Asia is the world’s most populated continent with the greatest diversity of culture. Asian culture is colorful and immensely interesting. It is a result of the continent’s long history. Different ancient civilizations have passed down their traditions and practices to their descendants.
The following discussion consists of many interesting Asian culture facts as well as Asian culture history.
FESTIVALS:
Different interesting festivals are celebrated around the continent all of which are full of colors and amusing celebrations. Some of the most popular festivals celebrated in Asia are discussed below.
Eid
Eid is a religious festival celebrated by the Muslims of Asia twice a year. It originated from Saudi Arab from where Islam began spreading around fourteen hundred years back. One of the two Eid festivals, known as Eid-ul-Fitr is celebrated at the end of the Holy month of Ramadan when Muslims observe obligatory fasts. On the other hand, the second festival is observed two months and ten days later after the obligatory pilgrimage is performed in Mecca. It is known as Eid-ul-Adha and is celebrated by the sacrifice of an animal, such as a cow, goat or camel. Both of the Eid festivals are a time of family celebration.
Chinese New Year
The Chinese New Year is also known as Spring Festival. The Chinese people celebrate it with great excitement. Families gather at their ancestral homes to share the happiness and joy with their relatives. The celebrations of the New Year last for two weeks.
Diwali
Diwali is a popular Indian festival. Its history lies in Hindu religion which celebrates the victory of good over evil through this festival. Diwali is celebrated through fireworks, firecrackers and an amazing display of lights.
There are a number of more festivals celebrated in the continent. It is worth visiting Asia to experience these festivities.
How geography shapes cultural diversity
Study offers evidence that long countries give better protection to languages than those that are wide.
One reason that Eurasian civilizations dominated the globe is because they came from a continent that was broader in an east–west direction than north–south, claimed geographer Jared Diamond in his famous 1997 book Guns, Germs and Steel. Now, a modelling study has found evidence to support this 'continental axis theory'.
Continents that span narrower bands of latitude have less variation in climate, which means a set of plants and animals that are adapted to more similar conditions. That is an advantage, says Diamond, because it means that agricultural innovations are able to diffuse more easily, with culture and ideas following suit. As a result, Diamond's hypothesis predicts, along lines of latitude there will be more cultural homogeneity than along lines of longitude.
Horizon International Images Limited/Alamy
A country's shape could dictate its cultural diversity.
To test that prediction, researchers at Stanford University in California used language persistence as a proxy for cultural diversity, and analysed the percentage of historically indigenous languages that remain in use in 147 countries today relative to their shape. For example, the team looked at the difference between Chile, which has a long north–south axis, and Turkey, which has a wider axis running east to west.
The researchers found that if a country had a greater east–west axis than a north–south one, the less likely it was for its indigenous languages to persist. The relationship isn't straightforward, but the model suggests that Mongolia, which is about twice as wide as it is tall, would have 5% fewer indigenous languages than Angola, which is roughly square. Meanwhile, Peru — about twice as tall as it is wide — would be predicted to have 5% more persistent languages than Angola. The result, say the authors, supports Diamond's theory because it indicates that east–west countries have more homogeneous cultures.
Diverse findings
“It is a significant relationship that is an observable implication of the Diamond thesis,” says political scientist David Laitin, who led the work. The results are published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. Greater cultural diversity is also known to be associated with outcomes such as lower levels of economic growth and higher probabilities of violence, he adds.
Although previous research has shown that historical empires were more likely to have expanded farther in the east–west direction than north–south2, tests of Diamond's idea have been limited because of the small number of continents. Raising the sample size by using countries allows a better claim to statistical significance. Using language persistence as a proxy for cultural diversity is controversial, admits Laitin, but he argues that it is the best quantifiable way.
The work by Laitin and his colleagues includes controls for factors such as the distance of a country from the Equator (historically, more languages have existed closer to the Equator); how many mountains a country contains (because they can hinder the spread of language); and the country's age (newer countries could have more languages because there has been less time for homogenization).
Laitin also dismisses the possibility that the observed effect could have resulted from east–west countries being more interested in state building — more likely, for example, to introduce policies to bring about a single national language. When Laitin and his team repeated the analysis in 538 artificially created countries (which they derived by combining each real country with its neighbours), the results showed that the relationship still held up.
Thomas Currie, an expert in human evolutionary ecology at University College London, says that the study is a novel way of testing Diamond's hypothesis, and adds that it does a “thorough job” of controlling for a number of alternative explanations. “The main result seems to be robust. [The study] further supports the idea that human history and cultural evolution are governed by general ecological and biogeographical rules,” he says.
But others who are sceptical of the continental axis theory say that the study does little or nothing to strengthen its case. Language is a poor proxy for something as all-encompassing as culture, says John McNeill, a historian at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Many countries are either so small that the axis-length component of cultural diversity is negligible, or they are so close to square or round that it is hard to imagine a little extra length in one direction or another making much difference. “Unfortunately there aren't many countries shaped like Chile,” he says.
Although not even light can escape the powerful gravitational pulls
of black holes — hence, their name — black holes are often bright.
That's because they're surrounded by features known as accretion disks,
which are made up of gas and dust that heat up and give off light as it
swirl into the black holes.
Astronomers suspect that quasars,
the brightest objects in the universe, contain supermassive black holes
that release extraordinarily large amounts of light as they rip apart
stars.
So far, astronomers have discovered 40 quasars — each with a black
hole about 1 billion times the mass of the sun — dating back to when the
universe was less than 1 billion years old. Now, scientists report the
discovery of a supermassive black hole 12 billion times the mass of the
sun about 12.8 billion light-years from Earth that dates back to when
the universe was only about 875 million years old.
This black hole — technically known as SDSS J010013.02+280225.8, or
J0100+2802 for short — is not only the most massive quasar ever seen in
the early universe but also the most luminous. It is about 429 trillion
times brighter than the sun and seven times brighter than the most distant quasar known.
The light from very distant quasars can take billions of years to
reach Earth. As such, astronomers can see quasars as they were when the
universe was young.
This black hole dates back to a little more than 6% of the universe's current age of 13.8 billion years.
"This is quite surprising because it presents serious challenges to
theories of black hole growth in the early universe," said lead study
author Xue-Bing Wu, an astrophysicist at Peking University in Beijing.
Accretion discs limit the speed of modern black holes' growth. First, as
gas and dust in the disks get close to black holes, traffic jams slow
down any other material that's falling into them. Second, as matter
collides in these traffic jams, it heats up, emitting radiation that
drives gas and dust away from the black holes.
Scientists still do not have a satisfactory theory to explain how
these supermassive objects formed in the early universe, Wu said.
"It requires either very special ways to quickly grow the black hole
or a huge seed black hole," Wu told Space.com. For instance, a recent study
suggested that because the early universe was much smaller than it is
today, gas was often denser, obscuring a substantial amount of the
radiation given off by accretion disks and thus helping matter fall into
black holes.
The researchers noted that the light from this black hole could help
provide clues about the dark corners of the distant cosmos. As the
quasar's light shines toward Earth, it passes through intergalactic gas
that colors the light. By deducing how this intergalactic gas influenced
the spectrum of light from the quasar, scientists can deduce which
elements make up this gas. This knowledge, in turn, can provide insight
into the star-formation processes that were at work shortly after the Big Bang that produced these elements.
"This quasar is the most luminous one in the early universe, which,
like a lighthouse, will provide us chances to use it as a unique tool to
study the cosmic structure of the dark, distant universe," Wu said.
"This is Marina del Rey. In the center are apartment complexes, and then
people have their boats. It makes a graphic statement about a part of
the American dream: living right next to your boat."
"This is from Park La Brea. It almost looks like a mandala pattern with a
spiral in the center. This is a very interesting one because it's a
housing development from the '40s; it's the largest development this
side of the Mississippi."
"This is from the Port of Long Beach. They're so graphic, the way the
shipping containers line up like Legos. It's about beautiful patterns."
Power plants never looked so cool.
"[I thought of doing these] neighborhood images when I was walking
around Beverly Hills. I could never see into the backyards, because
every house had a big wall, so I wondered what was behind them."
"It's interesting how you can immediately identify the economy of the
neighborhood just by the color cast of the photos. [When you photograph]
a working-class neighborhood, it's a very brown picture — it's dense
and doesn't have that many trees. Then you move into Beverly Hills, and
everyone has a pool and the whole cast of the picture is green."
Up, up, and away: 2,000 feet can make all the difference.
"Here, you have the sense that you could fall down into downtown L.A.
because of the perspective. You can see all the rooftops with the
numbers that represent the helipads. I love this because of the
geometry: There's a square in the middle, but then there are diagonals,
too. You get a sense of flying over downtown like you're a bird."
Another dizzying shot of an L.A. neighborhood. Can you spot your house?
"I grew up going to Venice and Santa Monica beaches, so I have a
particular fondness for them. This is part of the series on leisure and
beaches and how they look from above."
Author: George Orwell Artist: Shepard Fairey 1984 is a tale of Big Brother surveillance and, of the many
great covers that have graced this, we like this one from 2008, designed
by Shepard Fairey of Obey. The Soviet style of Obey's work suits the
content of the book perfectly and the all-seeing eye gives that
essential element of creepiness.
Title:A Clockwork Orange Author: Anthony Burgess Artist: David Pelham
Designed ten years after the book's first publication, to coincide
with the release of the 1971 film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick, this
iconic cover was designed and realised by Pelham in a single night after
an illustrator's first attempt was deemed inadequate. The Cog-eyed Droog design was thus adopted and instantly became a design classic.
Title:Columbine Author: Dave Cullen Artist: Henry Sene Yee
Cullen's seminal non-fiction book - the definitive text about the
Columbine High School Massacres of 1999 - deserves an iconic cover, and
Henry Sene Yee provided it, with this minimalist design, incorporating a
simple shot of the normal-looking school with a faintly ominous grey
sky above it.
Title:The Stranger Author: Albert Camus Artist: Helen Yentus
Eminent designer Helen Yentus was given the task of creating new
covers for the complete works of Albert Camus, and we think this is the
coolest. The utilitarian type contrasts with the optical illusions of
the black and white shards, creating a neat sense of vertigo; something
which sits well with Camus' subjects and, well, just looks great.
Title:How The Dead Live Author: Derek Raymond Artist: Christopher King
A brilliantly haunting cover, with designer Christopher King
enigmatically stating that inspiration came from "the paradox posed by
the title...[it] incorporates visual elements found within the book
itself. The illustration presents more clues to the mystery than readers
may initially realize."
Title:The Great Gatsby Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald Artist: Unknown
We've all seen an awful lot of covers for F. Scott Fitzgerald's
widely read classic but none of them scream cool quite as much as this
one does. From the yellow backdrop to the monochromatic man to the fact
that he's using the damn 'Y' as a cocktail glass, it's an undeniably
attention-grabbing image.
Walks, talks, TV and stage shows pay tribute to Britain's greatest playwright this weekend
Saturday 23 April marks 400 years since the death of the nation's most
celebrated playwright, William Shakespeare. As Britain and its cultural
institutions mark the occasion with a range of special events, we look
at some of the best ways to celebrate four centuries of the bard.
BBC's Shakespeare Festival
The BBC's Shakespeare Festival has
a range of new productions, including the RSC's Shakespeare Show, which
is live on BBC2 on Saturday. Former Doctor Who David Tennant hosts a
celebration of the playwright's legacy across the art forms, from
theatre and literature to music and dance. The BBC's offering also
includes the latest instalment of The Hollow Crown, starring Benedict
Cumberbatch and Dame Judi Dench, and Ben Elton's six-part sitcom Upstart
Crow, starring David Mitchell as the bard and Harry Enfield as his
father.
Royal Shakespeare Company
Shakespeare's hometown,
Stratford-upon-Avon, will host day-long celebrations on Saturday, with
events including live music, stage-fighting workshops and a Blood, Guts
and Gore demonstration on how stage wounds are created, all finishing
with a firework display. Meanwhile, the theatre company's massive
production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with 700 professional and
amateur cast members, is touring the country.
Check RSC website for dates and locations.
Hamlet
Stratford's
Royal Shakespeare Theatre presents rising star Paapa Essiedu in Simon
Godwin's fast and furious new staging of the tragedy.
The Globe's Complete Walk
London's The Globe theatre will
be staging the Complete Walk over this weekend - 2.5 miles of the Thames
lined with 37 screens, each showing a play shot in an international
location, such as Cleopatra in Egypt or Hamlet at Elsinore, and ramblers
invited to walk along the route. Meanwhile, the company's celebrated
version of Hamlet, currently on a world tour, will also return home for
the weekend.
Henry V
Performed by a combined cast of
British and French actors, award-winning theatre company Antic
Disposition presents its critically acclaimed adaptation of the history
play.
Touring UK cathedrals 18-29 April 2016
National Theatre, London
The
theatre will host a week of screenings and seminars with the likes of
Lenny Henry, Simon Russell Beale and Clare Higgins, culminating in a
screening of Sir Laurence Olivier's famous production of Henry V.
Until 22 April.
Shit-Faced Shakespeare
A drunk cast member is normally a
cause for panic, but Magnificent Bastard Productions are making it a
feature of their show at Leicester Square Theatre, London. This staple
of the Edinburgh fringe sees the cast performing a production of A
Midsummer Night's Dream, with one actor among them completely drunk. The
rest improvise.
The legendary performer's body was discovered at his Minnesota compound on Thursday
by Patrick Hosken rince,
the legendary artist who pushed boundaries of music and identity, has
died. His publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, confirmed his death to MTV
News: “It is with profound sadness that I am confirming that the
legendary, iconic performer, Prince Rogers Nelson, has died at his
Paisley Park residence this morning at the age of 57.”
Paramedics arrived to find an “unresponsive adult male” in the
compound’s elevator and tried to revive him by performing CPR but were
unable to, according to a press release from the Carver County sheriff’s
office.
In his trademark purple clothing, Prince found chart success in the
late 1970s and throughout the 1980s with hits like “Why You Wanna Treat
Me So Bad?,” “When Doves Cry,” and “Let’s Go Crazy”; the latter two,
singles from his 1984 album Purple Rain, also made it into a
film of the same name. He hit No. 1 again in 1986 with “Kiss,” in 1989
with “Batdance” (a contribution to the 1989 Batman film he soundtracked), and in 1991 with “Cream.”
By Jim VejvodaAfter three years of intense hype and scrutiny, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
(henceforth known as BvS) is finally here. And it’s OK to good with
some very fine and some very off-base moments peppered throughout. BvS
never fully transcends into being an awesome viewing experience and yet
is also too competently made to be anywhere near the disaster its haters
have predicted. That said, if you've already made up your mind about
BvS then the actual film itself won't do much to change your mind one
way or another.
Part Man of Steel sequel and part Justice League prologue, the Zack
Snyder-directed BvS chronicles the violent, early encounters between the
Dark Knight (Ben Affleck) and the Man of Steel (Henry Cavill) and their
eventual reconciliation to being Super Friends.
Starting with
the Metropolis-leveling battle previously depicted in Man of Steel, BvS
introduces an aging, bitter, and increasingly violent Batman obsessed
with stopping Superman, an alien worshipped as a god by some and deemed a
global threat by others, including brilliant tech billionaire Lex
Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg).
Superman, for his part, is equally
disdainful and suspicious of the ultra-violent, civil rights-violating
Batman. As expected, both heroes are being manipulated by the
megalomaniacal Luthor for his own nefarious agenda.
Meanwhile,
the enigmatic Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) shadows the proceedings for her
own purposes before revealing herself as the benevolent demi-goddess
Wonder Woman. Justice is dawning and this trinity of superheroes aren't
the only exceptional beings out there waiting to help save the world
from grave threats as yet to arrive ...
The movie simply has more energy whenever Batman is onscreen. You’re
left suspecting Zack Snyder really wanted to just make a Batman movie
but was saddled with Superman because the backlash over Man of Steel’s
finale had to be addressed. And there’s no denying that BvS is an utter
and complete reaction to the outcry over that. The civilian bodycount
and psychological impact of the battle in Metropolis is brought up many
times, and BvS goes out of its way to hammer home how few civilians are
around for the final battles this time around.
While Batfleck may
steal the show (and largely drives the plot), Cavill’s Superman is very
much the heart of this story. He’s trying to do good in the world, but
every action he takes provokes an even greater reaction. However,
there’s an early sequence of an incident in Africa that’s repeatedly
brought up as an example of Superman being a lethal menace to others,
but it never quite holds up under scrutiny and is a convoluted subplot
that seems to exist merely to give Lois Lane (Amy Adams) a story to
pursue.
As much as Cavill still tries to imbue Superman with
humanity, he’s proven fairly wooden outside of his work on The Tudors
and that remains the case here. It’s also tough to buy no one has
figured out he’s Superman since, unlike Reeve or Routh, his Clark Kent
has no “cover” outside of a pair of glasses. There’s no separate
personality to his Clark Kent. Cavill is more like classic TV Superman
George Reeves in that regard.
Amy Adams brings her usual warmth, humanity, and mix of moxie and
vulnerability to the Daily Planet’s most intrepid reporter. She is, even
more so than Batman, the “real” human face of the movie. The rest of
the cast are fine — with the standout being Jeremy Irons as Alfred, a
less refined Pennyworth than we’re accustomed to seeing on the big
screen — but the supporting players fans are most interested in hearing
about are clearly Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor.
Gal Gadot turns
out to be a fine choice as Wonder Woman, although her screen time here
is limited. Overall, the decision to introduce Diana Prince as a Woman
of Mystery was a smart choice and she has good chemistry with Affleck.
Unfortunately, she doesn't really have any interactions with Clark Kent
or Superman until the Doomsday battle, which undercuts seeing the big
three together (more on that in a bit).In fact, I don't recall Superman
and Wonder Woman ever actually speaking to each other.
Jesse
Eisenberg's performance as Lex Luthor, though, was inconsistent. His
worldview and motives are quite interesting and heady, with a more
theological bent than moviegoers are accustomed to seeing Lex have. But
Eisenberg’s performance can be too obvious at times; his Lex is crazy,
clearly suffering from a psychological disorder rather than just being
greedy, evil, or driven by ego. That choice makes his Lex a bit too
tic-y and manic at times, but you certainly buy he’s a genius with a
deep disdain for what Superman represents.
BvS does delineate the philosophical divide between its eponymous
heroes, with Batman’s truly brutal methods unnerving the morally upright
Superman. By the time he finally faces off against Superman, Batman has
essentially become like Gregory Peck in The Omen when he's dragging his
son Damien into church to kill him.
Now for the million dollar
question. How were Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman onscreen together
and how did the film handle all the DC movieverse world-building? Let’s
start with the last part first. They did fine, but it’s not really the
focus of this movie. Yes, there are glimpses of Aquaman (Jason Momoa),
Flash (Ezra Miller), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher), but between that and the
introduction of Wonder Woman it’s all handled pretty simply and
efficiently. However, “Dawn of Justice” is overselling the set-up to
Justice League a bit; this is less of a Dawn and more of a Shortly After
Midnight of Justice. BvS is ultimately focused on Batman and Superman,
with Wonder Woman popping in and out until the final battle.
One big element that does undercut the climactic showdown is
Doomsday. The character's visual effects are just awful, and they
repeatedly pull you out of the movie at exactly the moments you need to
feel most invested and afraid for our heroes. You can sense the “tennis
ball acting” of the stars going up against a CGI effect to be added
later, and this emotional disconnect is egregious given the stakes of
the finale.
Unfortunately, finally seeing the trinity of
Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman together on the big screen was rather
underwhelming. None of them really know each other so there’s not a lot
of emotional investment between them, and to a larger degree the film’s
marketing essentially spoiled what should have been the most joyous and
revealing moment in the movie. In hindsight, there was no good reason
for Warner Bros. to reveal Doomsday, Aquaman, and so much of Wonder
Woman beforehand.
The Verdict
While Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
has good things to recommend it, its shortcomings are undeniable. The
action sequences whenever Batman is set loose on the bad guys are cool,
and the story strives to explore human and philosophical elements, but
it’s often not much fun. Not every superhero movie should be like a
Marvel one (because every hero and piece of material is different), but
even the melodramatic X-Men movies never lost sight of pure
entertainment value while also exploring heady and heavy topics.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love (1998)Credit:
Moviestore/Rex
On April 23, we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare.
Many of Britain's cultural institutions are planning to pay tribute
to the Bard’s life and works. It promises to be an impressively
imaginative programme.
From Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III to Hamlet being played by an inkpot, here are the moments you won’t want to miss:
BBC
Launching on April 23, the BBC’s Shakespeare Festival will see an array of exciting productions.
Upstart Crow, Ben Elton’s BBC Two sitcom about Shakespeare’s life and works, will star David Mitchell as the playwright and Harry Enfield as his father, while Benedict Cumberbatch and Judi Dench will star in the next instalment of BBC2 drama The Hollow Crown.
Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III in The Hollow CrownCredit:
BBC Russell T Davies is filming A Midsummer Night’s Dream for primetime BBC One, and David Tennant,
lauded for his portrayal of Hamlet in the RSC production, will host The
Shakespeare show – a celebratory show broadcast from the RSC theatre in
Stratford-upon-Avon.
No tickets will be available for The Shakespeare Show, but a ballot
will be held for a chance to attend. Details will be announced soon.
Royal Shakespeare Company
Dream 2016
is the RSC’s mammoth production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which,
along with its near 700 cast members made up of professionals, amateurs
and schoolchildren, will launch in Stratford-upon-Avon in February
before touring the country.
There will be new productions of Hamlet, Cymbeline, King Lear and
others. The RSC will also take Henry IV Parts I & II and Henry V to
China on their first major tour of the country, before continuing on to
New York with those plays, as well as Richard II.
Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon will host daylong
celebrations on Saturday April 23, with events including live music,
stage fighting workshops and a Blood, Guts and Gore demonstration (which
shows how fake scars and bruises are created) all building up to a
grand firework finale.
• Buy tickets for RSC's Stratford-upon-Avon shows from Telegraph Tickets; 0844 871 2118
Shakespeare's Globe
The open air theatre nestled along the Southbank will be the centrepiece of the celebrations.
Over the weekend of the April 23 - 24, its spectacular main event,
The Complete Walk, will see the banks of the Thames lined for 2.5 miles
with 37 screens, each showing a specially-made film shot in an
international location (Cleopatra in Egypt, Hamlet at Elsinore).
Emma Rice, Shakespeare's Globe's new director
In the Globe theatre itself, its ground-breaking production of
Hamlet, currently on a world tour, will return home for the St George’s
Day weekend.
Hamlet, April 23-24 (020 7401 9919: shakespearesglobe.com) Tickets are currently sold out but more will be released closer to the performances
The British Library
Shakespeare in Ten Acts, an exhibition seeking to show how the bard
became the cultural icon he is today through ten key performances, will
feature the only surviving play-script in Shakespeare’s hand. The
British Library is also helping to organise an exhibition in the public
space of the Birmingham Library.
Glyndebourne’s
2016 season will feature two operas based on Shakespeare plays:
Béatrice et Bénédict by Berlioz, which is based on Much Ado About
Nothing, and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Berlioz’s opera was last performed at the Royal Festival Hall in
1993, while this will be the first revival of Peter Hall’s popular 1981
production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for ten years.
Their celebrations continue into 2017, when the world premiere of a
new commission based on Hamlet, composed by Brett Dean and with libretto
by Canadian writer and director Matthew Jocelyn, will take place.
Béatrice et Bénédict, July 23 - August 27 and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, August 11 - 28 (01273 815000; glyndebourne.com)
Barbican
They kicked off the year with their Cycle of Kings programme,
which brought together Richard II, Henry IV (parts one and two) and
Henry V. In April they will pick up where they left off, with Kings of
War – Ivo van Hove’s radical combined staging of Henry V, Henry VI and
Richard III.
Their classical music offerings begin in February, when the LSO will play Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Jennifer Kirby as Katharine in Henry V at the BarbicanCredit:
KEITH PATTISON Shakespeare on the Silent Screen is their exciting silent film programme, which opens with Sven Garde’s 1920 Hamlet.
But their most imaginative effort is Table Top Shakespeare, an
experimental production in which each of the Bard’s 36 plays is
condensed and represented by an everyday object – Macbeth becomes a
cheese grater, Pericles a light bulb and Hamlet a bottle of ink.
Kings of War, April 22 - May 1; Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, February 2; Shakespeare on the Silent Screen, Hamletm April 10;
Table Top Shakespeare, March 1 - 6. (020 7638 8891; barbican.org.uk)
BFI
The BFI will launch their biggest ever programme of Shakespeare on
film, launching on March 31 with the premiere of new film Play On!
Shakespeare in Silent Cinema – a compilation of scenes from the best
silent Shakespeare adaptations. Shakespeare’s Globe Players have been
commissioned to write a score for the film, which features clips from
the first ever Shakespeare movie, King John (1899).
A still from King John (1899)
April will focus on the Classics, including Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet
(1948), Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V (1989), Roman Polanski’s Macbeth
(1971).
Shakespeare on Film, March 31 - May 31 (020 7928 3232; bfi.org.uk)
Royal Festival Hall
The London Philharmonic Orchestra will play a range of
Shakespeare-inspired pieces: Sibelius’s The Tempest (February 10) will
be followed by Richard Strauss’s Macbeth (February 26) and Prokofiev’s
Romeo and Juliet (April 15).
Other London highlights include S***-faced
Shakespeare at Leicester Square Theatre. The Edinburgh Fringe hit show
sees the irreverent Magnificent Bastard Productions perform A Midsummer
Night’s dream nightly, with a different cast member extremely drunk. The
remaining cast improvise around them and hilarity, inevitably, ensues.
Celebrations elsewhere include The Complete Deaths –
a show in which experimental theatre company Spymonkey draw together
all 74 onstage deaths for a strange and bloody
Shakespeare-inspired evening.
Previewing at Royal and Derngate, Northampton, then touring (spymonkey.co.uk)
Andrew Hilton directs Hamlet at Tobacco Factory Theatre in Bristol,
The Merry Wives is on at Newcastle’s New Vic Theatre, and The Herbal Bed
– Peter Whelan’s play about Shakespeare’s daughter – will be touring
after a stint at the Royal and Derngate in Northampton.
1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - Most of us
were introduced to this story by one of the various movies made of it,
or even just the image of Boris Karloff with flattened head and bolts
sticking out of his neck, lumbering around and moaning. But Shelley's
monster was actually quite articulate, and able to speak at length and
intelligently about the predicament in which it found itself. And while
Shelley isn't terribly specific about just how Victor Frankenstein
brought his creation to life, it's pretty clear that she was thinking in
terms of scientific ideas of the time, taking the experiments of
Galvani and Aldini and going one step forward with them--if applying
electric current to a dead body does, indeed, give it some semblance of
life, what then? What does that mean? You can make the argument that
this isn't really science fiction, if you really want to. But whether or
not you think it counts as part of the genre, its impact on SF&F is
undeniable. And it's a good book. Not bad for an eighteen year old girl
who basically wrote it for a holiday party game.
2. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem - It was my
parents who introduced me to Lem. Which is a bit weird on the surface,
because actually neither of them much liked SF and while they believed
that I would eventually make a writer of myself, they would have much
preferred I go for mysteries, which they loved, or at least some sort of
thing they could think of as "literature." Realizing this would never
happen, they would occasionally gift me with books they understood to be
actual quality (read "not really science fiction") and hopefully more
highbrow than my usual diet of pulpy adventure. Solaris may or
may not be highbrow, but it's pretty darn trippy. An ocean-covered
planet that may or may not be a single sentient being. If it is, it's an
utterly alien one, and the humans who try to study it find themselves
confronting their own past traumas and, ultimately, learning nothing
about Solaris itself. I'm given to understand this book exists in at
least two translations from the Polish, the more recent much better than
the older one.
3. The Secret of Sinharat / People of the Talisman by Leigh Brackett
- Really, I could put just about any of the Eric John Stark stories
here. Brackett's Mars owes a debt to Burroughs, and so does Stark--born
on Mercury, his parents die and he's adopted by Mercurians. I have this
as an old Ace double, back to back (and upside down from each other),
full of pulpy goodness--ancient technology, body-switching, tribes from
the Drylands of Mars massing for war, a world with space travel and
interplanetary mining concerns, where the light of the two moons of Mars
glints off swords, spears, and mail. This is great, engaging adventure.
4. The Star King by Jack Vance - I love
Vance's language, the careful, almost-ponderous formality that even his
rogues sometimes use, with great ironic effect. He also does wonderful
visuals, and has a wry view of human nature and culture that I enjoy
tremendously. Some of Vance's best moments are throwaways--footnotes,
bare mentions of the customs of some city or planet his hero is
visiting, and his stories are great fun. I'm hard pressed to pick a
single one to recommend, honestly. The Star King is the first
of a series of five in which Kirth Gersen sets about revenging his
family, lost in a murderous slave raid carried out by the five
super-criminal Demon Princes, each of whom gets a book. I'm sorely
tempted to just quote passages at you, but I won't. Just read some Vance
if you haven't already.
5. The Zero Stone by Andre Norton - Norton
wrote so much, and was read so widely, that it's difficult to pick a
single best, or to encapsulate her influence on the writers who grew up
reading her. The Zero Stone is as good a place to start as any
(and better than some--probably because she wrote so much, not all of
Norton's work is particularly good. I say that as a diehard fan).
Apprentice gemologist Murdoch Jern has inherited one thing from his
murdered father--a ring set with a mysterious stone, found on an alien
corpse drifting in space. It's an ancient alien artifact that several
someones are willing to kill to get hold of, and Jern has no one but
himself and a mysterious small furry alien to rely on. Pure, pulpy
adventure goodness.
6. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin -
The "science" in "science fiction" isn't just physics and engineering.
It can also be linguistics, anthropology, and psychology. This is the
story of Genly Ai, a man sent to talk the inhabitants of the planet
Gethen into joining the interstellar civilization he represents. The
genderless nature of the Gethenians is probably the most famous aspect
of this book, but it is hardly the only notable thing about it. The
cultures are carefully drawn, and there's a reason everyone who reads it
remembers Genly and Estraven's desperate flight across the ice.
7. Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - Like Solaris,
Roadside Picnic exists in English in two different translations (from
Russian in this case). The most recent is reputedly the better, and it's
the one I've read. Sometime in the recent past, aliens visited Earth
and then departed, leaving behind all sorts of mysterious and dangerous
debris. Trash left behind after a roadside picnic, but the bodies and
lives of the humans who come into contact with it are irrevocably
affected. The man character is one of the people who make their livings
scavenging the litter left over from this brief alien visit. It's an
unforgettable book, particularly the ending.
8. Neuromancer by William Gibson - This
slickly written cyberpunk heist novel made a huge splash when it was
first published in 1984, and its influence continues to this day, in
common images and motifs, and in our everyday use of words like
"cyberspace." If you're interested in science fiction and you haven't
read it, well, I urge you to make time to read it. You won't regret it.
9. Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh - There are several other Cherryh novels I might have included on this list instead--either of the Hugo-winners Downbelow Station or Cyteen,
for instance--but this one is a personal favorite. A small population
of humans lives on a world that's majority humanoid Atevi. After a
disastrous war, the only point of contact allowed between the two is the
Paidhi, the chief Human translator, who oversees the handover of Human
tech to the Atevi. Things have been going along fine for more than a
hundred years, but suddenly things begin to unravel, and Paidhi Bren
Cameron needs to figure out what's going on fast before he gets
himself--and every other Human on the planet--killed. This is a novel
where on the surface everything is small-scale--we see only from Bren's
eyes, and seemingly trivial actions like choosing to drink a cup of tea
(or not) have world-reaching consequences. It's also a novel deeply
concerned with language.
10. Embassytown by China Mieville - Another novel deeply concerned with language, with some nods to Cherryh's Foreigner
here and there, in fact. The Arieki speak a language in which the map
is the territory--lies or abstractions are impossible. They also have
two mouths, and the only way humans can communicate with them is through
identical twins who have been bred and raised for the purpose. The
introduction of a non-twinned Ambassador causes chaos among the Arieki.
I'm really not doing the novel justice with this short capsule.
Seriously, just read it. Or check out The City and the City, also by Mieville, for an equally mind-tickling read.
