HUNDREDS of paintings are on sale at big discounts as the annual “Start a Collection” scheme gets underway at Messum’s gallery in Soho.
IS it really possible that the home of Shakespeare, the Old Vic, has killed off a famous passage by the great master because it espouses the notion of “primitive communism”?
That is the fear of a publisher, Nicholas Jacobs, who has complained to the theatre’s management about a passage that has been left out in Sam Mendes’s current production of The Tempest.
It is known among scholars as Gonzalo’s Golden Age speech – Shakespeare’s vision of Utopia.
A future bent on egalitarian horizons with “riches, poverty and use of service – none,” writes the master
Gonzalo’s speech is considered to be among the most comic and subversive ever penned by the Bard.
Jacobs, who lives in Kentish Town, was so affronted when he saw the production that he complained to the theatre’s management.
“The management told me it was because the actor was ill the night I saw the play,” said Jacobs.
“I regarded this as a thin excuse and I was even offered a refund.
“But when I reported that a friend told me the speech was still missing on another night, the management changed its tune and said it had been cut for ‘artistic reasons’.”
I note that the passage in question was lifted – almost word-for-word – from an earlier essay by the French humanist philosopher Michel de Montaigne, On Cannibals (circa 1580).
The Tempest, Shakespeare’s last solo play, was first performed around 1611.
Did the Old Vic, in omitting the speech, choose to take a moral stand against this blatant act of plagiarism?
Jacobs thinks not.
“It expresses a notion of primitive communism and I can’t help feeling the reason is political.
“It has an American cast and I understand the production will tour the States.
“Is there a link here? “This may be crude thinking, as Brecht called it, but it’s ‘a crude world’.”
I understand that one or two well-known theatre critics are also becoming much exercised by the work of the censor at the Old Vic.
THE DANGEROUS PASSAGE
Gonzalo: ‘All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,
Sword, pike knife, gun, or need of any engine,
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people’.
Sebastian: ‘No marrying among his subjects?
Antonio: ‘None, man; all idle, whores and knaves .’
Gonzalo: ‘I wold with such perfection govern, sir,
To excel the golden age.’
World of jazz mourns death of Martin Drew
A SECOND highly respected drummer at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club has died.
Last week, Diary reported the tragic death of Chris Dagley, who was killed in a motorbike crash on his way home from a gig last Sunday.
He was 38 years old.
Less than a week later, Martin Drew, who worked for Ronnie Scott for two decades, died from a heart attack at his home in Wembley.
Mr Drew was 66 and one of Britain’s most internationally renowned jazz musicians.
During a long and glittering career he backed countless American stars at Ronnie Scott’s.
A spokesman for the club said: “Coming so soon after the death of Chris Dagley last week, this is especially hard to bear, and our thoughts are with Martin’s family and friends.”
Mr Drew leaves a widow, Tessa, a son, two daughters and three granddaughters.
Privileged position for poker
THE Texas Hold ’Em poker boom was checked in 2007 after a High Court ruling made it illegal for unlicensed clubs to rake a percentage from players’ stakes or winning pots on games of chance.
The judge said poker was not a game of skill, as argued by owners of the “Gutshot” poker club in Islington.
Since 2007, the only way to host commercial poker games legally is to hold a casino licence, but these have been made prohibitively expensive for small poker clubs.
So how has Chris North, a professional rugby player, managed to open a club on the site of the former Teatro member’s club in Shaftesbury Avenue?
He told me he had secured a casino licence from Westminster City Council under a 2005 application – before the rules changed.
“It’s impossible for other clubs like this to open up because you can’t get that kind of licence any more,” said Mr North.
“There are no more available in Westminster.
“So you could say we are in a privileged position.”
Fox Poker Club, with space for 200 players, is named after Charles Fox, the famous 18th century politician, Whig foreign secretary and gambler.
It will open on Saturday.
