And we'd already have achieved it if everyone was as enlightened as me

[sovay]

If this spring were not this spring, I would have noticed sooner that today is Denholm Elliott's centenary and done something about it, but instead I coincidentally read the script of a play in which he originated a part—I had been looking for it for some time, having come to despair of ever seeing a production—and that will have to do. Have the cast of Twelfth Night of Stalag VIII-B, Elliott's Viola at center.

Comments

[ashlyme]

Whoa! His eyes are *unmistakeable*, even on a smartphone screen. It might have been worth being a POW just to watch this.

[sovay]

It might have been worth being a POW just to watch this.

I'm so glad there are even photographs.

(But if I can survive the experience, it's on the time machine list. I'll pick you up on the way.)

[selkie]

What are we meant to do about our noses, prostheses? Bitte erschießen Sie uns nicht, wir sind Touristinnen?

[sovay]

Bitte erschießen Sie uns nicht, wir sind Touristinnen?

You want to worry about profiles first or genders?

[selkie]

Gen’lethem, I have had about a sixth of a cocktail, we are all lucky I can kind of type. I considered Touristinnenen, which covers all the bases, but it sounds drunker than I am. We’d just grab the gender of the day from the racks the Breslau opera sent. You’d look amazing in the velvet suits they gave to the knickerbocker parts.

[gwynnega]

That photo is incredible!

[sovay]

That photo is incredible!

Everything about it!

[selkie]

Where in heck did they get the costumes??

[nineweaving]

Where in heck did they get the costumes??

For that matter, where did they get the food? It takes calories to sustain a five-act play.

Nine

[sovay]

Where in heck did they get the costumes??

From the opera house in then-Breslau, according to Michael Dobson's Shakespeare and Amateur Performance: A Cultural History (2011)! Chocolate and cigarettes were clearly the least of the tributes of an appreciative audience.

[nineweaving]

The mischief!

Nine

[sovay]

The mischief!

I wish I could have seen his Viola. I bet she was spectacular.

[oracne]

Happy Birthday, Denholm Elliott!

[sovay]

Happy Birthday, Denholm Elliott!

The plan is to review something in his belated honor this month!

[alexxkay]

I was googling to find out more about that Twelfth Night. Apparently, the show was sufficiently successful that it went on tour to other prisoner-of-war camps!

[sovay]

Apparently, the show was sufficiently successful that it went on tour to other prisoner-of-war camps!

That is n-v-t-s nuts.

(Why is there no movie?)