Books, books and more books...
Yesterday finished reading the film tie-in edition of My Week With Marilyn - being an amalgamation of the original 1995 publication The Prince, the Showgirl and Me plus the ‘missing week’ published separately in 2000 as My Week With Marilyn. I must say that the film did an excellent job with the material, with superb spot-on casting of the original, real-life characters throughout. Whether strictly true or not, the young Colin Clark’s story is delightful, and his perceptiveness of situations strikingly astute.
Colin Clark’s writing style is such easy, endearing observation compared to older brother Alan Clark’s sharper, more ruthless persona (evidenced in his volumes of political diaries) that I looked to see if ‘young Colin’ had written any more. Indeed he had. Younger Brother, Younger Son is a more general biographical reminiscence of his overall career, which being in the filmmaking business promises to be an enjoyable and informative continuation to the snapshot of his first job with Sir Laurence Olivier. Was lucky enough to find a cheap, second-hand, paperback edition on eBay, and eagerly await its arrival.
In the meantime am reading The Last Pagan by Adrian Murdoch (thank you Raks!) - being an historical biography of the Roman Emperor Julian. From the little I have read thus far, I can already see why Andrew Scott was so well cast to play the role, but can also see how Ibsen made the drama Emperor and Galilean revolve around friendships which I suspect were not as long-standing and cohesive in real life. Of course this mechanism allowed more pointed choices and comparisons to be made in a simplified and personal manner - the new abridged version by Ben Power staged at the National Theatre last year even more so. The bloodthirsty pagan cult mystic called Maximus was a very real and constant influence. Interesting.
Colin Clark’s writing style is such easy, endearing observation compared to older brother Alan Clark’s sharper, more ruthless persona (evidenced in his volumes of political diaries) that I looked to see if ‘young Colin’ had written any more. Indeed he had. Younger Brother, Younger Son is a more general biographical reminiscence of his overall career, which being in the filmmaking business promises to be an enjoyable and informative continuation to the snapshot of his first job with Sir Laurence Olivier. Was lucky enough to find a cheap, second-hand, paperback edition on eBay, and eagerly await its arrival.
In the meantime am reading The Last Pagan by Adrian Murdoch (thank you Raks!) - being an historical biography of the Roman Emperor Julian. From the little I have read thus far, I can already see why Andrew Scott was so well cast to play the role, but can also see how Ibsen made the drama Emperor and Galilean revolve around friendships which I suspect were not as long-standing and cohesive in real life. Of course this mechanism allowed more pointed choices and comparisons to be made in a simplified and personal manner - the new abridged version by Ben Power staged at the National Theatre last year even more so. The bloodthirsty pagan cult mystic called Maximus was a very real and constant influence. Interesting.