Edward Bond

[Richard Barrett]

his contribution to Nicholas & Alexandra (1971)

Now that's something I didn't know about, and I've never seen this film. Thanks, I'll seek it out.

[Conchis]

Now that's something I didn't know about, and I've never seen this film. Thanks, I'll seek it out.

The complete film seems to have disappeared from youtube, although there are still significant bits. Not the bit I was referring to though, sadly.

I doubt if Bond would have approved of the whole film - in fact, i'm sure he wouldn't - as it takes too sentimental a view of the Romanovs, though it isn't exactly sugar-coated, either. For a historical blockbuster and a piece of commercial filmmaking, it's pretty intelligent, though.

[gurnemanz]

I've been an admirer or Bond's work since seeing his massive Greek-tragedy-inspired The Woman at the National Theatre in the late 1970s during my student days. Saying it didn't "improve on Euripides" is to rather miss its point, I would add.

Of course there's a musical connection here too, with Bond having provided libretti for several works by Hans Werner Henze.

Just dug out the programme of The Woman which I remember being quite impressed by at the time. I had forgotten that it included songs by Henze (and a friend of mine as second soldier!). It's a pity that Bond comes across as so embittered and determined to write off current English theatre, making him for me not entirely in touch with reality. It probably doesn't help that as a Marxist, he has noticed that he backed a loser.

I do like a a well-made play and sometimes regret the current trend to do plays more as entertainments for show or spectacle than as pure drama - as with the NT's recent Captain of Köpenick of which I have fond memories done straight at the old National (Old Vic ) with Paul Scofield and Georg Kaiser's From Morning to Midnight in a ""new version" (why?). This approach can, of course, also be done brilliantly as with Lucy Prebble's Enron at the Royal Court.

We have seen plenty of good new plays in the last couple of years. A random selection:

• while on Lucy Prebble, her The Effect in 2012 was a striking piece of theatre with an impressive Billie Piper, who was also a tabloid editor in Richard Bean's press-hacking-themed Great Britain.
• Steve Waters' Temple less than a year ago at the Donmar with Russell Beale. (Beale was also in Julian Hodge's excellent Collaborators at the Cottesloe.)
• London Road by Adam Cork and Alecky Blythe at the National was brilliant, pioneering, pertinent, dramatic and truly moving.
• Not perhaps a "great play" but we really enjoyed Julie Walters in Stephen Beresford's Last of the Haussmans in 2012
• We queued for returns to catch James Graham's terrific This House. His "Privacy" and "The Vote", which ran synchronously with last year's election, were both highly original and very funny.
• Peter Gill's Versailles at the Donmar with Francesca Annis.
• Red Velvet with Adrian Lester by Lolita Chakrabarti at the Tricycle now being reprised by the Ken Branagh Company at the Garrick.
• Ayckbourn and Michael Frayn (Democracy, Copenhagen) are still with us as is Stoppard although his last effort at the Dorfman last year did not entirely win me over.
• (Not to forgot Alan Bennett, just about still with us. Nearly fifty years on, I can still remember Forty Years On with John Gielgud and we have recently enjoyed The History Boys, The Habit of Art and People.)
• We liked Patrick Marber's latest football management-themed "The Red Lion" at the Dorfman last year with a programme note by Mike Brearley (psychoanalyst and ex-England cricket captain) with the very good Daniel Mays who was also in Nick Payne's dark comedy, the Olivier-nominated The Same Deep Water As Me at the Donmar

... I could go on and that is a selection of just of what we have actually seen ... and just in the last couple of years.

[Richard Barrett]

It probably doesn't help that as a Marxist, he has noticed that he backed a loser.

Sorry, I must have missed something - has history ended and was there a "winner"?

[Serial_Apologist]

He is a Marxist and Marxism is now thought (by many) to be unfashionable.

How convenient!

[Stanley Stewart]

The complete film seems to have disappeared from youtube, although there are still significant bits. Not the bit I was referring to though, sadly.

I doubt if Bond would have approved of the whole film - in fact, i'm sure he wouldn't - as it takes too sentimental a view of the Romanovs, though it isn't exactly sugar-coated, either. For a historical blockbuster and a piece of commercial filmmaking, it's pretty intelligent, though.

A print of Nicholas & Alexandra, (1971) was screened on BBC 2,
Sunday,21 Feb, '16, 12.15-15.15hrs, and is probably available on iPlayer!

[Tevot]

Now that's something I didn't know about, and I've never seen this film. Thanks, I'll seek it out.

I saw the film many moons ago - and liked it - but never knew that Bond contributed to the screenplay. Another to revisit

[Tevot]

Sorry, I must have missed something - has history ended and was there a "winner"?

I'd agree Richard. I'd venture also that Bond would see eye to eye with the likes of Thomas Piketty who still believe there is a world yet to win.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A print of Nicholas & Alexandra, (1971) was screened on BBC 2,
Sunday,21 Feb, '16, 12.15-15.15hrs, and is probably available on iPlayer!

Sadly, it isn't:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0078vz4

[Richard Barrett]

I'd venture also that Bond would see eye to eye with the likes of Thomas Piketty

I don't think so. I think he would see more eye to eye with the likes of Yanis Varoufakis and David Harvey (and me) who see Piketty as identifying part of the problem but hardly offering any systemic solutions to it, preferring to side with (a more highly regulated form of) capitalism because it promotes economic growth, ignoring the fact that this system and its growth, based as it fundamentally is on valuing greed above all else, is not compatible with an end to inequality or in the longer term with a habitable planet.

[french frank]

Honoured Guest has done a trawl of the BBC Genome and uncovered these productions for R3:

Narrow Road to the Deep North (1975)
Summer (1982)
The Fool (1990)
Early Morning (1993)
The Sea (2000)
In the Company of Men (2003)

The following - a list of sundry features &c (and sundry Edwards, Bonds and Edward Bonds - incl. Edward Seckerson and Samantha Bond!). There was quite a bit during the 1990s (Drummond and Kenyon) and before, but not a lot since.

And if you're anywhere near Sutton, this may be an exciting prospect - directed by Bond himself.

[Conchis]

Honoured Guest has done a trawl of the BBC Genome and uncovered these productions for R3:

Narrow Road to the Deep North (1975)
Summer (1982)
The Fool (1990)
Early Morning (1993)
The Sea (2000)
In the Company of Men (2003)

The following - a list of sundry features &c (and sundry Edwards, Bonds and Edward Bonds - incl. Edward Seckerson and Samantha Bond!). There was quite a bit during the 1990s (Drummond and Kenyon) and before, but not a lot since.

And if you're anywhere near Sutton, this may be an exciting prospect - directed by Bond himself.

Bond's relationships with his directors have always been subject to fluctuation. He now prefers to direct his own work, something that most have mixed feelings about. I think a creator is always going to lack a true sense of perspective on what he/she has created - and other people will see other things in it, which might benefit from being brought out.

[aeolium]

I think a creator is always going to lack a true sense of perspective on what he/she has created - and other people will see other things in it, which might benefit from being brought out.

I agree partly with that, in that it should not only be the creator's idea about how a work should be staged that we should see, but I would always want the chance to see the creator's vision. Think of Beckett's work with actors like Jack MacGowran, Patrick Magee and Billie Whitelaw which without inhibiting their individual talents brought out quite extraordinary performances.

[Richard Barrett]

I think a creator is always going to lack a true sense of perspective on what he/she has created

Why should a creator have less perspective than someone else? That seems a strange idea to me.

[Conchis]

I agree partly with that, in that it should not only be the creator's idea about how a work should be staged that we should see, but I would always want the chance to see the creator's vision. Think of Beckett's work with actors like Jack MacGowran, Patrick Magee and Billie Whitelaw which without inhibiting their individual talents brought out quite extraordinary performances.

When I said a 'true sense of perspective', I should have perhaps been clearer - a creator can't be objective about what they have created, any more than a loving parent can be objective about their own child. But, yes, the creator's perspective is still perfectly valid and valuable, even if we shouldn't accept it as definitive.