LIVING NEWSPAPER: EDITION 2 (Royal Court)***

 

By Cal

Link: Living Newspaper: Edition 2 On Demand - Royal Court (cogplayer.com) £10

Available until: Sunday 27^th December 4pm

Living Newspaper is a great idea and it’s a very impressive undertaking. The writers and actors have so little time in which to do their jobs and the fact that they’re producing a new and really quite long film every week is remarkable.

There are several items of news, taking us through the pages of the newspaper and around the Royal Court Theatre. Most use the spoken word but there is also a lot of music and dancing.

LIVING NEWSPAPER EDITION 1 (Royal Court Theatre)****

 

By Cal

Link: Living Newspaper: Edition 1 On Demand - Royal Court (cogplayer.com)

Available until: Sunday 20^th December 4pm

Living Newspaper is the Royal Court’s latest lockdown project. There will be one a week for six weeks and judging from this first one, they’ll last about ninety minutes.

There was a lot in this first episode. It features the work of twelve writers, performed by a company of thirteen actors. The cameras go to different locations in the Royal Court and in each location, there’s a performance.

OVER THERE (Royal Court/Digital Theatre)**

 

By Cal

Link: https://www.digitaltheatre.com/consumer/production/over-there 16+

Available until: Unknown

The story of separated twins (particularly, but not exclusively, identical twins) has been explored in many ways by many writers. William Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors has two sets of separated twins and presents the situation as a farce. Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper examines class differences (though I don’t think it’s ever confirmed that the boys are twins, merely that they are identical boys with the same birthday) and while Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers is full of hilarious moments, it ends in tragedy (which isn’t a spoiler considering this is revealed in the first scene). C. S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy and Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene also have storylines based around separated twins. The storyline has been told in many different ways and I haven’t even got onto the subject of evil twins.