The Incomparable Rufus Sewell

Victoria here. I have been watching a new series based on Ken Follett’s novel Pillars of the Earth.  It is on cable channel StarZ on Friday nights.  Here is the trailer. Sewell stars as Tom Builder, a master builder of the cathedral at the center of the book. Read more about Follett and the novel here.
Here is a review of the series and here is another. It is a gritty view of the green and pleasant hills of England, definitely more of the “dark satanic mills” * view, though it takes place long before there were industrial mills.
*playing on the words by Blake used in Jerusalem.
But I digress. The point of this blog piece is to celebrate the delicious talents of Rufus Sewell, an actor who has a distinguished career and versatility that must confound his rivals as one of England’s greatest actors.
I first encountered Mr. Sewell when I saw him as the tutor Septimus in Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia. What a brilliant play and what a brilliant actor. I was in London and really can’t say I knew anything more about it than I liked Stoppard.  Later, I found I loved Rufus as well as Tom. And I’ve seen the play two other times, including at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre.

George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) wrote the brilliant novel Middlemarch in the 1870’s. It was a BBC miniseries in 1994, with Sewell starring as Will Ladislaw, the young love interest of the heroine toward the end of the novel.  Whether the two of them have a happy ending is more or less left to the reader’s imagination.
Who could resist happiness with this vision at her side?

Sewell played Seth Starkadder in Cold Comfort Farm, the wonderful 1995 film made from the Stella Gibbons novel of the same name, published in 1932. It is hilarious and a special treat for British movie fans, if you love the Merchant Ivory films and their like. Poor Rufus, he doesn’t like the “pretty face” type of roles, but he is SO good at them.
 
 

Another of his Beautiful People roles was as Marco Venier in Dangerous Beauty, 1998, the story of a Venetian courtesan and poetess. I could just sit here and enjoy uploading pictures of the handsome actor.  But that would belie his versatility and the depth of his acting ability.  Nevertheless, I can’t resist.                      
Sewell has done many Shakespeare roles, such as Fortinbras in Hamlet and Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew, below in modern dress.
  His television roles include an appearance as Alexander Hamilton in John Adams, here shown with the title character played by Paul Giametti. Rather a spcialist in costume roles, Rufus has also played Charles II in a BBC miniseries.

In the excellent film Amazing Grace about the end of the British slave trade, he played Thomas Clarkson, an ally of Wilberforce.
But he has also played a number of villains. In The Illusionist, he was the Crown Prince.
And in 2001’s A Knight’s Tale, Sewell was the evil count Adhemar (below with the late Heath Ledger on the left). I wanted the Count to win!! Or for Heath to wash and comb his hair.
Rufus Sewell was born October 29, 1967. There are many bios on the web, if you want the details of his education and personal life.  For me, it’s good enough to know he is out there being a great actor and trying new things. 
Last television season, he starred in  Eleventh Hour, a CBS series which ran for 18 episodes. The show had a loyal audience but apparently not enough to be renewed, so it has passed into DVD-dom and probably syndication some day. Sewell was Jacob Hood, a brilliant biophysicist who solved crime questions. He had a protector assigned by the FBI, Rachel Young.  I have to admit the scripts were not very compelling — being neither verifiable in science nor outright science-fiction. 
The acting was superb and the concept interesting, but it missed out in having unbelievable stories.  What a pity. 
In the meantime, I’ll have to be content seeing Sewell as Tom Builder. Rufus is also working on several new films.  See the list of info on the Internet Movie Database here.
Keep up the good work, Rufus, upholding the traditions of Kean, Olivier, Gielgud and so many other great British actors.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

In Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen’s classic tale of the tangled  relationships between lovers from different social classes in 19th century England was updated by the addition of an army of zombies. As if this (and sea monsters) weren’t enough, now they’re making a film version of the tale, with Natalie Portman both producing and starring as Elizabeth Bennett. The film, currently in production, is slated for release in 2011.

On the Shelf – Sugar: A Bittersweet History

Sugar: A Bittersweet History (April $29.95) by Elizabeth Abbot. This social history includes sugar’s roles in the international slave trade and the fast-food revolution. I haven’t read it yet, but it sounds fascinating.

From the publisher:

Sugar: A Bittersweet History is a compelling and surprising look at the sweet commodity, from how it Africanized the cane fields of the Caribbean to how it fueled the Industrial Revolution and jump-started the fast-food revolution. The book explores the hidden stories behind this sweet product, revealing how powerful American interests deposed Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawaii, how Hitler tried to ensure a steady supply of beet sugar when enemies threatened to cut off Germany’s supply of overseas cane sugar, and how South Africa established a domestic ethanol industry in the wake of anti-apartheid sugar embargoes. The book follows the history of sugar to the present day, showing how sugar made eating on the run socially acceptable and played an integral role in today’s fast food culture and obesity epidemic. Impressively researched and commandingly written, Sugar will forever change perceptions of this sweet treat.

More Praise for Sugar from Booklist:
“Sugar is the opiate of the people, lulling forgetfulness and forgiveness of its history of slavery, exploitation, rotting teeth, and depletion of the land. Abbott traces the history of sugar cane from Polynesia to India to the New World, particularly the Caribbean and the American South. Early chapters focus on the history of sugar as a spice, medicine, and aphrodisiac and its transformation from a luxury item for the rich, including gluttonous Queen Catherine, to sweet solace for common people, delivering calories and a boost during the Industrial Revolution. Abbott also details the dark side of the sweet sugar cane, brutal slavery, the subject of a boycott in the abolitionist movement led by William Wilberforce. She ends with the diaspora of sugar production and labor exploitation in the modern age, from the struggle to dominate Hawaii to the geopolitics of Coca Cola and other purveyors of sugary treats. Readers will never again be able to casually sweeten tea or eat sweets without considering the long and fascinating history of sugar.”

“”Fascinating… epic in ambition… there is much to savor in Sugar.” – Wall Street Journal

The Angela Thirkell Society Meets in Madison, WI

Victoria here, off to Madison, Wisconsin, in a few days for the meeting of the North American organization of the Angela Thirkell Society. At right, a drawing of Ms. Thirkell (1890 – 1961) by John Singer Sargent, 1918.

The Conference (August 13-15, 2010) will center on the theme
 “Upstairs/Downstairs.” Included will be a collection of cars of Thirkell’s period (1930’s-50’s), speakers on Thirkell’s novels, and a gala costume banquet. For more information, click here.

Many of Thirkell’s  novels are set in the fictional English county of Barsetshire and some continue the stories of characters introduced in the novels of Anthony Trollope.  Another author to whom she is often compared is Jane Austen, though Thirkell expanded the “two or three families in a country village” to a larger region and many families of various levels of society, including the servants.

Angela Margaret Mackail was born on January 30, 1890 in Kensington Square, London. Quoting from the website, “Her grandfather was Sir Edward Burne-Jones the pre-Raphaelite painter and partner in the design firm of Morris and Company for whom he designed many stained glass windows… Her grandmother was Georgiana Macdonald, whose … family which included among others, Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, and Rudyard Kipling. Angela’s brother, Denis Mackail, was also a prolific and successful novelist.”
Angela Thirkell married twice and had sons with both husbands.  She moved to Australia with second husband George Thirkell (1890-c. 1940), but returned to England without him in 1929.
If you aren’t familiar with the 30+ novels of Angela Thirkell, you have a treat in store.  Many have been reprinted recently and ordering information is available on the website.  Or try your local library.  Mine has a wonderful set of well-worn, well-loved books that circulate frequently. The website also has a dictionary of characters and locations in Thirkell’s novels and a list of brief summaries. For even more information, try the website of the British Thirkell Society.

Above, a portrait of Thirkell in later life.

Angela Thirkell wrote gentle comedies of manners. Her characters are deftly drawn and manage to invlve themselves in many humorous situations that call for witty repartee — or perhaps for purposeful misunderstandings.

The 30’s-set books often reflect on the changes in post-WWI Britain. the 40’s books continue the quiet life of Barsetshire during the war along with the trials and tribulations of living in the difficult economy plus many local romances.  After WWII, the novels are often concerned with the trials and tribulations of living under the new Labour-ruled government, which is not a favorite of the local gentry. One of the new features of the neighborhood is a government agency called by most The Department of Red Tape and Sealing Wax. 

Here are two typical examples of Angela Thirkell’s style of humor, both taken from Love Among the Ruins, published in 1948, and set in Barsetshire of of the same period.

“…she went off to one of those sham organizations that are called by their initials, only no one knows what the initials stand for.”
    “It was the P.E.U.G.I.,” said Mrs. Birkett. “Pan-European Union for General Interference…”

Speaking of Scotland…”Though this description of what was evidently heaven was of a very sketchy nature, such was Mr. Belton’s enthusiasm and so pleasing his confidence in his hearers that they all felt deeply nostalgic for Scotland, which most of them had never visited.”

To conclude, here a few excerpts from an essay in the New York Times of January 4, 2008, entitled “Life, Love and the Pleasures of Literature in Barsetshire”  by Verlyn Klinkenborg.

“When I first came upon Thirkell, nearly 30 years ago, she seemed like a diverting minor writer. Minor now seems too slight a word to me for
the purveyor of such major pleasures. … Thirkell has often been called nostalgic because she is describing a kind of life — English county life — that was vanishing even as her books were appearing. Yet there is nothing nostalgic or sentimental in her tone… You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own.”

I concur.

Results of the "Althorp Attic Sale" Christie's, London

It seems as though Earl Spencer has been cleaning the tat out of his attics, and oh, what tat it is. Here are just a few of the items sold last month at Christie’s Auction Room, King Street, London.

A REGENCY MAHOGANY FOUR FOLD SCREEN CIRCA 1815
Provenance

Mrs. Dora Jordan (1761-1816), mistress of William IV. Acquired at a sale of her effects by Frances Isabella, Lady Clinton (d. 1875) who placed it in the Dining Room at 28 St. James’s Place. By descent to her niece Lady Sarah Spencer (1838-1919) and by descent to Albert Edward John, 7th Earl Spencer (1892-1975), by whom removed to Althorp, Northamptonshire, in 1923.

Price Realized £775 ($1,178)
FOUR NEEDLE-CASES, 18TH/19TH CENTURY

Silver-mounted tapering Doccia porcelain étui of round section, the porcelain body decorated with antique scenes moulded in relief, the cover decorated with sea shells and rocaille in relief, within hinged brown fitted leather case; together with, another porcelain étui of round section mounted in gilt-metal, the porcelain body decorated with painted flowers; together with, another gilt-metal mounted porcelain étui of oval section, the porcelain body and lid decorated with foliage and masks, centred with circular cartouches containing bows and arrows, the cover cartouche painted with ‘Souvenir’ and, on the body, with ‘d’amitié’, gilt borders and swags to both cover and base, together with, another gilt-metal mounted enamel étui of rounded reeded body decorated with diamond pattern with a flower depicted at the centre of each (4)

Price Realized  £5,625 ($8,550)

A PEERESS’S CORONATION ROBES

Undergown of cream silk taffeta applied with a heavily embroidered silk satin front panel, a short sleeved robe of crimson silk velvet, fitted and trimmed in miniver and embroidered with stylized ‘S’ shapes in gilt, and a train of crimson silk velvet with a short ermine capelet and gilt cordons to the shoulders; together with the remains of a peeress’ coronation train.

Provenance
Possibly worn by Charlotte, Countess Spencer (1835-1903) wife of John Poyntz, 5th Earl Spencer (1835-1910) to the coronation of Edward VII in 1902.

Price Realized £6,250 ($9,500)
A GEORGE IV BLACK-JAPANNED AND LIVERY-PAINTED STATE CHARIOT
BY BARKER AND CO., LONDON, SECOND QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

The later arms on the doors are those Spencer accoll with Spencer impaling Baring for Charles, 6th Earl Spencer, K.G., (1857-1922) and his wife Margaret (d.1906), daughter of Edward, 1st Baron Revelstoke, whom he married in 1887. These arms were possibly applied for the coronation of King George V on 22 June 1911, at which Earl Spencer presided as Lord Chamberlain.

Price Realized  £133,250 ($202,540)

THREE SPENCER HOUSEHOLD FOOTMAN’S LIVERIES LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURY
Each comprising salmon pink breeches, scarlet tailcoat and salmon pink waistcoat, all set with silvered metal buttons embossed with the Spencer cypher, scarlet wool caped greatcoat and tricorn hat

Price Realized £4,750 ($7,220)
 
   
A GEORGE III SILVER-GILT AND CORAL RATTLE
 
With two tiers of four bells dependent and bright-engraved with bands of trailing leafage, coral teething stick, engraved later with a viscount’s coronet below initial ‘A’, in later fitted box Brothers, 22 Old Bond St.

The initial is almost certainly that of Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp and later 7th Earl Spencer.

Price Realized £3,000 ($4,560)
You can see all 24 pages of the sale results at the Christie’s site.
In all, the sale realized just over two million pounds.