#rada hamlet a memory

[hiddlescheekbones]

Hamlet at RADA – a very long and very detailed collection of memories (1/4)

Below is a recollection of every single moment I can remember from one of the best days of my life. The day I saw Tom Hiddleston as Hamlet at the Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre, RADA, London.

I wrote this as a journal entry for myself, in hopes that I’ll never forget each moment. But also, since this was such a limited availability performance, and we don’t know if it will hypothetically be transferred somewhere, I hope this can give you curious minds a little insight of the play.

Disclaimer:

This is not a review;

Contains detailed descriptions of some scenes from the play so read at your care;

All opinions and emotions are from my own point of view and I understand other people could have lived it differently;

I went to see it mainly for Tom so pardon me if my focus is mainly on him;

Unfortunately, I can’t remember every scene or in what order they played, but I tried my best; I wrote 5 pages worth of notes when I got back at the hotel so this is as close as I can remember.

This memory is divided into four parts:

Before the play

The play (I II)

After the play

If you attended and there’s anything you feel I missed or got wrong please let me know! If you didn’t and want details on some scene or a description of a scene I didn’t include, also the same.

Enjoy!

PS – English is not my first language, nor am I a writer in my daily life. Far from it. I probably didn’t find the right words and I repeat a lot of them. Forgive me. I have a more physical and materialistic approach rather than interpreting the play. For that, I recommend you read these brilliant reviews x x

September 9th, 2017

Before the play

4 am – The alarm goes off, but I’ve been awake for 10 minutes. It’s been exactly a month since I’ve received that precious e-mail. “Your ballot entry has been successful”. I get up. Time is of the essence.

5.15 am – I arrive at the airport. I meet with @ruthieloveshiddleston for the first time. The excitement and anxiety are visible in our faces.

7 am – Plane takes off. Destination: London.

9.30 am – We’ve passed border control and are trying to find our way out of the airport and into central London. It’s a race against time.

11 am – We arrive at King’s Cross, after taking a train and the tube. It’s a sunny day with some clouds lurking. The temperature is nice around 18C.

12 am – After checking-in the hotel and a brief passage through the Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross, we arrive at Malet Street. I’ve changed to a pair of heels back at the hotel and I’m already regretting this decision. And then we see it. RADA’s building at a distance. It’s starting to get real.

We walk in its direction, at the doors, two white sheets of paper read

“HAMLET

Doors open one hour before the performance”

That’s it. The entrance has posters with the ongoing performances and other RADA promotion. As for Hamlet, that’s the only information visible. No one is around yet. The street is quiet.

12.30 pm – We go around the street to get a bite somewhere. On the way, we walk by RADA’s other entrance, for students and staff only.

The same entrance where the cast photo was taken.

1.10 pm – We’re back at the theatre’s entrance. People have started gathering around. The excitement is building up. I notice two Spanish girls but the majority of the audience seems to be British. A lot of young women, but there’s also men and children.

1.20 pm – I peek inside and see Tom’s bodyguard and some ushers moving around.

1.30 pm – They let us in, we grab our tickets and programs and sit at the bar.

At the bottom of the ticket, we can read “No photography or filming is allowed in the auditorium.” The same rule is around in every wall in an even stricter way. There’s a television on where HD pictures of the rehearsal photos are moving in a slideshow.

An older British lady sits at our table since there are limited seats.

Another performance called “Clay to Flesh” is starting at the same time. People with tickets for that one are called in first.

We talk about Sir Kenneth’s great anecdote in his introductory text in the program.  

2.15 pm – They call Hamlet tickets holders. Our seats are on the ground floor of the theatre which means we have to go to the second floor of the building. An usher helps us to our seats and says “Be careful with the floor under your seat. People have fallen.”. So obviously, I almost fall as well.

We sit down. The space is small but cosy. The seats are arranged in a U. A thrust stage. We’re front row at the bend of the U, sitting straight forward to the stage. The theatre is in a dim light. At the very centre of the stage, an old wooden upright piano is sitting alone. The background is just a black wall.

The lady that was sitting at our table takes the seat left to us. She asks where we are from because she couldn’t quite place the language we were speaking. We tell her we are from Portugal and she’s surprised we travelled all the way.

“Are you here for Tom then?”

“Yes, we are. And Sir Kenneth too.”

“Are you going to faint? Or scream?” (laughs)

“We’re not… Or we’ll try not to.” (more laughing)

She tells us she’s a drama and literature professor and knows the play by heart. She asks if this is the first production of Hamlet we’ve seen and was quite surprised when I told her this would be my fifth but my first one in a live theatre. We share our favourite Hamlet (so far) which is David Tennant.

2.30 pm – Lights down. Roughing sound up. It begins.

#hamlet #tom hiddleston #rada hamlet #rada #kenneth branagh #william shakespeare #rada hamlet a memory #1 / 4

[clarasimone]

Iain Glen nailing Hamlet (1991)

In 1991, after winning the Evening Standard Film Award for Best Actor, Iain Glen gave his soulful all, not on the stage in London, no, not yet, though really he could have, but at the Old Vic in Bristol, donning the persona of the Dane, Hamlet. He won the Special Commendation Ian Charleson Award* for his performance and yet it appears we will never see but stills from this production as no video recording was made, not even by and for the company. The University of Bristol has the archives of the production: the playbook, the programme and black and white stills. The V&A archives have the administrative papers. In our day and age, this sad evanescent corporeal sate of affairs is unimaginable. The memory of the play, of this performance fading away? We rebel against the very thought. We brandish our cell phones and swear we shall unearth and pirate its memory, somehow, somewhere. Even if we have to hypnotize patrons or pull out the very hearts of those who saw Iain Glen on stage, those few, those happy few, to read into their very memory and pulsating membrane just how brilliant he was. Because he was, he was. That’s what they’ll all tell you... 

Below, those pics and testimonies....

*(The Charleson Awards were established in memory of Ian Charleson, who died at 40 from Aids while playing Hamlet at the National Theatre in 1989)

- Iain Glen is a rampaging prince, quixotic, technically sound, tense as a coiled spring, funny. ‘To be, or not to be’ results from throwing himself against the white walls, an air of trembling unpredictability is beautifully conveyed throughout. ‘Oh, what a rogue and peasants slave’ is blindingly powerful. My life is drawn in angrily modern post Gielgud Hamlets: David Warner, Nicol Williams, Visotsky, Jonathon Price. Iain Glen is equal to them. He keeps good company. THE OBSERVER, Michael Coveney

- Paul Unwin’s riveting production reminded me more strongly than any I have ever seen that the Danish Court is riddled with secrecy. Politics is a form of hide and seek: everyone stealthily watches everyone else. Iain Glen’s Hamlet is a melancholic in the clinical sense: his impeccable breeding and essential good nature keep in check what might be an approaching breakdown. His vitriolic humour acts as a safety valve for a nagging instability, his boyish charm is deployed to placate and deceive a hostile and watchful world. Glen brings out Hamlet’s fatal self absorption: the way he cannot help observing himself and putting a moral price tag on every action and failure. He is a doomed boy. And his chill but touching calm at the end is that of a man who has finally understood the secrets behind the closed doors. The Sunday Times, John Peter

- This is an excellent production of Hamlet from the Bristol Old Vic. The director Paul Unwin and his designer Bunnie Christie have set the play in turn of the century Europe. Elsinore is a palace of claustrophobically white walls and numerous doors. All this is handled with a light touch, without drawing attention away from the play. Our first encounter with Hamlet shows him bottled up with rage and grief. Glen gives a gripping performance. The self-dramatising side of the character is tapped to the full by this talented actor. The Spectator, Christopher Edwards

**************************************************************************************************

The following though is my favorite review/article because it situates Iain Glen’s creation is time, in the spectrum of all renowned Hamlets.

How will Cumberbatch, TV’s Sherlock, solve the great mystery of Hamlet? by Michael Coveney - Aug 17, 2015

In 1987, three years before he died, the critic and venerable Shakespearean JC Trewin published a book of personal experience and reminiscence: Five and Eighty Hamlets. I’m thinking of supplying a second volume, under my own name, called Six and Fifty Hamlets, for that will be my total once Benedict Cumberbatch has opened at the Barbican.

There’s a JC and MC overlap of about 15 years: Trewin was a big fan of Derek Jacobi’s logical and graceful prince in 1977 and ended with less enthusiastic remarks about “the probing intelligence” of Michael Pennington in 1980 (both Jacobi and Pennington were 37 when they played the role; Cumberbatch is 39) and emotional pitch and distraction of Roger Rees in 1984 (post-Nickleby, Rees was 40, but an electric eel and ever-youthful).

I started as a reviewer in 1972 with three Hamlets on the trot: the outrageous Charles Marowitz collage, which treats Hamlet as a creep and Ophelia as a demented tart, and makes exemplary, equally unattractive polar opposites of Laertes and Fortinbras; a noble, stately Keith Michell (with a frantic Polonius by Ron Moody) at the Bankside Globe, Sam Wanamaker’s early draft of the Shakespearean replica; and a 90-minute gymnastic exercise performed by a cast of eight in identical chain mail and black breeches at the Arts Theatre.

This gives an idea of how alterable and adaptable Hamlet has been, and continues to be. There are contestable readings between the Folios, any number of possible cuts, and there is no end of choice in emphasis. Trewin once wrote a programme note for a student production directed by Jonathan Miller in which he said that the first scene on the battlements (“Who’s there?”) was the most exciting in world drama; the scene was cut.

And as Steven Berkoff pointed out in his appropriately immodestly titled book I Am Hamlet (1989), Hamlet doesn’t exist in the way Macbeth, or Coriolanus, exists; when you play Hamlet, he becomes you, not the other way round. Hamlet, said Hazlitt, is as real as our own thoughts.

Which is why my three favourite Hamlets are all so different from each other, and attractive because of the personality of the actor who’s provided the mould for the Hamlet jelly: my first, pre-critical-days Hamlet, David Warner (1965) at the Royal Shakespeare Company, was a lank and indolently charismatic student in a long red scarf, exact contemporary of David Halliwell’s Malcolm Scrawdyke, and two years before students were literally revolting in Paris and London; then Alan Cumming (1993) with English Touring Theatre, notably quick, mercurial and very funny, with a detachable doublet and hose, black Lycra pants and bovver boots, definitely (then) the glass of fashion, a graceful gender-bender like Brett Anderson of indie band Suede; and, at last, Michael Sheen (2011) at the Young Vic, a vivid and overreaching fantasist in a psychiatric institution (“Denmark’s a prison”), where every actor “plays” his part.

These three actors – Warner, Cumming, Sheen – occupy what might be termed the radical, alternative tradition of Hamlets, whereas the authoritative, graceful nobility of Jacobi belongs to the Forbes Robertson/John Gielgud line of high-ranking top drawer ‘star’ turns, a dying species and last represented, sourly but magnificently, by Ralph Fiennes (1995) in the gilded popular palace of the Hackney Empire. Fiennes, like Cumberbatch, has the sort of voice you might expect a non-radical, traditional Hamlet to possess.

But if you listen to Gielgud on tape, you soon realise he wasn’t ‘old school’ at all. He must have been as modern, at the time, as Noel Coward. Gielgud is never ‘intoned’ or overtly posh, he’s quicksilver, supple, intellectually alert. I saw him deliver the “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave” soliloquy on the night the National left the Old Vic (February 28, 1976); he had played the role more than 500 times, and not for 37 years, but it was as fresh, brilliant and compelling as if he had been making it up on the spot.

Ben Kingsley, too, in 1975, was a fiercely intelligent Royal Shakespeare Company Hamlet, and I saw much of that physical and mental power in David Tennant’s, also for the RSC in 2008, with an added pinch of mischief and irony. There’s another tradition, too, of angry Hamlets: Nicol Williamson in 1969, a scowling, ferocious demon; Jonathan Pryce at the Royal Court in 1980, possessed by the ghost of his father and spewing his lines, too, before finding Yorick’s skull in a cabinet of bones, an ossuary of Osrics; and a sourpuss Christopher Ecclestone (2002), spiritually constipated, moody as a moose with a migraine, at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

One Hamlet who had a little of all these different attributes – funny, quixotic, powerful, unhappy, clever and genuinely heroic – was Iain Glen (1991) at the Bristol Old Vic, and I can imagine Cumberbatch developing along similar lines. He, like so many modern Hamlets, is pushing 40 – as was Jude Law (2009), hoary-voiced in the West End – yet when Trevor Nunn cast Ben Whishaw (2004) straight from RADA, aged 23, petulant and precocious, at the Old Vic, he looked like a 16-year-old, and too young for what he was saying. It’s like the reverse of King Lear, where you have to be younger to play older with any truth or vigour.

Michael Billington’s top Hamlet remains Michael Redgrave, aged 50, in 1958, as he recounts in his brilliant new book, The 101 Greatest Plays (seven of the 101 are by Shakespeare); Hamlet, he says, more than any other play, alters according to time as well as place.

So, Yuri Lyubimov’s great Cold War Hamlet, the prince played by the dissident poet Vladimir Visotsky, was primarily about surveillance, the action played on either side of an endlessly moving hessian and woollen wall. And in Belgrade in 1980, shortly after the death of Tito, the play became a statement of anxiety about the succession.

There’s a mystery to Hamlet that not even Sherlock Holmes could solve, though Cumberbatch will no doubt try his darndest – even if he finds his Watson at the Barbican (Leo Bill is playing Horatio) more of a hindrance than a help; there are, after all, more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his friend’s philosophy.

*************************************************************************************************

Oh! Did I say that we were never going to see Iain Glen in the skin of the great Dane? Tsk. How silly of me. Meet IG’s Hamlet in Tom Stoppard’s postmodern theatrical whimsy ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, shot the year before the Bristol play.

Though almost surreal and most often funny as the film follows the Pulp Fiction-like misadventures of two forgettable Shakespearian characters, crossing paths with other more or less fortunate characters, their time with Hamlet makes us privy to the Dane as we never quite see him in the Bard’s play... but for one memorable scene,  in which Iain Glen absolutely nails it, emoting the famous “To be or not to be” which you see tortures his soul, brings tears to his eyes and contorts his mouth; the moment made all the more memorable by the fact that it is a silent scene. You never hear him utter the famous line, but you see the words leave his lips and feel them mark your soul.

I’m kinda telling myself that it’s 1991 and I’m sitting in the Old Vic, in Bristol, not London. Not yet.

#Iain Glen #hamlet

[theoneanna]

Hiddlesfic: Life is a Game of Risks

Hello Everybody!

I’m so sorry I haven't been able to write Reviews this past months but I just have been busy with school AND I’m actually a proper reviewer now! I’ve started my bookstagram and I post book reviews there. BUT, I have 2 series I wanted you to read so I couldn’t wait any longer! THANK YOU for being patient with my writing and for sharing my reviews and Hiddlefic’s Masterlist.

This was one is one of the first fanfics I read and OMG its E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. This series in on AO3 but I’m sure you’ll love it as much as love it!! 

Thank you for staying with me!!

- Anna 

Life is a Game of Risks

by: @wolfpawn

Summary by author: Tom walks into a cafe near RADA while working on Hamlet to see a woman sitting down in a corner, he knows her, but he is not sure from where. It finally dawns on him, an old family friend, the one that suggested to him to go into acting and whom as they ascended to adulthood, he had a crush on, but time passed and nothing happened. Now he meets Alexianna again and he is not going to miss the chance to speak with her once more, but there is an issue, time has not been good to her, her life is more complex now. Can Tom handle what it entails when the one you care for has a child already and can Alexianna deal with the pressures of being the real life girlfriend of the internet's boyfriend?

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x Original Female Character

Warning: Fluff, Angst, Smut

By the time I wrote this review there were 57 Chapters published:

CHAPTER 1: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11940687/chapters/26992977

Lass_Kicker (in AO3) or @wolfpawn is one of my “virtual friends”. She is Irish and loves to incorporate her Irish heritage in her stories which to me is really eye opening and makes her stories so interesting and unique! She writes more about Ireland on another fic I love called I hate you, I love you than on Life is a Game of Risks but I still wanted to point that out! 

This story is about Tom finding his childhood friend and teenage crush Alexianna after years of zero contact. We know Tom is a successful actor an Alexianna has been enjoying his work but Tom knows nothing about Lexi. He realizes that something off with that happy, cheerful girl he knew. Later, Tom finds out the hard life she has lived while he was busy being the charming actor he is. She was in a toxic relationship, she had a terrible accident that left her more psychological damage than physical one and she has a daughter, Lily. 

You will LOVE Lily the moment you meet her, I SWEAR! She is the funniest and sweetest kid and its immediatly attached to Tom, as he is with her. Tom’s character is the most supportive male character I have ever read and helps Lexi grow up so much as a person. What I also love about this series is that is very realistic! It doesn't have lots of predictable cliches, but its full of extraordinary written scenes. 

YOU WILL BE SWOONING after every scene that has Tom and Lily in together. Tom and Alexianna are cute as well but little Lily steals the show! The way Alexianna progresses from the beginning of the story to where the story is now its out standing! You’ll be so proud of her you'll want her to be real just to give her a high five! 

You know my favorite series have Benedict as a friend and family in there somewhere, well THIS HAS EVERYTHING! Benedict is a really good friend of Tom and the way Tom’s family is portrayed makes me want to find an in-law family just like that! Did I mention Lexi was Tom’s younger sister Emma best friend growing up? Tom’s mom is also an incredible character. This story is the one I come back every time I want to cheer myself up....who I’m kidding I come back to this story all the time! It amazes me how much I have re-read this story I am not exaggerating when I say I have lost count. 

I really wish this series was a published book so I could re read it as many times as I could. Every chapter makes my heart grow of how PERFECT this series is! If you take my word for something, PLEASE read this series!

I’ll leave here a couple of my favorite dialogues, (I’m leaving them at the end in case you consider them spoilers but to me they are more like teasers) hoping to awake your interest and make you head over Here and read it yourself.

- Anna 💕

PS. Please feel free to share, comment or suggest anything and everything for this review! Enjoy your reading!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Mommy, it's Dr. Strange.'

That got Benedict's attention on her again. 'Yes, I am.'

'Wow.' she stared at him, fascinated. 'Tom isn't Loki now, so leave him alone.' She even extended her index finger as she gave the order.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘Mommy, Tom is calling you.’ Lily informed her.

‘Yes, I am not deaf.’

‘So why aren’t you waiting for him?’ Alexianna did not respond. ‘Mommy, stop, Tom is calling us.’

‘Just stop Lily.’ Lily began to squirm in her mum’s arms. ‘Lily!’

‘No, Tom wants us.’

‘Tom is busy.’ she argued. Lily thrashed, even more, meaning Alexianna was forced to put her down before she fell. ‘Lily!’

‘No, Tom wants us.’

------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom paused for a moment, smiling at the memory of younger Alexianna joking to him about something with those exact words, her face had the same mischievous smile on it as she did now. ‘Yes, perhaps I should. Or I could just continue to kiss you.’

‘Perhaps.’ she smiled, kissing him back.

Tom pulled her onto his lap, so that she was straddling him, and cupped her ass. ‘The perfect size.’

‘You have big hands, are you calling my ass big?’

‘No, I am saying it is perfect.’ They continued to kiss for another moment before he groaned.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

“You are mine, Lexi, and I am not letting you go. I missed my opportunity with you when we were younger. I have lost sleep since we started dating on how different it would all have been, if I had been braver that day and continued to you in the water. How sooner or later, I would have braved telling you how I felt, how I would have kissed you, and…” 

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston gif #tom hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston* #imagine tom hiddleston #tom hiddelston imagine #tom hiddeston x ofc #Tom Hiddleston fandom #tom hiddleston fanfiction #HIDDLESTONERS #hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston fluff

[unpack-my-heart]

Unpack My Heart With Words – Updated

Chapter 5 of my Hamlet/Theatre Reddie AU. The chapter is called When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

You can read it on AO3 HERE or I’ve pasted it under the cut.

Preview:

“Heh. I suppose,” Eddie responds. “I remember reading King Lear when I was at RADA, when I was convinced that I’d be the one reciting the lines, rather than instructing people how to read the lines. My Lear is based on someone from my past.”

Richie feels sick.

“Oh?” the interviewer probes, “I imagine you don’t think favourably of them, then? They’ve got to be a pretty painful relic, surely?”

Richie watches the on-screen-Eddie pause. Eddie’s eyes close before he responds.

“Quite the opposite, actually. Thank you so much for having me”

Tag List:

@constantreaderfool @xandertheundead @violetreddie

The road Richie lives on is small and unassuming, a forgettable cul-de-sac. He’d moved there with Sandy, as soon as he got the email confirming that he’d ‘read Hamlet’. It hadn’t lasted. They’d broken up less than a year after they’d bought the house. She’d accused him of cheating on her, and he hadn’t denied it. He hadn’t cheated on her, of course, but it had given him a very convenient way of avoiding having a conversation he’d been putting off for several months prior. I’m still in love with the boy (man?) that broke my heart over a decade ago doesn’t roll off the tongue particularly well, nor is it all that believable. So they’d split. Richie had taken on sole tenancy of the small townhouse they rented, and Sandy had left him and moved back in with her parents in Bath, leaving him in Stratford-Upon-Avon on his own.

The road Richie lives on is small and unassuming, a perfectly pleasant and quiet area of a perfectly pleasant and quiet town. That’s why, when Richie was stumbling down the street pissed out of his mind at 3am after trying (and failing) to drink Ben under the table, and singing (or howling) along to Prowlin’ from Grease 2, a large number of people peered around their curtains and glared at him. He paid them no mind. He fumbled with his keys, dropping them six times, before his uncooperative fingers finally managed to shove the key into the lock and turn it. The stuffy, gaping black maw of his hallway stared back at him. Scoffing, and swearing at everything and anything, Richie managed to turn on all the lights in his living room and kitchen, and flop onto the sofa, without breaking anything – limbs and extremities included.

Richie smacked his lips. His mouth tasted like someone had been using his tongue as an ash tray for the last four hours, before telling him to gargle with white spirit. In short, it tasted like ass. Not that Richie remembered what ass tasted like. It had been far too long. His laptop sat, screen open and inviting, sat on the coffee table. Richie tugged it towards him, before lifting it over to his lap by the screen. He almost missed Sandy shrieking ‘if you lift it like that, the screen will come off in your hands and you’ll be fucked’. Almost.

The machine booted up, whirs and purrs breaking the silence. Richie’s fingers worked on autopilot, his alcohol-hazed brain taking several seconds to catch up.

Google: Edsss kaspbrK

Did you mean: Eds Kaspbrak?

Did you mean: Edward Kaspbrak?

Yes. Yes he did mean Edward Kaspbrak. Richie supposed he wasn’t allowed to call Eddie Eds anymore.

Edward Kaspbrak, 486,972 results in 0.0003 seconds

Richie’s eyes lazily scanned the first few lines of results. The first page was Eddie’s staff page on the RSC website. The second was Eddie’s twitter. The third was an article from the Edinburgh College of Dramatic Arts student newspaper. Richie clicked on it.

“The ECDA is super stoked to announce that the opening night of the student production of the Phantom of the Opera, directed by our very own Eddie K, …. Blah blah blah blah Eddie blah blah blah successful blah blah blah” Richie mumbled out loud to himself, heart tightening in his chest.

Backspacing out of the page, Richie clicked on the next article. This one was from four years ago, and was a review of a production of King Lear that Eddie had directed. Richie skimmed the article, before clicking on the embedded video interview at the bottom of the page. Eddie’s face fills the screen. He looks younger than the Eddie Richie had seen earlier that day. His face is smoother, and his mouth isn’t set in a harsh line. His eyes are soft. He looks happy. Richie feels sick.

“So,” the interviewer begins, “Tell me about this production. Your Lear is particularly arrogant and unlikable, and unlike other productions that I’ve seen, I actually don’t feel like your Lear had any redeeming features at all. He’s just … consistently unlikable. That’s a pretty bold move for someone’s debut RSC directorial job, right?”

“Heh. I suppose,” Eddie responds. “I remember reading King Lear when I was at RADA, when I was convinced that I’d be the one reciting the lines, rather than instructing people how to read the lines. My Lear is based on someone from my past.”

Richie feels sick.

“Oh?” the interviewer probes, “I imagine you don’t think favourably of them, then? They’ve got to be a pretty painful relic, surely?”

Richie watches the on-screen-Eddie pause. Eddie’s eyes close before he responds.

“Quite the opposite, actually. Thank you so much for having me”

Eddie leaves the frame, and Richie doesn’t listen to the interviewers cursory wrap up. His ears are ringing too loudly.

Richie backspaces, before blindly clicking on one last link. It takes him to the announcement of Eddie’s appointment as Artistic Director in the newsletter of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Richie can feel bile swelling in his throat.

The Royal Shakespeare Company is privileged and pleased to announce that  Edward Frank Kaspbrak has accepted the position of Artistic Director. Edward replaces Claire Van de Camp, who wishes her successor success. Edward joins us at a particularly exciting time, and his first production will the semi-centenary celebration of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a milestone marked with a production of Hamlet. We wish Edward a long and happy tenure with us, and we all look forward to working with him for years to come

A few words from Edward himself: “I’m delighted to join the RSC as Artistic Director to celebrate the momentous semi-centenary anniversary of the company. I am a man of few words, so I’ll leave you with the words of a wordsmith more skilled than I. And so, all yours. I am all yours, RSC, and I will serve you as long as you’ll have me.”

The last words force the bile that had been bubbling in Richie’s throat to surge up his oesophagus. He scrambles to his feet, laptop falling gracelessly to the floor, and scrambles to his bedroom. He pulls an inconspicuous wooden box from under the bed, upending it so white envelopes come tumbling out. He spreads them all out on the carpet, before he grabs the one marked 15th April 2019. He opens the envelope. Two pieces of paper fall out, and he stuffs one back in without looking at it. He unfolds the other piece of paper.

15th April 2019

And so, all yours

E

The paper is fragile – It had been recklessly torn in half, before it has been painstakingly sellotaped back together. Richie couldn’t count how many times he’d stared at those four words.

– X –

When Richie had first started receiving the letters from Eddie, he had become almost incensed with anger. He’d vented to Stan, ugly, venomous ranting.

“I fucking hate him, Stan”

“No you don’t”

“Yes I fucking do. He abandons me to chase some stupid fucking selfish dream in Scotland, and then has the audacity – the fucking NERVE – to write to me, to plead with me to forgive him?”

“That’s not what the letter says, Richie”

“Wow. Fucking Wow. I thought you were supposed to be on my side? You know, your best friends side?”

“You haven’t spoken to me for three months, Rich. I thought you forgot who I was”

“You’re being fucking ridiculous”

“Richard? Can I have a word, s’il vous plaît?"

“Uh, sure, Jacques”

Stan disappeared down the corridor, without so much as glancing over his shoulder. Jacques was stood behind Richie, holding the door to his office open with a gracious arm. Richie walked inside.

“What’s all this ruckus, Richard?”

“Nothing, Jacques. Just – just personal stuff, s’all.”

“Are you arguing with master Stanley about Edward?”

Richie felt himself stiffen.

“How did you know?”

Jacques sits back on his chair, and folds his arms across his chest. His scarf flutters slightly in the breeze coming from the oscillating fan on his desk.

“Did you know that I told Edward to apply for the Edinburgh school?”

“No.”

“Did you know that I convinced him to go when he was reticent to leave you?”

“No.”

“Well, I did. Send some of that rage my way, if you must, but please do leave master Stanley out of it, he really isn’t at fault here”

“He’s been writing to me. I want to burn them.” Richie blurts out, without really meaning to.

“Spoken like a true dramatist”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, you’re being melodramatic”

“With all due respect, Jacques, you have no idea what you’re talking about” Richie snaps, in a tone that he’d probably regret later when he’s being disciplined for being mouthy to a member of staff.

“Perhaps. But perhaps you also have no idea what you’re talking about”

“Now you’re just not making sense”

“You’re nineteen, Richard. Things have a way of working out. Don’t burn the letters. Don’t send your memories of him up in flames. You’ll regret it.”

“Can I go now?”

“But of course”

As soon as he wakes up, Richie decides that he’s not going to rehearsal. This is partly because he’s hungover, but the hangover was nothing worse than he’d ever experienced after getting pissed after the opening night of every other production he’s ever done. It was mostly because he couldn’t bear to look at Eddie’s face. Or, perhaps more accurately, he couldn’t take nearly twelve hours of Eddie refusing to look at him with anything other than scorn. Not today.

He contemplates ringing to tell Eddie that he’s ill, but he doesn’t have Eddie’s number. He thumbs over the ‘Eds <3’ contact in his phone. Eddie’s old number, of course. Richie had a new number, too, in fact, he’d had several new numbers in the fifteen years since he’d last text Eddie. He had, however, copied the ‘Eds <3’ contact into every new phone he’d has since 2019. He assumed that Eddie had probably also had several new numbers since they’d last talked, but that didn’t deter him.

Now, though, the sight of ‘Eds <3’ in his phone turns his stomach more than the whiskey in the tumbler on his nightstand does.

He decides not to ring anyone.

Instead, he clicks on the YouTube app, and types in ‘Edward II’.

He watches other people say the lines that he’d whispered to Eddie until he falls asleep, tear tracks marking his cheeks.

Richie wakes up several hours later. His phone is buzzing furiously on his bedside table like an angry hornet. When he picks it up, the screen reads ‘Unknown Number’. He throws the phone on the floor.

The buzzing stops, but almost immediately starts up again.

He doesn’t answer.

The unknown number calls back again.

He doesn’t pick up.

His phone buzzes again, but this time its three short buzzes.

A Text.

He grabs his phone off the stained carpet.

From: Unknown Number:

Where the fuck are you?

From: Unknown Number:

Today was a fucking disaster. Where are you?

From: Unknown Number:

How dare you make me worry about you.

Richie stares at the last text, shrouded in the dark comfort of his room, for what feels like hours.

#reddie #unpack my heart #unpack my heart with words #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #richie tozier x eddie kaspbrak #hamlet AU #theatre AU #ao3 #thefutureisbright

[ralph-n-fiennes]

Hey! Is there any chance you could post the entire interview from The Times here? Thanks

Sure! Here it is

Ralph Fiennes: ‘There is a kind of political correctness that’s in danger of becoming totalitarianism’

The actor and director talks about his new Nureyev film, the perils of mob justice, and why he’s tired of playing evil

Ralph Fiennes’s The White Crow, the actor’s third film as a director, is as fine a portrait of an artist as a young man as you will find outside the pages of James Joyce. Set in Paris in 1961, it is the story of the defection of Rudolf Nureyev from Russia, the climax of the Kirov Ballet star’s belligerent growing-up, and a big publicity coup for the West.

Its writer, David Hare, who has done a job as brilliant as The White Crow’s director, has said that he loathes the idea that Nureyev’s defection was a balletic “leap to freedom”. At the time, he points out, there was optimism in Russia after the death of Stalin and the accession of the more liberal Khrushchev. In microcosm it is true, certainly, that the man Fiennes plays, Nureyev’s teacher Alexander Pushkin, was no tyrant. Indeed, it is vaguely upsetting to see the much lusted-after leading man who, two decades ago, was the seducer in The English Patient, now at 56 play a bald professorial type, cuckolded by his protégé — although the real seducer in this case was, it seems, Pushkin’s wife, who cajoled the mostly homosexual Nureyev into her bed.

“Alexander was very kind and very, very gentle,” Fiennes says. He is in a suite at the Dorchester in London, dressed in jeans and coatigan. His long, floppy hair, I notice to my relief, has, in reality, suffered no more than some widow’s peaking. “People talk about his technique, which was to let the students discover their own mistakes. Now, I’ve seen ballet classes where the teacher literally comes and forces the arm and turns the head and wrestles with a student’s body.”

Fiennes agrees with Hare that it was claustrophobia, rather than tyranny, that Nureyev was fleeing and that his defection was a spur-of-the-moment decision prompted by the heavy-handedness of KGB minders alarmed at his carousing in Paris. Still, the urge had surely been building. “Subconsciously, for him there was a world elsewhere,” Fiennes says, quoting from Coriolanus, which he has starred in and directed for cinema.

Nureyev’s “leap” is performed at Le Bourget airport in front of a scrum of reporters, whose colleagues would pursue the dancer right up to his death from Aids in 1993, aged 54. Perhaps, I say, the film suggests that the dancer trades one form of surveillance for another? Fiennes, however, barely concedes the point even though his own private life — in 1996 he left his wife, Alex Kingston, for Francesca Annis, his co-star in Hamlet almost 20 years his senior — has suffered its share of scrutiny.

A newer form of western tyranny seems to disturb him more. In recent weeks he has offered his support to Liam Neeson, his Schindler’s List co-star, after Neeson said in an interview that he had once wandered the streets with a cosh hoping to be attacked by a “black bastard” so he could avenge the rape of a woman close to him. Fiennes has also stood firm by Michael Colgan, a former director of the Gate Theatre in Dublin, who has been accused of bullying and sexual harassment during his tenure. In the first case, Fiennes says that Neeson was attempting an honest confession. In the second, to be accused is not invariably to be guilty.

“I think there’s a kind of political correctness which has its strength, but is in danger of becoming its own sort of totalitarianism,” Fiennes says.

It is harder, perhaps, to argue the case for Sergei Polunin, the Ukrainian dancer with a supporting role in The White Crow who in January was dropped from a ballet in Paris after posting rants on Instagram, but Fiennes says that he was a joy to work with. “Basically, I ignore all the stuff that he said because I believe there’s the noise the human being can make and then there’s who they truly are as a person, and I think Sergei is a good man, a kind man.”

Fiennes, I observe, occasionally makes a bit of noise in his private life (in 2007 an air stewardess claimed that she had inducted him into the mile high club). “I’ve been guilty of shit,” he agrees. He is less ready to concede that his description of “the unpleasantness and ruthlessness” of the young Nureyev as he looked to “create” himself may have once applied to him.

“I’m uncomfortable saying an overt yes to that. I connected with aspects of his hunger to learn, I suppose, his hunger to absorb.”

Fiennes’s self-creation remains a fascinating subject. His career looked set to be in art until, enrolled at Chelsea College of Arts, he noticed a young New Zealand painter and the “fury” he had about his vocation.

“I thought, ‘He is driven and I’m here painting that bowl of fruit, but I don’t know what I’m trying to say.’ I think I had acted at school and there was some moment at college when the penny dropped and I thought, ‘No, I want to be an actor.’ It suddenly became very clear to me, certain.”

Was there fury about his acting? “I think there was a bit. There was a real sort of determination, but I remember one audition at one drama school. I came out with this RP voice and I think they thought, ‘Who is he? Is he pretending to be a Shakespeare actor?’ I felt maybe I wasn’t the kind of actor that was cool at the time.”

Rada recognised the real thing. Leaving in 1985, he was quickly taken up by the RSC and the National Theatre. By the time I last interviewed him, in 1995, he had already been nominated for an Oscar from his remarkable portrayal of the concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List, and was about to play Hamlet at the Almeida in London — which was where he would fall in love with Annis, who was playing the prince’s mother. There was no doubting his greatness. Of his range, however, there was less inkling.From Goeth, we knew he could play a particularly nuanced kind of evil, but who could have predicted his terrifying box-office turn as Voldemort in the Harry Potter films?“I did actually say to my agent, after Voldemort, ‘Please don’t send me any bad guys. I’ve done that now.’ And I don’t think I’ve broken that promise, unless you count David Hare getting me to play his version of Tony Blair in Page Eight.”A consequence of that resolution was our discovery that Fiennes could be wickedly funny on film — as the suavely savage Gustave in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and then that grab-bag of ego, the music producer Harry, in A Bigger Splash. However, this is also a serious actor who learnt Russian for the movie Two Women and speaks it beautifully in The White Crow, indistinguishable from Russian cast members speaking in their native tongue. His Bafta-nominated directorial debut with Coriolanus in 2011, meanwhile, was followed up by an impressive Dickens movie, The Invisible Woman.

There is an off-the-peg explanation for Fiennes’s overachievements. As a child, he had to compete with his siblings for attention, for love and to impress.

“At the age of seven, I was the eldest of six, and I probably had a little bit of special treatment, being the eldest, and then felt the competition coming up behind,” he says. “When we get together as a family, we laughingly acknowledge our need to have our space. Because we’re all quite close together in age, I think you define your territory. ‘This is my territory. This is who I am.’”

He says that his mother, Jennifer Lash, a writer known as Jinni, who was married to Mark Fiennes, a farmer-turned-photographer, inspired her brood with her love of words and performance. Two of his sisters, Martha and Sophie, became film-makers; one brother is a composer; and another is Joseph Fiennes, the actor.

“But it was frantic. She often felt huge distress. She wanted to write, and sometimes the pressure and the strain and the frustration of not being able to write, not having the time to write, the peace and the space to write, would explode, but the love was always there, incredible love.”

Jinni, who published her first novel at 23, died of cancer aged 55, when Fiennes was 30. He says that he still feels her presence, although that could just be his “own need to feel that something”.

Does he dream about her? “Sometimes. My father too. What’s so weird is my mother died in 1993 and my father died in 2004 and yet somehow in the brain they’re restored. In the dreams, if they come, they’re completely clear, completely present and as they were. Somehow the brain has stored the memory of the voice, the person.”

Do friends ever say to him that his career has been incredibly Oedipal? I am thinking not just of Hamlet and his leaving a wife of his own age for his Gertrude, but the mother-son dynamic of Coriolanus.

“Yes, people have commented on that, and I shouldn’t be ashamed of it. I mean, Oedipal is probably how we’re wired as the sons of mothers. I don’t feel any awkwardness about there being an Oedipal element in one’s self. I think that’s quite healthy. It’s part of who you are.”

Has he been in therapy? “I had what they call psychotherapy for a little bit. It was interesting.”

Did he go because he was unhappy or because he wanted to explore himself? “I was going through a time of crisis and emotional disturbance and upset.”

Can he say about what? “No, I don’t want to.”

Having come from a noisy, competitive family, I can see why he might, in his fifties, choose the apparent solitary life that he has, living in a studio loft in east London. Since his relationship with Annis ended in 2006, there have been rumours of girlfriends, but nothing, apparently, very permanent.

“There’s living alone and being lonely. They are different things. I feel quite content, living on my own. It’s funny, isn’t it? Some people say, ‘Don’t you want children?’ And for me it’s not a negative. It’s not a dislike of children. I respect that some people do.”

I quote something that Hare has said about Fiennes, that he likes to surround himself professionally with people who love him. I wonder whether film sets and theatre companies are his substitute families.

“I think you’re in a kind of parental mode as a director, and that is your family. As an actor in a company, you’re less parental, although if you’re possibly in a leading role, there is a leadership element.”

I like the idea that he joins families of actors and, now that he is older, he becomes their father. “Yes, although I haven’t consciously thought I’m achieving parenthood that way,” he begins. And then thinks of Oleg Ivenko, the 22-year-old Ukrainian ballet dancer from whom he has conjured up a light yet intense performance in the lead role in The White Crow.

“Oleg, you see, he was a totally inexperienced actor. That was definitely a version of creative parenting, guiding him through the requirements of a feature film and a main role.”

In loco parentis, as a teacher, Fiennes, we can assume, is a Pushkin rather than a Stalin. Papa Ralph. It has a ring to it.The White Crow is out on general release

#ralph fiennes #ask #anon

[losille2000]

The Swan, Chapter 2

TITLE: The Swan CHAPTER NUMBER: 2/? AUTHOR: Losille2000 WHICH Tom/CHARACTER: Actor!Tom GENRE: Romance/Drama FIC SUMMARY: Sequel to The Ugly Duckling. Astrid embarks on a two-week trip to London to serve as her sister’s maid of honor, hoping against all hope she might miraculously run into her Hawaiian mystery man. When her sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law drag her to a production of Hamlet to meet the groom’s best man, Astrid gets the shock of her life. The situation, though, is anything but perfect. RATING: M (sex, language) WARNINGS: Um, nothing yet. AUTHORS NOTES: There is no pub across the street from RADA, that’s made up. Thank you all for being amazing!

Chapters: 1 - ALSO ON AO3!

Chapter 2 – Recognition

 This wasn’t happening twenty minutes before a show.

 He couldn’t believe it. How had this lady slipped past security and gotten this far backstage? How had she found him and singled him out, when he’d been happily hidden in the bathroom doing his voice warm-ups? She definitely didn’t belong back here, in that bright red dress hugging her gorgeous thick frame, accentuating the deadly curve of her hips and the ample cleavage in the deep neckline. Everyone on the production wore dark, muted colors. Not something to stand out like a sore, but fetching, thumb.

 This woman wanted to be noticed.

 Unfortunately for her, she was not about to be noticed in the way she probably wanted.

 She pulled out of his grasp and rubbed her arms where he’d caught her. He hadn’t realized he’d grabbed her so hard, or that his anger had got the better of him so quickly. But fuck, he’d just gotten himself into his character’s headspace, and adding this nuisance on top of it? She fucking deserved it.

 With a sigh, the woman lifted her head again, blinking at him. Then the expression on her features froze in a look of horror.  She lifted a hand to her throat and fiddled with the simple silver necklace and tiny circular pendant, drawing his eyes to the piece of jewelry. Millions of women must have worn the same style, but none of them had the beautiful liquid mercury eyes this woman did.

 A memory wiggled in his brain—the one he’d squashed so many times that he eventually had to lock it away lest he be forced to revisit the upset every time he thought about it. Hazy as it was pulled from the dark recesses of his memory, it packed no less a punch now as he remembered the woman he only knew as Bront­­ë—the one he’d left in bed while on holiday in Hawaii a year and a half ago.

 He’d waited two months for her. For something. Anything. Sure in the fact that he hadn’t been the only one to experience the earth shift so profoundly under his feet.

 She never called.

 “Brontë?” he murmured, barely audible over the clanging and banging of stagehands and other technicians doing final prep for the show. Was it really her? She’d changed her hair. And she wore makeup. But fuck, if it was her...

 She dropped her arms to cross them against her chest, a protective stance that confused him. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Not now. Now he was confused and wanted answers, the ire bubbling in his gullet partially mollified by the unwelcome surge of testosterone shooting straight to his groin.

 “Hi,” she said breathlessly. A fetching blush colored her cheeks.

 “What are you doing here?” he asked.

 “I’m seeing a show.” Her voice was teasing, almost goading in a way.

 He scoffed. “Not what I meant. I mean what are you doing here?” He waved his arms around to emphasize his point, in case she still didn’t get it.

 “Oh, backstage?”

 “Yes…”

 “Bathroom,” she said, pointing with a thumb to the door that led to the ladies’ room.

 “Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

 She lifted a brow in mocking challenge and opened her mouth to say something, but a call from behind stopped her.  He spun around, hearing his name, finding both James and his fiancée, Tilde, making toward them, led by a stagehand. Great. Just great. He didn’t need to see them, either, before this show was over.

 He looked back at Bront­­ë, but she was already pushing past him, walking toward the other two. She grabbed a coat and a purse from Tilde—he hadn’t noticed Tilde carrying two of both until then—and exchanged a silent, but somehow meaningful, look between each other.

 Wait.

 Just fucking wait.

 “You know them?” Tom asked her, frowning.

 James laughed. “Intelligent deduction as always, Tom. She’s Astrid, Tilde’s sister.”

 “No, she’s not,” he insisted.

 She couldn’t be Tilde’s sister. Because if she was Tilde’s sister, then there was no conceivable way on this green earth that she hadn’t known who he was all the way back when they met in Hawaii eighteen months prior. He and Tilde were friends. In fact, they’d become close soon after she and James had started dating, now nearly three years ago. It would be weird, he thought, for a friend not to talk about her other friends. Especially because Tilde had confided in him that she didn’t have a ton of friends, otherwise, and told Astrid everything.

 But then, now that he thought about it, he’d never seen a photo of Astrid, either. Sure, Tilde talked about her, but nothing had ever made him think her sister was the same woman he’d completely fallen for in Hawaii. The woman Tilde talked about was an actress, loved Shakespeare, and was the most perfect woman to walk the face of this planet.

 The woman he thought he knew was a kindergarten teacher, had a serious vendetta against Shakespeare because of some crappy teachers growing up, and now that he had made the connection, did not think she was the most perfect woman in the world. Gorgeous, maybe, but she had lied to him. 

He was pretty fucking pissed about it, too.

 Some warning would have been nice. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, even if she hadn’t known who he was back in Hawaii, she would have known who he was soon after. Surely, when they were first communicating by email about the stag and hen party, she would have looked him up, discovered who he was, and said something. Anything. But she hadn’t.

 Had everything that night been a lie?

 He had little patience for liars. He hated truth-stretchers and omitters, too.

 And all of this, a mere fifteen minutes before curtain. How was he ever going to get through it all now? She’d shattered his concentration.

 But, the consummate showman, he pulled himself together. “I thought she was a fan who snuck past security… my mistake.”

 Astrid cast him a glance, blushed again, and diverted her eyes, refusing to look at him. Tilde laughed at them both. “You’ve got one heck of a chip on your shoulder, Tom, I swear.”

 “Hey, his worries aren’t without their merits,” James defended, wrapping his arm around Tilde. “We ought to get out there and find our seats, though. Let’s let Tom get himself together.”

 He wanted to kiss James for seeing his discomfort, but even his friend’s understanding wouldn’t pull him back down to earth in time for the call for places. Only a miracle would do that.

 Tom watched them go, stepping past stage right, around the dark curtains into the main audience. Astrid followed them slowly, carefully stepping around a few A/V wires, and paused again to look back at him. Her crimson lips curled into a small, sad smile as she finally met his eyes.

 She mouthed I’m sorry, and stepped past the curtain so he couldn’t see her. How was it possible to go from goddamn elated that she stumbled back into his life to utterly incensed in no time at all?

 Tom glanced at the clock, noting he had just enough time to make it back to his dressing room for a final check of makeup and costume. This time, he slipped in a prayer that the ghost of Shakespeare himself would come back and possess him for this last show. Just one more show… then he could deal with the emotions roiling uncomfortably deep in his belly.

 He could do this. He was a professional.

 Out of the corner of his eye, he spied his mobile sitting on top of the dressing table. He grabbed the infernal thing before he really thought through what he was doing and pulled up his text messages, locating the one Astrid had sent him earlier in the day, back before he learned Astrid was Brontë. He’d just given her the number via their string of emails about the house party, so she could more easily reach him over the next few days for the errands they planned to run together.

 He couldn’t help himself and typed out a message: So, this is your number?

 Not two seconds later, it pinged in his hand.

 Yes. I saved yours in my phone already.

He squeezed his mobile until his knuckles turned white. Of course, she probably only put the number in earlier after he’d given it to her—again—via email. But that did nothing to soothe his jangled feelings. What if she had it in there before? To him, it seemed more than likely that was the case. Even if she hadn’t connected everything about Tilde and James, then perhaps she had saved it off the note he’d left her in Hawaii. She’d have to be blind to have missed the note.

 And never deigned to give him a call.

 The thought ripped through him anew. Had he misread their night together? No, he couldn’t have. He was the man who wanted no entanglements; he had his career to think about and knew entanglement wasn’t something he could have offered at that time. But that hadn’t changed how he felt after the night they’d shared.

 A knock at the door startled him, followed by a voice. “Five minutes!”

 “Five minutes, thank you,” he replied.  He set the mobile down and stared at it for another second, willing it to light up again with another text. What did he expect her to say, anyway?

 Groaning, he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, attempting to center himself. This was going to be harder than any opening night or poorly rehearsed bit he’d ever done. Worse than that play at Eton where he’d played an elephant’s arse for Eddie, and had to do it with a smiling face. The only comfort left to him was the fact that he knew the words like a second language, tattooed on his heart and embedded in his soul.

 Hopefully that would be enough.

  His miracle came in the crackling of his voice during the solo he sang at the top of the show. Well, perhaps, not in the song exactly, but more accurately when he saw her in the audience, or a flash of her red dress and redder lips against the bright stage lights. Somehow knowing it was her, that she expected so much from him despite everything, brought everything into focus. The fuzziness cleared from his brain, the static in his ears ceased. And it was only him and her, though he did not proceed with the rest of the play like that. He did, after all, know better.

 He knew exactly what he needed to do.

 Every line, every action, he felt deep in his soul; the anger wrung him out, true melancholy made his voice crack more than his illness did.  By the end, he felt like he’d torn the beating heart from his chest and set it in the middle of the stage for everyone to gawk at like some circus sideshow. He left everything on the stage.

 The prolonged standing ovation was the cherry on top of a hard-fought battle to retain his composure.

 And he was utterly exhausted. Too exhausted, even, to receive visits from his friends right after the end of the show. When he finally emerged from his dressing room freshly showered and ready to speak to non-cast people, he felt it. His body ached from overexertion; his throat burned despite the lozenge he sucked on to numb it. All he wanted was go home and sleep it off, forget about the terrible night dealing with troublesome emotions while trying to do his job convincingly.

 Ben and Sophie begged off quickly after seeing him, citing their wish to get home to the boys. James and Tilde, on the other hand, kept him a little longer chatting. Astrid, his Brontë, was nowhere to be found.

 “You look terrible,” Tilde said. “But you were amazing.”

 “Thanks, I think,” he rasped, running a hand through his wet curls.

 James laughed. “I think we should let him get home, Tilde… unless you’ve got a party to get to.”

 Tom shook his head. Mercifully, the party had been postponed until the following evening, ostensibly to allow everyone to be at full capacity for the appropriate level of comedic roasting and to give more time for drinking, the latter of which was the most important ingredient to any proper cast party.

 “Where’s Astrid?” he asked. Why did it matter, anyway?

 Tilde chuckled. “She went off to have drinks with a few ladies she met at her hotel. She said to tell you to text her about tomorrow.”

 “Right,” he huffed. Didn’t she even have the decency to stick around with her sister? What kind of woman was she that she flew halfway across the world and wasn’t spending as much time as possible with her?

 When he glanced at Tilde again, her smile had flattened out into a perplexed expression. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

 “Nothing,” he replied. “I had just hoped to see her after the show.”

 James shrugged noncommittally. “Because the way you were acting earlier—not to mention the email debacle—made her particularly inclined to bend over backward for you.”

 Tom shot him a dirty look. James just didn’t know.

 Tilde waved her hand anyway and then wrapped it around James’ back. “No worries. I’m sure you’ll work it all out with whatever you’re doing tomorrow.”

 “Maybe.”

 “And I wouldn’t take it as a personal affront, Tom,” Tilde said. “Astrid was muttering something about finding Mr. Hawaii while she was here. She probably wanted to go off daydreaming again.”

 Tom’s heart stopped in his chest, then stuttered back to life. Maybe he’d been wrong? Maybe she simply hadn’t called him because she didn’t think he had meant what he said? Hadn’t he shown her...

 “Uh, Mr. Hawaii?” he asked.

 Had she shied away because of the lies she’d told him? Or because she’d known him all along and never expected to be found out?

 “Oh,” Tilde said in a laugh and a shrug. “Never mind. It was nothing, just some guy she met like a year ago and, honestly, sounded too good to be true. No gorgeous, wealthy man wines and dines an ordinary girl and then takes her back to her place to pull her hair and slap her ass.”

 James scoffed. “What am I? Chopped liver?”

 Tilde set a hand on James’ chest. “You don’t count. Besides, I pull your hair and slap your ass.”

 Tom shifted on his feet uncomfortably and cleared his throat. He could do without their overly familiar asides, though it was wonderful to see that real love did exist, even in the cutesy, he-wanted-to-spork-his-eyeballs-out kind of way.

 Even less did he want to hear exactly how much Astrid had divulged to Tilde about the night in Hawaii. Honestly, at this point, he figured he should be relieved that a sordid tale hadn’t been posted somewhere on the web…

 “Oh, right,” Tilde said then. “Anyway, the last time we talked before her trip, she said she hoped she could find him while she was here. I love my sister, but sometimes she lets fantasy get ahead of reality a little.”

 Except where fantasy was reality.

 Tilde prattled on, “I mean, come on… a night of mind-blowing sex and she has nothing to show for it? If it were that good, then she and the guy would have both felt it and it wouldn’t have been a onetime deal. So either it wasn’t that good and she’s imagining things, like she does all the time, or the guy was a total douche. If he were real, I’d be giving him a piece of my mind for leaving the next morning without saying goodbye.”

 And that was enough of that. Tom had heard enough.

 James must have seen the way his forehead had furrowed in consternation and gently nudged Tilde. “Come on, my love, we need to head home and let Duchess out.”

 “Oh, alright, we’ll see you later, Thomas,” Tilde said. She pulled away from James and headed toward the direction of the exit… without James.

 James stood still and looked him up and down a few times, his lips pressing into a grim line. Tom knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Well, your behavior earlier is starting to make sense now.”

 “I don’t know what you mean,” Tom said, adjusting the increasingly heavy rucksack on his shoulder.

 “You know exactly what I mean…” James trailed off, meeting his friend’s eyes, “Mr. Hawaii.”

 Tom scoffed. “You’re being ridiculous. “

 James shrugged his shoulders. “She’s the ‘beautiful and mysterious goddess’ who never called you?”

 “Don’t sound so incredulous about her.”

 “Astrid is both beautiful and mysterious, just like her sister; my incredulity has to do with the knowledge that, having heard both sides of this story now, you still got shafted,” James replied. “It seems a bit like a taste of your own medicine.”

 Tom loved his friend. A lot. Knew that a well-placed punch to his face would certainly piss off Tilde and the wedding photographers, if not future casting people. But that didn’t stop the incandescent annoyance furling his fingers into fists at his sides.

 “You know it has never been like that with my liaisons,” Tom hissed through gritted teeth. He wondered if his jaw would stay there if he clenched any harder. “Look. I’m knackered. I just want to go home and sleep it off. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

 “Fine,” James said. “But you better not do anything to fuck up the next few weeks. If my wife cries once about this, there will be hell to pay.”

 Tom rolled his eyes. “We’ll be fine. We’re adults. I’ll get over it.”

 James huffed. “It’s been eighteen months, Tom. You still haven’t gotten over it. I can see it written all over your face.”

 The fact was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be over it. Not now that she was back in his life, even with all the unknowns. He didn’t know what was worse: knowing he left the number and thinking she hadn’t called because she hadn’t felt the same, or knowing that she had felt the same, but still didn’t pick up the phone to give him a ring.

To give him a chance.

 “If you know what’s good for you, go home now,” Tom said.

 James turned on his heels and started for the exit, saying as he walked. “I’ll be generous and not mention it to Tilde, but you and Astrid had better make peace as soon as possible.”

 Tom looked at the floor and stubbed his toes into it, grinding out an imaginary cigarette. He didn’t know what to do, honestly. “I’ll deal with it. Don’t worry.”

 First on his list was getting some much-needed clarification about whether she’d known him from the outset or not. If she did, then there was no need for him to be so twisted up about her, because he wouldn’t try to make something out of nothing. She would have been a liar, then, and he was done with liars. He’d simply play his part for the next two weeks, and they could both move on.

 He waited until James disappeared from the building, and then waited a little longer until they were out of sight, before stepping into the chilly night himself. It was late enough that anyone waiting to see him would have gone away by then, but his bodyguard was already there with the car to take him home. A ridiculous indulgence, one he had tried his hardest to do without for so long, but one he sorely needed these days to protect himself.

 Tom threw the rucksack in the back seat and lifted a leg to scoot inside the warm interior, but paused when a flash of red caught his eye. He froze, swiveling around to look back in the direction he’d seen it, his eyes carefully focusing on the flash of color.

 Astrid sat in the front window of the pub across the street talking animatedly with two women, haloed in the soft yellow light coming from behind her. His mouth went dry like he’d been on a week-long march through the Sahara with no oases to refill his canteens. 

God, but she was beautiful.

 And every part of his body suddenly wanted to be close to every part of her body. Despite everything that had happened that night, there was no denying this truth.

 “Tom?” the driver asked, wondering why he stalled.

 Tom stepped back outside the vehicle and shut the door. “Take my things home, please. I’ll catch a cab in a little bit after a drink at the pub.”

 Faisal, his bodyguard, frowned. “I wouldn’t recommend that. That place is full of people who saw the show.”

 Sometimes he hated fame. Couldn’t he just pop into a pub for a drink... or to stalk a woman like a regular bloke?

 Tom shook his head. “I’ll be fine. I’ll text if I need back up, alright?”

 Faisal grimaced, shook his head, but wave his hands dismissively. “On your head be it.”

 Tom couldn’t help but think that was a remarkably poignant thing to say at a time like this, in so many ways. “Good night, Faisal.”

 “Night, Tom,” he replied. “Don’t drink too much.”

 Before he could stop himself, Tom was already across the street with his hand on the brass door handle leading into the pub.

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddleston fan fiction #tom hiddleston fan fic #tom hiddleston fanfic #the swan #swan #swanseries #actor!tom

[enchantedbyhiddles]

I entered the ballot for Hamlet and I didn’t win. Of course I’m really sad about it, because one of my biggest wishes (probably the biggest wish) as a fan of Tom won’t happen. Since I became a fan many years ago I hoped and wished for him to play Hamlet and seeing that would have been marvelous and exciting and I would have cried tears of joy. It is my favourite play and the more I saw of Tom the more I was convinced that he would be perfect for the role. Alas it won’t be. Pure chance that I wasn’t lucky this time and that’s okay. I’m sad and hearbroken, but it wasn’t my luck.

Others will hopefully make great memories and experience a magic evening/afternoon and will come back from it happy. Maybe they share a bit of that excitement and make others who couldn’t make it happy with that. 

From what I get RADA tried their best to make this fair and equal for everyone. No refreshing the page a thousand times and then being lucky based on the speed of your internet, as it happens too often. No big amounts of tickets sold to re-tailers, no patrons that picked the best seets days or weeks before. Everyone had similar chances and some were lucky and some weren’t.

They also tried their best to make sure that not the highest bidder gets the tickets. Of course tickets are always being sold illegally. It happens with plays, with important sport events, with concerts and basically everything else. RADA made it as hard as possible for those people though: ID required, short time notice between informing people and booking, names have to be submitted, etc. There still will be people that cheat the system, there always are, but I can’t think of anything RADA could do against it, short of having everyone queue up in person to buy tickets directly before the start of a show.

It’s unfair to through around accusations, because you weren’t lucky. Luck isn’t deserved, it happens. Equally and unbiased it picks its winners and that leaves many people unhappy that simply weren’t lucky. No one is at fault for that. Anger doesn’t change it one bit. It just is.

Believe me, I see my biggest dream as a fangirl shattered, because I won’t ever see Tom playing Hamlet. And that hurts. A lot. I hoped for this for years and this hope died when year and year went by without him playing the role and then so many other actors took on the role in London in the last few years that I convinced myself it wouldn’t happen. But it does and I won’t see it and that hurts. Yet it is simply not being lucky and I can’t thank RADA enough for at least trying to make this as fair as possible and not making the most profit, but giving everyone equal chances.

#you have no idea how difficult it is to admit for me #that i am indeed heartbroken and sad #and to share that here #i know though that no one is at fault for this #and it is not that i have lost something #but i simply didn't gain a big treasure #so life moves on #it will hurt to see all the people being excited about it #and even more when they say how great it was #but i will also be happy that they got the opportunity #and cherish that it did happen #and they made hopefully good memories

[beneaththestarsandoverheclouds]

I know we all said that’s Loki’s speech to Odin in the first Thor film was very Hamlet like. But his reaction to his mother just brought back memories of Tom’s Hamlet at RADA. I couldn’t cry then cause Tom was literally at my feet but I’ll cry over Loki now

#tom hiddleston #loki

[londontheatre]

East at King’s Head Theatre – Photo Credit Alex Brenner

There’s a vigour and intensity in East that keeps proceedings fresh, even if not all of the script has aged well. Was there a missed opportunity to bring it from the previous century into this one? I personally don’t think so: the language, for instance, at times poetic, at other times downright vulgar, would have made an impact in the Seventies, and for this play to shine in this sparkling revival is ultimately impressive.

The pace of this production suits the fast and furious nature of London living, changing track from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again with seemingly remarkable ease. This being the East End a generation ago, there’s a certain amount of fighting (which, to be honest, could have been performed more convincingly) and generous dosages of profanity – I didn’t keep a tally, but East felt like it was up there with The Book of Mormon with the strong language.

It felt natural, though, and contrasted well with the more distinguished theeing and thouing found elsewhere. Musical Director Carol Arnopp was sat at a piano, so there’s a relative novelty in live music permeating the play throughout, and the genres of music were almost as broad as the range of topics and themes covered in the dialogue, touching on everything to simple dreams and ambitions to the theory of relativity.

It is, on one level, thoroughly disjointed. With as many scenes as this, change effectively becomes a theme in its own right. It’s not quite like channel hopping on television, but the format of proceedings took some getting used to. Everyone at some point, separately, gets very passionate, and everyone has their own soliloquy. It was also pleasing to see that some thought had gone into this production – one particular scene change, after Dad (Russell Barnett) had waxed lyrical about a fascist march through Aldgate, is a substantial clear-up operation. In almost any other production this would be as tedious as backing up data to a cloud storage platform, but here, it’s a rare couple of moments in which this family comes together for a common purpose.

Some of what goes on is far from comfortable viewing but, goodness me, what a startling and yet beautiful reminder this is of the power of words – and the power of theatre. But there’s more. Certain scenes involve physical theatre, and extraordinarily convincing sound effects voiced by the company. While Bat Out of Hell The Musical produces the sound of a Harley Davidson with electric guitars, East simply mimics one with the human voice.

A recollection from Mum (Debra Penny) about what happened in a cinema screen had some members of the audience audibly gasping. Sylv (a sharply compelling Boadicea Ricketts) fights back as best she can against an almost overwhelming masculinity, embodied in Mike (James Craze) and Les (Jack Condon), whose singing voices are a delight, by the way, during a song in the second half, but there’s a metaphor in the two women on stage being outnumbered by three men.

There’s a lot of talk of apparent sexual prowess, and a fair amount of miming goes on: the two are not necessarily, without giving too much away, mutually exclusive. I cannot claim to fully grasp everything that went on, but the evening whizzed by in this warts (sorry) and all tale. Full of energy, this is an uncompromising and dynamic production.

Review by Chris Omaweng

Full of wit, lust, and fury, East remains a startlingly original and influential piece of theatre – a triumphant shout of youth and energy. Its language veers from Shakespearean verse to the depths of profanity without missing a beat, teeming with life in all its murk and glory.

East catapults us into the rowdy youth of Mike and Les as they fight over Mike’s girl Sylv and become unexpected allies. Assaultive, riotously funny, and entirely unapologetic, we are lured into their tall-tales of felony and bravado and we come to recognise their brutal kind of charm. Sylv knows her most potent weapon is her sexuality, but she still has the spit and pluck to level with the boys. Meanwhile, Mum and Dad live separate inner lives, both coming alive in the flickering light of memories, recalling lives they once led – or wish they had.

Bringing East to life at the King’s Head Theatre will be Russell Barnett (Hamlet, The Riverside Theatre; The Tempest, The Drayton), Jack Condon (Housed, The Old Vic; Clybourne Park, RADA; Scuttlers, RADA), James Craze (The Beginning of the End, Hull Truck Theatre and Theatre N16; Home Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East; Ernie – a One Man Play by James Craze), Debra Penny (Our Country’s Good, National Theatre; Flowers of the Forest, Jermyn Street Theatre; Martha Josie and the Chinese Elvis, Bolton Octagon and tour) and Boadicea Ricketts (professional debut). Carol Arnopp (Freelance keys, RTÉ Concert Orchestra; Children’s Musical Director, The Magic Flute, Cork Opera House) will take the role of the pianist and musical director.

East by Steven Berkoff Performance Dates Wednesday 10th January – Saturday 3rd February 2018, 7pm Tuesday – Saturday, 7pm Sunday matinees, 3pm Extra matinee – Saturday 3rd February, 3pm No performances on Mondays Running time 2 hours (including interval) Location King’s Head Theatre, 115 Upper Street, Islington, London N1 1QN http://ift.tt/1fCF0rr

http://ift.tt/2mjZJsN London Theatre 1

#IFTTT #London Theatre 1

[hiddlescheekbones]

Hamlet at RADA – a very long and very detailed collection of memories (2/4)

Below is a recollection of every single moment I can remember from one of the best days of my life. The day I saw Tom Hiddleston as Hamlet at the Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre, RADA, London.

I wrote this as a journal entry for myself, in hopes that I’ll never forget each moment. But also, since this was such a limited availability performance, and we don’t know if it will hypothetically be transferred somewhere, I hope this can give you curious minds a little insight of the play.

Disclaimer:

This is not a review;

Contains detailed descriptions of some scenes from the play so read at your care;

All opinions and emotions are from my own point of view and I understand other people could have lived it differently;

I went to see it mainly for Tom so pardon me if my focus is mainly on him;

Unfortunately, I can’t remember every scene or in what order they played, but I tried my best; I wrote 5 pages worth of notes when I got back at the hotel so this is as close as I can remember.

This memory is divided into four parts:

Before the play

The play (I II)

After the play

If you attended and there’s anything you feel I missed or got wrong please let me know! If you didn’t and want details on some scene or a description of a scene I didn’t include, also the same.

Enjoy!

PS – English is not my first language, nor am I a writer in my daily life. Far from it. I probably didn’t find the right words and I repeat a lot of them. Forgive me. I have a more physical and materialistic approach rather than interpreting the play. For that, I recommend you read these brilliant reviews x x

The Play (I)

A tall shadow walks on stage from the back and sits at the piano. A single light focuses on it.

There he is. Tom Hiddleston live and in colour. I grab my friend’s hand as I’m holding everything inside me and try not to make a noise.

He’s looking down at the piano. He looks up, straight in my direction. The whole world freezes in that moment. There are tears in his eyes. His stare is piercing and intense. His eyes two blue marbles.

Some deep breaths.

He strikes some keys. He restarts and sings in a soft warm voice, the ode from Ophelia to her father, carrying such grief that is heartbreaking.

“And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?

No, no, he is dead;

Go to thy deathbed;

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll.

He is gone, he is gone.”

There are tears running to my face at this point. I couldn’t have asked for a better first impression.

This song will return at least twice during the play. The melody reminds me of “Days in the Sun”, an original song from the latest Beauty and the Beast film.

The lights go down and the next scene is set. The black wall goes up, revealing a wall with windows at the centre and three doors: one at the left with the portrait of King Hamlet right above, one glass door at the middle, and one hidden door at the right, with a portrait of King Claudius on it. A desk and chair are placed facing the audience. A big square carpet with the coat of arms of Denmark in the middle is placed in the centre of the stage. The King seats at the desk and a technician (who I found out at the end was an actual theatre tech member) counts down from 5 to 0 like the scene is ready to go on air on live television.

Claudius first speech is delivered as a TV announcement to the people. He’s wearing a grey suit and tie. Nicholas Farrell, the actor who plays him, makes a noticeable pause in the middle of his monologue as he looks like he’s trying to remember his line, but recovers like a sir.

At the end, the rest of the cast cheers and Hamlet enters through the left door. Immediately his presence fills the room. He stands tall and with great posture. All actors have great voice projection.

Tom’s voice is loud but enjoyable like honey. There are an anger and bitterness in his first speech. He’s wearing a dark blue ripped sweater, a long black coat, black jeans (or they used to be black) and brown boots. His hair is long and curly, and his beard has grown quite a bit since the rehearsal photos came out.

Hamlet’s first soliloquy “O that this too too sullied flesh would melt” sets the mood for every other soliloquy of the play: all lights out, sudden sound, and a cold blue-ish light over the actor speaking. Tom makes an effort to look at all points of the audience: all around the several rows of the stalls and up to the balcony. Pretty sure he makes eye contact with a few people, but I’m not sure if it’s deliberate or not.

Enter Horatia, Hamlet (who has lost his coat) gives her a big hug that sweeps her off the ground. All their hugs are quite endearing and tense. Caroline Martin is wearing jeans, a long blue shirt, black boots and red lipstick. She has quite a presence and an excellent powerful voice.

Laertes says goodbye to Ophelia and Polonius gives his advice reading from a paper. Laertes wears some very laid back clothes, Polonius wears a dark suit, and Ophelia wears ankle long jeans, a black top and blouse and some flats. Ophelia tells Laertes to be safe and he shows her a box of condoms. Polonius tells Laertes to be safe and gives him an even larger box. Ophelia tells Polonius of Hamlet’s advances while crossing her fingers behind her back (I saw this because she had her back to me, not sure if it was evident for everyone).

Hamlet sees the Ghost played by the brilliant Ansu Kabia. The Ghost enters by the middle glass door, so Hamlet has moved to our end of the stage. First, he stands, back to us and I feel it. The so famous delicious smell that emanates from Tom. It’s quite indescribable but not at all what I expected. It’s a light but imposing smell, no other actor has a particular scent, which lingers after he walks by. It’s a citric sweet but fresh perfume. This is also the first time I realise how extremely tall Tom is. His clothes fit him perfectly. He also has great posture, large shoulders and small waist. He kneels. He’s so close I could touch him. Also, his feet are enormous.

After the Ghost scene comes the first comical moment of the play. The first time the Ghost shouts from the ground “SWEAR!”, Hamlet points at the ground under the carpet and proceeds to sneak himself under it and crawls towards us coming out from the other side as if he’s looking for him.

It makes the whole room giggle.

The set changes again. There’s now a three-seat white sofa facing us and two individual armchairs at the sides facing the big sofa.

The hilarious Polonius speaks of Hamlet’s madness. Rosacrantz and Guildastern (played by the same young actresses that play Marcella and Bernarda) are introduced. They wear fancy lady suits and Rosacrantz wears heels.

Hamlet appears behind the wall and can be seen through the glass windows. He’s wearing a hoodie with the hood on, carries a Danish flag on his shoulders, his face is painted like a football fan and he’s reading Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive.

The hilarious scene with Polonius takes place, three moments stayed with me:

 “Have you a daughter? (…) Conception is a blessing.” As he says this he proceeds to do a thrusting move towards the sofa. One foot on the pillows and the other on the floor as his hips move back and forward in a very suggestive manner. One of the girls behind me lets out a hysterical laugh. I’m just left there with my chin on the floor. No one has told me about this.

They sit on the sofa. Hamlet still mocking Polonius mimics his movements by crossing legs at the same time

The way Tom delivers the following:

(joking) “You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal—

(serious) except my life,

(laughing) except my life,

(crying) except my life.”

Rosacrantz and Guildastern are back and they bring a pill radio. Hamlet is immediately cheered up and they do a little group dance. And, oh boy, did I imagine I would ever see this day. This is the only moment in the play I can see traces of Tom in his face. He really does enjoy dancing. The dance involves some synchronized moves with their hands in the air and a few turns. Hamlet lifts Rosacrantz off the ground in a swing dance back lift. Everyone is genuinely laughing.

Edit [April 2018]. Finally a confirmation of the song:

After a heated confrontation with the two friends, they end up removing his face paint.

Cue “What a piece of work is a man” my favourite soliloquy. I can still hear it. He’s very mellow and sad, you feel sorry for him.

Polonius comes back announcing the arrival of the players (I can’t really remember if it’s at this point he trips in one of the chairs, great stunt). The Player King delivers Hecuba’s speech and what a performance that was. Pretty sure I saw some tears in the audience. Polonius obnoxiously interrupts the performance a couple of times with Hamlet shushing him like he’s a child and even threatening violence with a fist up.

Polonius gives Ophelia the Holy Bible to read. Enter Hamlet, the whole room goes dark and a single light shines on him. “To be or not to be. THAT is the question” He cries.

He finds Ophelia. “I loved you not.” They get closer and closer, the room is quiet. They kiss. “Get thee to a nunnery.” They kiss again. She takes her blouse off and there’s a noise from the back “Where is your father?” He gets mad, completely enraged.

The play within a play scene comes up. They’ve put the desk and chair on our side of the stage and the sofa and armchairs on the other side. The carpet is gone. The scene proceeds, with Hamlet sitting again very close to us why the play doesn’t start. Unfortunately, this was the only moment of the play that I couldn’t figure what was going on the other side, namely the King’s reaction, as we had the two players reenact the scene in front of us on the desk.

Hamlet rushes and interrupts them, and on the way to climb on the table, Tom misses the chair and almost falls but recovers like a champ. Everyone leaves and there’s the moment with the recorder of which I clearly remember Tom’s long fingers fiddling with the thing.

There’s the scene with the King praying and Hamlet appears from the back with his rapier. Very intense scene.

Jump to the scene with Gertrude, when Hamlet is pretty much possessed with rage. He kills Polonius through King Claudius’ portrait on the hidden door on the right and runs in tears to our end of the stage without realizing who he has murdered.

The scene with Gertrude is one of the most emotionally heavy and makes me tear up. Lolita Chakrabarti is amazing in portraying the despair of a mother.

Hamlet is sent away to England. The back wall with the doors goes up and a projection of clouds can be seen.

Ophelia has gone insane and is wearing some ripped clothes now. I got to say that Kathryn Wilder made me sympathise with her than any other actress has before. There’s a scene on the floor where she points to her belly or intimate parts. 

There’s a loud plane sound and we see Guildastern, Horatia, Hamlet, and Rosacrantz all wearing long black coats. The planes are the soldiers from Norway. The four of them look like they’re about to drop the edgiest album of the year.

#hamlet #tom hiddleston #rada hamlet #rada #kenneth branagh #william shakespeare #rada hamlet a memory #2 / 4 #tbh i can't remember the order of these last scenes #or when the intermission comes #it's all becoming a blur #*cries*

[hiddlescheekbones]

Hamlet at RADA – a very long and very detailed collection of memories (4/4)

Below is a recollection of every single moment I can remember from one of the best days of my life. The day I saw Tom Hiddleston as Hamlet at the Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre, RADA, London.

I wrote this as a journal entry for myself, in hopes that I’ll never forget each moment. But also, since this was such a limited availability performance, and we don’t know if it will hypothetically be transferred somewhere, I hope this can give you curious minds a little insight of the play.

Disclaimer:

This is not a review;

Contains detailed descriptions of some scenes from the play so read at your care;

All opinions and emotions are from my own point of view and I understand other people could have lived it differently;

I went to see it mainly for Tom so pardon me if my focus is mainly on him;

Unfortunately, I can’t remember every scene or in what order they played, but I tried my best; I wrote 5 pages worth of notes when I got back at the hotel so this is as close as I can remember.

This memory is divided into four parts:

Before the play

The play (I II)

After the play

If you attended and there’s anything you feel I missed or got wrong please let me know! If you didn’t and want details on some scene or a description of a scene I didn’t include, also the same.

Enjoy!

PS – English is not my first language, nor am I a writer in my daily life. Far from it. I probably didn’t find the right words and I repeat a lot of them. Forgive me. I have a more physical and materialistic approach rather than interpreting the play. For that, I recommend you read these brilliant reviews x x

After the play

5.30 pm – All actors get back on stage for their bows. Everyone is all smiles as they get a standing ovation. Tom comes back for his solo bow and, for the first time, I actually see him. The real Tom that was hiding behind Hamlet. He’s smiling, one eyebrow raised. He’s proud and touched. I’m still crying on the last time he looks straight in my direction. He nods and calls the rest of the cast and crew on stage.

He leaves from the left back side of the stage. Good night, sweet prince.

I have to sit down as my legs are shaking from all the tension. The girl behind me is still crying and is approached by another girl that asks her if she’s okay. In that moment I forgot to exchange one last word with the drama professor. I hope she enjoyed it, she seemed pleased.

My friend and I are speechless but, at the same time, we want to talk about everything. We leave the theatre. I overhear someone say “And Tom Hiddleston is a very intelligent actor”. It’s raining outside. Of course, or it wouldn’t be London. The chill air feels good.

6 pm – We’re back at the hotel. I remember some other small details that I can’t quite place when they happen and I write them down:

At points, Tom stood so close I could count his curls if I wanted.

In the ghost scene, he has his rapier out and slams it on the table so loudly it scared the living soul out of me because I was not expecting it.

In one scene he laid on the ground screaming for revenge and his top clothes lifted so we could see his belly.

Actually, we could see it too on the dancing scene and when he was held at gun point.

In the gravedigger scene, he stroke his chin beard while contemplating the odd man.

One time he crouched in front of me and I could see the famous black pants someone commented on.

At least a couple of times, he slicked his hair back with one his hands.

During one of the last soliloquies, while the clouds were being projected on the back and the room was dark, there was nothing else in the world for me, except his face and his voice. I couldn’t see anything else or hear anyone else. It was a beautiful moment right before the intermission that I’ll never forget.

I’m tired. My feet hurt. I’m exhausted. Little did I know my body would succumb to sickness in the next few hours. But I was happy. I could still feel his perfume when I went to sleep. All was well in the state of Denmark.

#tom hiddleston #hamlet #rada hamlet #rada #kenneth branagh #william shakespeare #rada hamlet a memory #4 / 4 #now it's out of my shoulder #i hope you enjoy it

[hiddlescheekbones]

Hamlet at RADA – a very long and very detailed collection of memories (3/4)

Below is a recollection of every single moment I can remember from one of the best days of my life. The day I saw Tom Hiddleston as Hamlet at the Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre, RADA, London.

I wrote this as a journal entry for myself, in hopes that I’ll never forget each moment. But also, since this was such a limited availability performance, and we don’t know if it will hypothetically be transferred somewhere, I hope this can give you curious minds a little insight of the play.

Disclaimer:

This is not a review;

Contains detailed descriptions of some scenes from the play so read at your care;

All opinions and emotions are from my own point of view and I understand other people could have lived it differently;

I went to see it mainly for Tom so pardon me if my focus is mainly on him;

Unfortunately, I can’t remember every scene or in what order they played, but I tried my best; I wrote 5 pages worth of notes when I got back at the hotel so this is as close as I can remember.

This memory is divided into four parts:

Before the play

The play (I II)

After the play

If you attended and there’s anything you feel I missed or got wrong please let me know! If you didn’t and want details on some scene or a description of a scene I didn’t include, also the same.

Enjoy!

PS – English is not my first language, nor am I a writer in my daily life. Far from it. I probably didn’t find the right words and I repeat a lot of them. Forgive me. I have a more physical and materialistic approach rather than interpreting the play. For that, I recommend you read these brilliant reviews x x

The play (II)

4.30 pm – It has been two hours and it feels like it has gone so quickly. The drama professor asks us how we think our hero is doing. I laugh. Two girls come in the theatre and are directed at their seats. It seems latecomers aren’t admitted during the play, as the actors use the same entrances as the audience to enter and exit scenes.

4.45 pm – The play restarts as the lights go down. This is the most time we won’t see Tom on stage.

There are some loud bangs from our left and Laertes comes back threatening the King at gun point.

Ophelia and Horatia come back with flasks filled with flowers’ aromas. Ophelia gets the gun and makes everyone kneel in a circle and sing the song we’ve heard at the beginning of the play. She threatens to kill herself but again she feels something in her belly and runs away. 

Horatia gets a letter from Hamlet and is happy. The King and Laertes plot against Hamlet. We receive news of Ophelia’s death.

Everyone leaves. A hole in a shape of a rectangle opens on the floor in the centre of the stage. The gravedigger starts singing in the most comical scene of the whole play. He uses the skulls to sing, lines four of them on the floor and uses other bones as drumsticks. Enter Hamlet and Horatia. The whole scene is very funny but also has the only hiccup on Tom’s side. When the gravedigger says “he that is mad and sent into England.” Tom replies with “How came he mad?” instead of “Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?” catching Ansi Kabi off guard as there was a small pause. So Tom decides to skip that and ask immediately “Upon what ground?” and the scene proceeds normally.

Hamlet grabs Yorick’s skull and starts impersonating him in a Scottish accent (or so I think it was). Great comedic performance and a nod at Tom’s impersonating abilities. 

During the funeral scene Hamlet and Horatia crouch at our right. Hamlet has his hood on to hide his face. While Laertes speaks, I took a look at Tom and I could see him in the dark getting emotionally ready for what came next.

Sean Foley comes back as Osric for another hilarious performance. Hamlet mimics his marching similar to what he did with Polonius.

The last scene is approaching and there’s already a feeling of longing in my stomach. A metal runway is placed and Hamlet and Laertes exchange greetings.

The sword stand is placed in front of us. It holds all the swords and the leather jackets and gloves. Hamlet undresses his coat and dresses the leather jacket a few feet from us. The sword fighting scene starts.

The choreography is remarkable. None of them misses a bit. After the third round, Laertes strikes Hamlet in the back. From here on it’s chaos. Everything happens so close to the audience it’s hard not to flinch. The queen dies, Laertes is struck, and Hamlet makes Claudius drink the poison at our feet. Hamlet retreats to the back of the stage next to Gertrude and dies holding her hand next to Horatia. I’m crying and so are a lot of people. A girl behind me is sobbing loudly.

“The rest is silence”. These were the last words we heard Tom speak. Hamlet is carried in arms out of the stage through the exit on our left at the sound of a recorded version of the first song in the voice of a choir. Very much like the scene in Kenneth’s film.

#hamlet #tom hiddleston #rada hamlet #kenneth branagh #rada #william shakespeare #rada hamlet a memory #3 / 4

[wolfpawn]

Life is a Game of Risks

Summary -  Tom walks into a cafe near RADA while working on Hamlet to see a woman sitting down in a corner, he knows her, but he is not sure from where. It finally dawns on him, an old family friend, the one that suggested to him to go into acting and whom as they ascended to adulthood, he had a crush on, but time passed and nothing happened. Now he meets Alexianna again and he is not going to miss the chance to speak with her once more, but there is an issue, time has not been good to her, her life is more complex now. Can Tom handle what it entails when the one you care for has a child already and can Alexianna deal with the pressures of being the real-life girlfriend of the internet’s boyfriend?

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary -  Tom and Alexianna get coffee and discuss things in greater detail, leading to a few reveals about Alexianna's life over the past few years.

TRIGGERS - Past domestic abuse, Past emotional abuse, Past sexual abuse.

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'So, is there someone, in particular, you need to be home for at five for?' He asked, trying to not sound nosy. In truth he just wanted Alexianna to actually talk about herself and thought it a good place to start.

'Not really, no.'

'So no boyfriend?'

'No, you?'

'Not really into guys myself, no.' Tom smiled before laughing slightly, 'No, I am single these days.'

'No more pop princesses?' Alexianna teased.

'No.' The way Tom looked at his cup told her a lot. 'That is not something I would ever consider again.'

'That's your choice.' Alexianna stated, not pushing the issue any further.

'Do you talk to your mother these days?' There was a sudden tension in the air as Alexianna looked at him silently. 'I'm sorry, I should not have asked.'

'I haven't spoken to my mother in four years.'

'I would have thought you would be happier about that if she was the same as she was when you grew up,' Tom prodded gently.

'I suppose I should, it came to a head, everything, and I needed her, but she wasn't there, I was really down about it. I thought she would be there, because she knew what it was like, but no.'

Tom frowned, unsure of what to say. 'I'm sorry.'

'Not your fault.' Alexianna dismissed.

'Was it even yours?' she did not answer. 'Lexi?'

'It doesn't matter. I know it wasn't, but still, part of my brain niggles at me that if I had done this or that better, it wouldn't have happened.' she explained. Tom took her hand in his and squeezed it gently, to show her he was there, noticing that it was hot and sweaty. 'I was married.' she admitted it as though it was something dirty, something to be ashamed of. 'But he left, four years ago.'

'I...' There was nothing Tom could think of to say to that.

'I have not heard anything from him since, nothing. I finally applied last year for a divorce, but I couldn't find him to sign the papers.'

'Where does that leave you?' Tom asked curiously, knowing nothing of such situations.

'I am doing it through a solicitor that deals with these sorts of cases, but it is not easy.'

'I dare say not. How long were you married?'

'Three years.' the manner in which she said it told Tom it was not the most pleasant of times. 'I made some terrible decisions, it cost me college, everything.'

'So that is why you are back in college now?' She nodded. 'You are so strong.' he commended, smiling encouragingly at her.

'I got a bit sideswiped, but I'm getting there.' Her smile was not as big, or as confident as his, but she still meant it. 'What about you?'

'No marriages or anything, I have been so busy with work, then last year...'

'You sound like you regret it.'

'I do, in many respects, I don't in others.' he decided to be honest, she was more than so with him. 'Is that why your mother...'

'When it happened her, it was my father’s fault, he was in the wrong, he was the problem, when it happened me, it was all me, I made the mistakes, I was the reason he left.' she stated.

'How does Daniel feel about it?' Tom asked, referencing her older brother.

'Daniel wants to know where he is,' she admitted. 'So he can find him and bury him.'

Tom smiled, Daniel was only two years older than Alexianna and they were always close, she almost mothered him in many respects, cooking, cleaning, being the mother they didn't really have. 'Do you still talk?'

'He works on the rigs up in the North Sea, he is down every few months, he pays my rent and everything, he forked out for me to get back to school.' She smiled fondly. 'I just make sure he is fed and his clothes washed when he is back. He is home at the moment.'

'Good, tell him I said hi,' Tom was relieved she at least had her brother for company.

'I will.' she promised. She looked at the expensive watch on Tom's wrist. 'I have taken enough of your day.' she rose to her feet.

Tom was somewhat startled by her jumping out of the chair. 'It's no trouble, Lexi.' she gave a small grimace of a smile. 'Do you not like that name anymore?'

'It brings back some memories.' she explained.

'Bad ones?' Tom guessed.

'No, not bad.' there was a distance in her voice and a smile on her face as she said that.

'I don't understand.'

'Your family always called me that, you guys and Daniel, so it just...it can be hard hearing it, I miss those times.'

'Have you spoken to Emma recently?'

'I haven't spoken to Emma in ten years.' Tom frowned. 'She went to college and I just...I never heard from her again, I guess she got busy.'

'Did you try to contact her?'

'Yeah, for a while, but things got bad then so...' She gently took the bag off the table, 'I better run, Tom. I need to get back before Daniel, he lost his old key so we got new locks in so he doesn't have a key, he'll be locked out otherwise.'

'Of course,' he rose to his feet, noting how she never grew over the five foot three she had been when he last saw her. He realised too she lied about someone waiting for her but said nothing. 'I know this is odd, but would you mind if we met again soon?' She looked up at him, perplexed. 'I enjoyed catching up with you, not many people have time for normal talk these days, they all want to know who I know and how I can help them.'

'The joys of celebrity.' Alexianna joked before becoming serious. 'I...' Tom looked at her pleadingly. 'You have my number now, you can talk whenever you're free.'

'I promise I won't give it to anyone.' he held up his hand like he was swearing an oath.

'I know, I have far more leverage than you in this. I am a nameless no one, you are a movie star with crazy fans.' she grinned.

Tom licked his teeth, 'Yes, the ball is in your court there.'

'I would never do that Tom, you know...you can trust me.'

'I don't know you as I did,' he acknowledged. 'But the Alexianna I knew would never tell anyone anything she knew she shouldn't. I think you're still her.'

'That's a lot of faith to put on a person you have not known in years. Has that bitten your ass before now?'

'Yes, it has. I guess I am a slow learner.'

'Or the perpetual optimist,' she smiled. 'I won't give it to anyone, I have a lot of shit on teenage you and I never even uttered a word to your sisters or my brother.'

'Like what?' Tom asked curiously.

'The time you stole your mom's car and went to buy alcohol and then dinged her car on the way back.' Tom's eyes widened with horror. 'I saw you, and I said nothing.'

'Thank you.' Tom smiled. Alexianna went to extend her hand to shake his, but Tom leant forward and embraced her in a hug. Part of her wanted to pull back, but the smell of his cologne engulfed her, along with his kind gesture, making her cease her protest and embrace him back. 'You've filled out.' She noted when they moved apart.

'You too.' Tom immediately stuttered. 'Not that you are fat or anything, just that you got breasts. I mean, shit.' In a mix of hilarity and mortification, Alexianna laughed. 'I'm so sorry, I made this so awkward.'

'It's fine. I will see you soon Tom.' she turned and walked away.

When she was out of sight, Tom put his hands behind his head. 'I am a fucking idiot.'

'Do I want to know?' he turned to see Branagh behind him.

'I just bumped into an old friend today.'

'Riiiight.' the older actor asked, not seeing how that was an issue.

'I just told her she filled out, then proceeded to tell her that I did not mean to imply she was fat, but that she got breasts.' he explained. Branagh stood still for a moment, computing Tom's words before erupting in laughter. 'Yes, I have just made a tit of myself.'

It took a few moments for Branagh to cease laughing. 'Please do not tell me this "family friend" is someone you wished to pursue as something more with.' Tom did not respond, 'You don't like making life easy on yourself, do you?'

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fic #chapter 5 #Life is a Game of Risks