Diaries

[french frank]

Yup, that's the bit ... Cherubini and Berlioz - two terrible men!

[Mandryka]

Thanks for the reference to Backdrops - I don't know it & will try to read it. But what do you mean by its being 'santised'?

And what are you implying by suggesting (on what basis? genuine enquiry) that the Met tore pages from Orton's diary?

I think that one can read the plays without reading the diary and 'get' exactly what Orton's driving at if you have a mind to do so. What do you mean by "in Loot, for instance, it's virtually impossible to find young actors capable of playing Hal and Dennis.". It sounds very profound and/or mysterious but I don't understand why you say it or the basis for it.

In fact I find many of your posts on this Board difficult to 'read'. You are a very awkward person to debate with, because of the almost passive-aggressive nature of your mode of argument.

Could you try just making statements, judgements too if you like, backed by evidence please, pretty please

If you've read KW's Diaries, you don't need to read Back Drops - which is less a real diary than a version of KW's chat show act put into the form of a diary: certain incidents did actually happen but not as described in Back Drops, which attempts to give a spurious 'one year in the life of' account.

Also: the KW represented in Back Drops is very much one for public consumption - no bitchy stories about colleagues, no misanthropy, no confessions of sexual shame and loneliness. Hence: 'sanitised'.

The publication of KW's REAL Diaries upset a lot of people (possibly you included), as it revealed a man who was frequently cruel, sometimes racist, right wing and (self) oppressed. I know at least one person who now refuses to watch KW's films on the basis of what he learned from those diaries. Personally, I liked KW more for having read them, as they showed him to be vulnerable and contradictory: in short, a real person. People who object to his frequent references to 'Negroes' and the 'swamping ' of London with 'coloured' immigrants ignore his donation to anit-apartheid causes 'because I abhor the racist state.'

You probably don't read the Daily Mail, so you will have missed this article, which refers to the fate of the original Orton Diaries:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167197/Why-I-blame-murder-Sixties-playwright-Joe-Orton-theatre-critic-friend-Michael-Thornton.html

As to the casting of the boys in Loot: Orton was asking a lot of his actors, here - Hal and Dennis are young men (ideally in their late teens, or very early twenties), yet they do not use the kind of language spoken by most young men of their background and to carry off Orton's lines requires a technique well beyond the reach of most young actors. I've never seen the pair played well and I've seen many productions of this play. The other big problem that Orton faced (though it is not such a problem now) was his own requirement that the two boys be believably bisexual ('The boys in Manchester are poor', he wrote of the first 'proper' production, 'Clean as a whistle sexually.You can't imagine them having each other, or Fay, or anyone....'). Though he was apparently pleased with Kenneth Cranham's performance as Hal in the West End production, he was not so enamoured of Simon Ward as Dennis.

Not sure what you mean by my 'passive aggressive' stance, but I hope the above provides interesting back-up to my assertions.

[Mandryka]

Another fascinating literary diary was that kept by John Fowles:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Journals-1-v/dp/0099443422/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&qid=1305824743&sr=8-20

These attracted their share of controversy when published around the time of Fowles's death. Idiotic and obscurantist 'left wing' critics gleefully accused him of anti-semitism, on the basis of certain remarks made about the likes of Tom Maschler, Arnold Wesker and (to a lesser extent) Harold Pinter. All of it nonsense - I've certainly read much worse things that have been written about those three.

I'd recommend Fowles's Journals as a unique account of a struggling writer suddenly encountering major success and having his life gradually poisoned by it. Very little seems to have made J.F. happy....

[amateur51]

If you've read KW's Diaries, you don't need to read Back Drops - which is less a real diary than a version of KW's chat show act put into the form of a diary: certain incidents did actually happen but not as described in Back Drops, which attempts to give a spurious 'one year in the life of' account.

Also: the KW represented in Back Drops is very much one for public consumption - no bitchy stories about colleagues, no misanthropy, no confessions of sexual shame and loneliness. Hence: 'sanitised'.

The publication of KW's REAL Diaries upset a lot of people (possibly you included), as it revealed a man who was frequently cruel, sometimes racist, right wing and (self) oppressed. I know at least one person who now refuses to watch KW's films on the basis of what he learned from those diaries. Personally, I liked KW more for having read them, as they showed him to be vulnerable and contradictory: in short, a real person. People who object to his frequent references to 'Negroes' and the 'swamping ' of London with 'coloured' immigrants ignore his donation to anit-apartheid causes 'because I abhor the racist state.'

You probably don't read the Daily Mail, so you will have missed this article, which refers to the fate of the original Orton Diaries:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167197/Why-I-blame-murder-Sixties-playwright-Joe-Orton-theatre-critic-friend-Michael-Thornton.html

As to the casting of the boys in Loot: Orton was asking a lot of his actors, here - Hal and Dennis are young men (ideally in their late teens, or very early twenties), yet they do not use the kind of language spoken by most young men of their background and to carry off Orton's lines requires a technique well beyond the reach of most young actors. I've never seen the pair played well and I've seen many productions of this play. The other big problem that Orton faced (though it is not such a problem now) was his own requirement that the two boys be believably bisexual ('The boys in Manchester are poor', he wrote of the first 'proper' production, 'Clean as a whistle sexually.You can't imagine them having each other, or Fay, or anyone....'). Though he was apparently pleased with Kenneth Cranham's performance as Hal in the West End production, he was not so enamoured of Simon Ward as Dennis.

Not sure what you mean by my 'passive aggressive' stance, but I hope the above provides interesting back-up to my assertions.

Many thanks for this very full response, Mandryka.

What I mean by your passive-aggressive stance can be gleaned by contrasting your two messages - one was full of half-references to who knows what, to a Daily Mail article from 2009, to your interesting opinions, scarcely alluded to in your intial piece, about the types of actor that you believe should be cast, why and how the Back Drops version of the diaries (which Back Drops wasn't apparently, we now learn) is in your view 'sanitised' etc. Each great claim required fleshing out, required that someone should ask you for clarification, rather than your offering it up at the first attempt. I know quite a bit about this because I've been accused of doing it by irritated friends in the past

I hope that I have explained it all adequately; your initial post irritated the pants off me but your reply is exemplary. Many thanks

[Richard Tarleton]

Cosima Wagner's Diaries make fascinating reading - I've only read the abridged version edited by Geoffrey Skelton, but it's a good read - she was a remarkable woman. The Wagner household was clearly short on laughs - in those pre-television days, they had to put up with RW reading them entire libretti, or Shakespeare plays, of an evening. But some great insights. The description of Sunday 25 December 1870 is short but moving.

[Mandryka]

Many thanks for this very full response, Mandryka.

What I mean by your passive-aggressive stance can be gleaned by contrasting your two messages - one was full of half-references to who knows what, to a Daily Mail article from 2009, to your interesting opinions, scarcely alluded to in your intial piece, about the types of actor that you believe should be cast, why and how the Back Drops version of the diaries (which Back Drops wasn't apparently, we now learn) is in your view 'sanitised' etc. Each great claim required fleshing out, required that someone should ask you for clarification, rather than your offering it up at the first attempt. I know quite a bit about this because I've been accused of doing it by irritated friends in the past

I hope that I have explained it all adequately; your initial post irritated the pants off me but your reply is exemplary. Many thanks

I may have caught something off an old lecturer of mine whose tactic was to throw in an incredibly contentious statement at the end of a lecture/tutorial, then leave us to stew for a week until the next time we saw him - when we were full of outraged questions of the 'how could you say that?' variety. It didn't take me long to realise that he did it deliberately, just to get our minds working and sharpen our counter-arguing skills. Not that I do it deliberately, but it obviously made a big impression on me. :)

[Anna]

Your insight is fascinating Mandryka re Orton/Halliwell but as for Cosima Wagner's diaries, as mentioned by Richard above, yes, some moving entries, historically interesting, but not someone you could warm to surely?

[Mandryka]

Your insight is fascinating Mandryka re Orton/Halliwell but as for Cosima Wagner's diaries, as mentioned by Richard above, yes, some moving entries, historically interesting, but not someone you could warm to surely?

I can't say I warmed to Cosima much, though I did rather admire the relationship she had with RW: in many ways, an exemplary couple, doing everything together (including reading Schopenhauer 'for relaxation').

[VodkaDilc]

Alan Bennett's Untold Stories includes a substantial collection of diaries from 1996 - 2004. To quote the back cover of the book: "At times heart-rending and at others extremely funny".

I also recall enjoying Lindsay Anderson's diaries.

[Anna]

Kilvert's Diaries. Who amongst us has not had a sense of unease just occasionally, - for example, the state of near-ecstasy in which Kilvert writes of receiving the caresses of the seven-year-old Carrie Britton, his pushing ivy leaves through keyholes and his description of himself as a sleek otter, like a New Foundland dog? Perhaps some diaries are better left unpublished

[Mandryka]

Kilvert's Diaries. Who amongst us has not had a sense of unease just occasionally, - for example, the state of near-ecstasy in which Kilvert writes of receiving the caresses of the seven-year-old Carrie Britton, his pushing ivy leaves through keyholes and his description of himself as a sleek otter, like a New Foundland dog? Perhaps some diaries are better left unpublished

Never read them. Weren't they dramatised on television many years ago? Always struck me as unlikely to be racy.

[amateur51]

Alan Bennett's Untold Stories includes a substantial collection of diaries from 1996 - 2004. To quote the back cover of the book: "At times heart-rending and at others extremely funny".

I also recall enjoying Lindsay Anderson's diaries.

Alan Bennett's diary extracts have become an annual treat in London Review of Books usually published early in the year.

[amateur51]

Kilvert's Diaries. Who amongst us has not had a sense of unease just occasionally, - for example, the state of near-ecstasy in which Kilvert writes of receiving the caresses of the seven-year-old Carrie Britton, his pushing ivy leaves through keyholes and his description of himself as a sleek otter, like a New Foundland dog? Perhaps some diaries are better left unpublished

Crikey, Anna!

There's only one otter of which one is allowed to make mention on these 'ere boards

[salymap]

I love diaries and family memoirs. Vita Sackville-West, the Sitwells, Alan Clarke [!]. I own a lightweight but interesting wartime diary written by Godfrey Winn just after WW2. He was primarily a magazine writer when I was young but he manages, with his diary of his time in the Merchant Navy, to paint a vivid picture of the times we lived through. Lots more I have read but can't remember

[Mary Chambers]

I own a lightweight but interesting wartime diary written by Godfrey Winn just after WW2. He was primarily a magazine writer when I was young but he manages, with his diary of his time in the Merchant Navy, to paint a vivid picture of the times we lived through.

Godfrey Winn, Beverly Nichols, two familiar names from wartime/postwar journalism. Beverly Nichols' anti-war book Cry Havoc, written in 1937, had a big effect on me as a teenager in the 1950s.

To get back to the topic....I enjoy Parson Woodforde's Diary of a Country Parson, from the second half of the 18thC.