the rage exhibited by Elizabeth I, presumably mainly for public consumption, when her warrant to execute Mary Queens of Scots was executed. This and other stuff a bit near the mark made me think that the Elizabethan censors were more easy going on political than they were on religious matters.

The play seemed to close as a hymn to Brexit, to the glory of England standing alone, walled off from the pains of Europe by the white cliffs of Dover. Leading me to wonder where Nunn stood on the matter.

PS: annoyed when I got home to find that I could not remember where in the play the interval had been.. Inspection of the Arden page count suggested that it must have been somewhere in Act III, the breaking up of the accord between France and England by the papal legate and the battle consequent, but I cannot say where. Either then or now.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/king-john.html.