About Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

In, of all places, a news item about the death of Stuart Organ, who for many years played the headmaster of Grange Hill school, I see Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead described as “a spin-off of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet”. And the phrase strikes me as totally wrong-headed but the more I think of it, it feels about right. After all, R&G isn’t a sequel, nor yet a prequel. It takes place in the same fictional universe as Hamlet, the action of which is progressing at the same time, and occasionally intersects. It exists in relation to Hamlet in the same way that Torchwood and The Sarah-Jane Adventures exist in relation to Doctor Who, sharing characters and narratives, but with a different emphasis.

But then I still wonder whether the author of the piece actually knows that, or just threw the sentence together after a brief Wikipedia check. And do you know what makes me doubt her? It’s the fact that she refers not to “Hamlet”, but to “William Shakespeare’s Hamlet”. Someone who knew about theatre would instinctively offer the title alone, assuming that everyone knows what Hamlet is, who wrote it, approximately what it’s about, even if they aren’t able to quote it by the yard. Which feels a bit harsh, because her definition of Stoppard’s play is ultimately correct. But it’s accidentally correct and I wonder whether that’s good enough.

About syrup

The clever people who sell Lyle’s Golden Syrup are removing the image of bees swarming round a dead lion from at least some of its packaging. “Our fresh, contemporary design brings Lyle’s into the modern day, appealing to the everyday British household while still feeling nostalgic and authentically Lyle’s,” says the brand director, which obviously means nothing whatsoever, so others have stepped in to fill the gap. “The story of it coming from religious belief could put the brand in an exclusionary space, especially if it was to go viral on X or TikTok,” suggests a marketing academic. “It’s woke!” screech the readers of the Daily Mail, but frankly, what isn’t these days, as far as they’re concerned?

I know as much as they do, so here’s my guess. They wanted to get away from the Biblical reference (“Out of the strong came forth sweetness,” Judges, chapter 14) not because it might offend anybody’s sensibilities, religious or otherwise, not because they’ve finally realised a rotting cat isn’t the most appetising way to sell sweet goop, but because nobody understands it. Nobody knows who Samson (who supposedly said it) is, and nobody really cares. Why would you buy something that confronts you with your own ignorance every day? The semi-abstract lion’s face that replaces it doesn’t particularly refer to anything, doesn't challenge or provoke anything, especially not curiosity.

Of course, being a pedant above all things, my main objection to the logo is that the quote’s about honey, rather than syrup, which is a different product. But who cares about that?

PS: This may or may not be relevant. But I’m pretty sure it’s true.

About new music

Sean Thomas in The Spectator claims to have found empirical evidence that music is getting worse. I agree with his conclusion, but don’t recognise his claim to objectivity; music is getting worse because I’m getting old and so, presumably, is Mr Thomas. If I were young, it would all be great, but I’m not, which is why I only get excited by the Top of the Pops re-runs on Saturday nights if they date from 1978 to 1983. Incidentally, Thomas’s characterisation of a modern lyric as “the desire of the singer to ‘kill his mofo bitches’ and celebrate his expensive car, hat and Rolex watch” suggests that he last listened to a rap record in about 1991, and then only fleetingly.

Moreover, it needs to be noted that this year sees the 100th anniversary of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and the 200th of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, two groundbreaking works whose influence is still being felt. But I bet that in 1924 and 1824, there were plenty of people who could come up with an algorithm to prove that they were rubbish.

There is great music being produced now that will still be heard and loved in 2124 and beyond. We just don’t know what it is yet.

About Gregg and Timmy

I mentioned a few years ago that the two best ever instalments of the Sunday Times magazine’s venerable A Life in the Day feature were both by actors called Tom. What I hadn’t realised, because like so many others, I’ve lost the habit of burrowing into the weekend papers, is that the Telegraph has for some time been running its own pallid simulacrum of ALitD and, unsurprisingly, it’s not as good.

Well, until the gurning greengrocer Gregg Wallace took his turn and, well, it still wasn’t good but at least it was funny.

The problem was that, unlike the Toms’ takes on their respective days, Wallace wasn’t trying to be funny, and the fact that his pride in being able to get into the gym half an hour before mere civilians, his staunch defence of Harvester, his wargaming, his lack of body fat, all speak of someone with such a total lack of self-awareness that Alan Partridge comparisons were inevitable. “Is this a parody?” we chorused.

No, it wasn’t. But this is:

This, Brian Blessed gong, Frazzles, the ghost of Patrick Macnee and all, is the work of Mark Bowsher but inevitably the whole thing developed a life of its own within hours and several people thought it was genuine. Well, genuine in the sense that Timmy Mallett himself had written it, not that it was in any way an accurate representation of his life.

Because ultimately all of the other articles are artifices, constructions hovering in a liminal space between objective reality and how the subject wishes to be presented. The difference is that the two Toms (and Jeffrey Bernard, who collaborated on Baker’s piece) were fully aware of what they were doing and Gregg Wallace wasn’t. And I’d like to think that if Timmy Mallett (with whom I once shared a lift, sandwiched between him and Tony Blackburn, which does demonstrate how easy it is to drift into Partridge territory) were to do a real article on these lines, it would be closer to the Toms than to what Gregg did. But a tiny bit like the parody version as well. Just to keep us guessing.

About Richard and Davros

There have been complaints that Michelle Terry is to play Richard III at the Globe. Not because she’s she’s the artistic director of the theatre and appears to have nabbed the plum role for herself, but because the monarch has a disability, and Ms Terry doesn’t. (The fact that she’s a woman isn’t an issue, it seems.)

As always, these arguments throw up further arguments; now we’ve dug up Richard’s body, we know the nature of his disability (scoliosis), so does this mean that only actors with this specific condition should play him? And if actors with other disabilities (Arthur Hughes, Mat Fraser, Peter Dinklage) are allowed to take the role, would that not throw up the rather reductive and insulting implication that all disabilities are much the same? I’m also a little confused by Fraser’s response to Terry’s casting: “I will be personally boycotting the production if it goes ahead with this casting,” he says. “I’m done with the pretenders.” Isn’t pretending what actors do?

But wait – since Richard embodies that horrid old trope about the disabled villain, should the role even be played at all? Or, if it is, shouldn’t we excise all the references to his disability – “rudely stamped” and so on – to fit 21st-century sensibilities? I mean, that would seem to be the stance taken by Russell T Davies, who has declared that the evil genius Davros should from now on have legs. Which does mean that nobody can complain if Michelle Terry plays him.

PS: While we’re here, can we stop saying that art that doesn’t quite gel with those modern sensibilities (Friends is a apparently a main offender) is “problematic”? Art, especially drama, that doesn’t present us with problems is all but pointless.

About the Sixties

An alternative reality, in which Swinging London was devised and documented not by Mary Quant and David Bailey and the Beatles, but by Samuel Beckett.

(Photo of Twiggy and Wilfrid Brambell by Burt Glinn.)