Do3: Charles and Mary

[french frank]

Sun 16 Jan 2011 20:00

"Carlo Gébler's new play especially written for Radio 3 dramatizes the extraordinary relationship between brother and sister, Charles and Mary Lamb, the writers of 'The Tales Of [sic] Shakespeare' (1807), the seminal children's introduction to Shakespeare, which is still in print.

What is less well known are the tragic circumstances, domestic and personal, behind the partnership of Charles and Mary. The Lamb family were London born and bred, bohemian and penniless. A combination of poverty and stress drove Mary insane and she committed a shocking crime. Charles saved her from prison and promised he would always take care of her. Mary was never 'sane' again but during the writing of 'The Tales' alongside her brother she was at her sanest. Literary production gave order and structure to her life. The main essence of this play explores the connection between literary creativity and mental equilibrium."

[amateur51]

Sounds fascinating.

There's a biography of Mary Lamb entitled 'The Devil Kissed Her' by Kathy Watson

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Kissed-Her-Story-Mary/dp/0747571139/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

and Peter Ackroyd (inevitably!?) has written a novel about them:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lambs-London-Peter-Ackroyd/dp/0099472090/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I23FUDFQ3VGNCW&colid=2QA7VWTSI983N

I hope to be able to catch this play at some point.

Thanks for the alert, french frank

[french frank]

Hope it's good.

I remember in my primary school being read 'Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare'.

Not sure that I quite understood the point of the lamb's tails ...

[2LO]

Hope it's good.

I remember in my primary school being read 'Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare'.

Not sure that I quite understood the point of the lamb's tails ...

I can see the illustrations now. . .

To date, my only encounter with Cymbeline and Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Odd names, all.

[french frank]

I can see the illustrations now. . .

Ariel, from 'The Tempest' ...

I love the authors' final words in the Preface:

"What these Tales shall have been to the young readers, that and much more it is the writers' wish that the true Plays of Shakespeare may prove to them in older years - enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, his pages are full."

????

[aeolium]

Perhaps they were reading Bowdler's versions of the plays?

I'm glad that R3 has returned to broadcasting plays rather than adaptations of novels. Like tony yyy, I found the Marriage of Figaro hard to listen to without thinking of Mozart - it must be one of those works that has been permanently altered by later association, like Goethe's Heidenröslein or the poems of Heine that were set by Schumann. And I didn't like the way Amadeus played fast and loose with the facts. But at least they were plays, with obviously recognisable dramatic qualities. This play about the Lambs sounds interesting and I'm looking forward to it.

[french frank]

This play about the Lambs sounds interesting and I'm looking forward to it.

Not least because it appears to have a point beyond the merely biographical ("The main essence of this play explores the connection between literary creativity and mental equilibrium. ").

[aeolium]

Does it really mean "mental disequilibrium"? Plenty of possible candidates there.

[2LO]

Does it really mean "mental disequilibrium"?

For the answer there we'll have to wait. . .

French Frank: Thanks for the very Mucha-esque Nouveau-ish illustration there! Don't know if my Puffin edition was quite that glorious but you got the idea.

[french frank]

A rare occasion when I listened live ... Well, I much prefer this style of play to the pure biography. Much of it was evoking an atmosphere, which I think it did quite well: the chaotic dysfunctional homelife, where insanity and absurd humour are so close to each other. The scene with the mouse and the dresser ...

I also loved the continual asides from Dudley Sutton's John Lamb père, and that final comment of his which has probably been echoed by the elderly down the ages: "I've had a good life but it's ended in a rotten way."

Did it explore the connection between literary creativity and mental (dis)equilibrium? Well, there was plenty of material here, though I'm not sure the play said a lot about it. Didn't the mental disequilibrium rather get in the way of literary creativity?

It was a glimpse of grim times and the domestic circumstances of the Lambs which I did quite enjoy.

Perhaps they missed a trick here by not preceding the play with readings of some of the Essays of Elia in The Essay (Mozart [not] permitting). I've just looked out a volume, ready to read next.

[Simon]

Well, I listened at first, and really enjoyed the dialogue - but then came the horrible part (which to me as I knew what happened I felt was always under the surface anyway) - and I had no desire to hear more. I'm an escapist - I don't want to read/hear about horror, murder, madness that actually happened, though fiction's another story. I would have been happy with a historical drama, with excerpts form the stories, but glossing over the tragedy.

You say you enjoyed the "glimpse of grim times" - that's exactly what I didn't enjoy!! Don't get me wrong, ff - I'm not saying you're wrong in any way - that's not the point of my comment. I suppose we all want different things from the material that we read/listen to.

"And so to bed". :)

[french frank]

You say you enjoyed the "glimpse of grim times" - that's exactly what I didn't enjoy!!

I think that aspect is as much educational, informative, instructive, all of which aids understanding (and compassion?) in a wider range of issues, stored away in the mind for when needed. I don't think of 'art' - in whatever form - as being just about enjoyment or 'entertainment'. The play was stuffed with detail which made the tragedy of Mary, and others like her, so much more understandable. I wouldn't rave about the quality of the play but found it humane and sobering.

The author is, I see, the son of Edna O'Brien.

[DracoM]

I thought it was terrific, gripping radio, and brilliantly acted. Very sympathetic take on mental illness too showing how alarmingly thin are the partitions that divide. The stories as therapy for BOTH Charles and Mary. Must say - me ignorant to the core - did not know quite how serious was Charles Lamb's drink problem even in an age when heavy drinking was by no means unusual. And, wow, but could I see why Mary had a whack at Mummy - that woman would have driven me to extremes as well.

[french frank]

I liked the little vignette of Charles's workplace at the EIC, and the way it managed, quite naturally, to weave in the quote:

"How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces."

[amateur51]

I thought it was terrific, gripping radio, and brilliantly acted. Very sympathetic take on mental illness too showing how alarmingly thin are the partitions that divide. The stories as therapy for BOTH Charles and Mary. Must say - me ignorant to the core - did not know quite how serious was Charles Lamb's drink problem even in an age when heavy drinking was by no means unusual. And, wow, but could I see why Mary had a whack at Mummy - that woman would have driven me to extremes as well.

I totally agree, DraoM - gripping stuff & illuminating too. I liked the incidental detail & the way that the quality of the family bickering was sometimes tiresome, mostly affectionate but occasionally lethal - things have not changed much. These days, therapists would speak of co-dependency I'm sure - 'your bad behaviour, my bad behaviour'.

For me the pick was Dudley Sutton, his voice immediately bringing his face to mind - what an under-rated actor he has been, always delivering the goods.

Thanks for the link to Gebler's info french frank - I knew nothing about him before. I like what he has written in his 'Author's statement':

"As a child I loved to read and to be read to. I loved the tranced feeling that came when I got lost in a story. I still look for that when I read now I am an adult (though I don’t always find it) and I also seek to give that feeling to my readers, whether they’re adults or children. I regard myself primarily as a storyteller who tells tales – whether true or made up or appropriated from folk-lore (I’m not fussy). My primary ambition is to give readers imaginary worlds in which they can lose themselves (and of course these worlds needn’t necessarily be friendly or benign). And if what I write does more for the reader than give this momentary pleasure, well, that’s a lovely bonus. "

He certainly created a world for me last night. Would that there were many other authors so inpired to be a tale-teller today, rather than showing off how clever they are or what they had learned on their creative writing course.