Ovid - Poet + RSC double bill, BBC 4 TONIGHT, 16 Nov '17

[Stanley Stewart]

Recorder set for a fascinating double bill, BBC 4, tonight, 16 Nov:

21.00-22.00hrs: Ovid: the Poet and the Emperor

22.00-23.00hrs: Ovid from the RSC: the World's Greatest Storyteller:
Cast includes Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw in dramatic monologues
from Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses. The performances are interspersed
with discussions chaired by RSC artistic director Gregory Doran.

Repeat performances at 01.45am and 02.45am.

[jean]

I love Ovid!

I haven't watched the second of these yet, but the first was quite well done. But an hour isn't nearly long enough. I wish there had been time to show how much Shakespeare owes his favourite poet - a comparison of the Pyramus and Thisbe story from both of them would have shown just how close Shakespeare's language was to Ovid's.

We saw quite a lot of the statue in Sulmona where Ovid was born, and when we finally followed him into exile in Constanta in Romania we might have noted that the statue we glimpsed there was remarkably similar. We might have deduced that they were somehow related , and so they are - but it's the one in Sulmona that's the copy. An Italian sculptor made the original as a present to the Romanians in about 1887; the copy wasn't made until 1925.

The figure is a typical archaeologically-correct, toga-clad, nineteenth-century figure. But hidden away inside the outer courtyard of the museum is Sulmona is another, medieval statue:



They say he was regarded in the middle ages as something of a magician.

[ardcarp]

Thoroughly enjoyed it. My classical education having ended with O-level Latin, I was so pleased to be given a guide to Ovid by Michael Wood and Simon R-B. It has enthused me to read Metamorhoses which I'm sure is lurking on our bookshelves (in translation ).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thoroughly enjoyed it. My classical education having ended with O-level Latin, I was so pleased to be given a guide to Ovid by Michael Wood and Simon R-B. It has enthused me to read Metamorhoses which I'm sure is lurking on our bookshelves (in translation ).

- I wonder if it is actually possible for Michael Wood to produce a programme that isn't excellent.

[Nick Armstrong]

I love Ovid!

I haven't watched the second of these yet, but the first was quite well done. But an hour isn't nearly long enough. I wish there had been time to show how much Shakespeare owes his favourite poet....

I think you'll find this well covered in the second programme - if there was any coordination between the productions, I suspect the first one steered clear so as not to duplicate with the following RSC programme. I had never realised the extent to which Shakespeare's language drew on Ovid's.

[Stanley Stewart]

I think you'll find this well covered in the second programme - if there was any coordination between the productions, I suspect the first one steered clear so as not to duplicate with the following RSC programme. I had never realised the extent to which Shakespeare's language drew on Ovid's.

I quite agree and savoured Gregory Doran's reference to "Shakespeare and Ovid combine in word passion".

What an enthralling double bill for me, 'the personification of absolute perfection'; a learning curve where the ideas are still buzzing around in my head plus an unexpected find on my shelves somehat more than serendipity. Altogether the most
intellectually and emotionally sound documentaries for many years. A visual treat and how astute to avoid a historical
romp by using people of the 21st century set against historical locations in Rome or Tomis. No posturing presenters in
walkabouts against a tinking underscore. Messrs Simon Russell Beale, Michael Wood both cleanly enunciated and pitched
at an intimate level - no poetic voices as in days of yore, this was sustained by members of the RSC in dramatic readings from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Mesmeric.

My stroke of luck came as I searched for a Chopin CD and found a misplaced off-air disc for a concert performance of
Charpentier's, Acteon, at St John's, Smith Sq, 1998ish/ Paul Agnew and Sophie Daneman, a revelation after the detailed discussion and paintings in the documentaries. Coincidence?

[Richard Tarleton]

It's been a while since I've looked at Delacroix's Ovid among the Scythians - as a youngster I thought it an odd painting, the figures of the mare and the person milking it being what the eye is drawn to, you had to look quite hard to see Ovid on the bank on the left, looking out of place. I hadn't realised there were two versions, the oil-on-wood version in New York highlighting the poet more.

I loved the first programme, btw.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Coincidence?

Another coincidence - today in Huddersfield Oxfam; the A D Melville translation of the Metamorphoses (Oxford World Classics). £1.99.

[Stanley Stewart]

Another coincidence - today in Huddersfield Oxfam; the A D Melville translation of the Metamorphoses (Oxford World Classics). £1.99.