dc://star struck at the Abbey

Every life offers up little gems. Perfect moments you never imagined or expected. But then suddenly it happens. This evening, just for me, one did.

I am standing on my own in that medieval jewel of London - the Henry VII Lady Chapel at the far eastern end of Westminster Abbey. I am gently stroking the head of a baby deer - the cold golden bronze deer at the feet of Margaret Beaufort, a 600 year old Countess, who is entombed here. Mother of the King. Foundress of both Christ's and St John's colleges in Cambridge.

A slight man of middle years walks past me quietly, then stops and turns. He starts to speak to me gently, looking at me straight in the eyes. The words are William Shakespeare's. Sonnet 64. In mid sonnet he grips my arm. Sir Mark Rylance.

I can barely breathe. His voice is so beautiful. I have Thomas Cromwell and Rudolf Abel and The BFG all to myself.

One thousand years of English history, an Oscar winning actor and me. The lines he speaks curl across my mind, familiar but fresh and evocative. And they are wrenching. He pulls me close to whisper "Time will come and take my love away".

I want to cry. He briefly rests. He moves on. Some chapel visitors whom I had not noticed were gathered behind me and they now follow him out. As I do. I want to tell him I find his voice and his delivery magical - the most beautiful and distinctive male voice to my ear since Burton. I want to tell him his Cromwell was unique and unforgettable. His silences the most rich and meaningful of such I've known. I want to tell him how proud I am to 'know him' through my BBC colleague and friend-of-old Peter who directed him in Wolf Hall. I want to tell him that seeing him in 2015 has since driven me to 'confront' Shakespeare's works and learn to understand language that has always bewildered me but is like crystal to my much better-read family - Mia, Jamie and Seb. But I tell him no such things.

Disbelief is not suspended. The performers stay in character.

Sir Mark is here performing scenes from plays and sonnets with 25 actors in the Abbey.

It is the first such experiment in this place in a thousand years. 400 theatre-goers booked to walk about the Abbey for 90 minutes and experience here and there the words of the poet. Random. Communal. Solitary. (here at the Tomb of Richard II)

The Bard's birthday. A project of the Globe Theatre (Rylance its first art director for a decade in the nineties) and of Westminster Abbey.

Excelling in our culture.

Kudos Globe. Kudos Sir Mark. Kudos Royal Peculiar.

This is London.

A few related links

Sonnet 64 and other moments in full text below, scroll down, with Credits.

Sonnet 64 explained

Richard II, Act V, Scene V as spoken by Sir Mark at Richard II's tomb (photo above)

The Globe Theatre's Shakespeare within the Abbey

Westminster Abbey

Sir Mark Rylance now

Margaret Beaufort

Rylance and Jacobi in wonderful conversation

The BBC's Wolf Hall and on Amazon

The BFG and Spielberg (Guardian perspective)

Sonnet 64 by William Shakespeare (a first on LinkedIn ?)

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced

The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,

And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

And the firm soil win of the watery main,

Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state itself confounded to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,

That Time will come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

(spoken to me by Sir Mark in The Lady Chapel)

Richard II, Act 5, Scene 5

Pomfret Castle. Enter KING RICHARD

I have been studying how I may compare

This prison where I live unto the world:

And for because the world is populous

And here is not a creature but myself,

I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.

My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,

My soul the father; and these two beget

A generation of still-breeding thoughts,

And these same thoughts people this little world,

In humours like the people of this world,

For no thought is contented. The better sort,

As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd

With scruples and do set the word itself

Against the word:

As thus, 'Come, little ones,' and then again,

'It is as hard to come as for a camel

To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'

Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot

Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails

May tear a passage through the flinty ribs

Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls,

And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.

Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves

That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,

Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars

Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,

That many have and others must sit there;

And in this thought they find a kind of ease,

Bearing their own misfortunes on the back

Of such as have before endured the like.

Thus play I in one person many people,

And none contented: sometimes am I king;

Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,

And so I am: then crushing penury

Persuades me I was better when a king;

Then am I king'd again: and by and by

Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,

And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,

Nor I nor any man that but man is

With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased

With being nothing. Music do I hear?

(spoken by Sir Mark sitting on plinth of Richard II's tomb)

The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 2

CALIBAN

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,

The clouds methought would open and show riches

Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,

I cried to dream again.

(to a group of 10 of us, as Sir Mark looked up at the fan vaulting of The Lady Chapel)

Anthony and Cleopatra, Act 2, Scene 5

Messenger

Will't please you hear me?

CLEOPATRA

I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st:

Yet if thou say Antony lives, is well,

Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,

I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail

Rich pearls upon thee.

Messenger

Madam, he's well.

CLEOPATRA

Well said.

Messenger

And friends with Caesar.

CLEOPATRA

Thou'rt an honest man.

Messenger

Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.

CLEOPATRA

Make thee a fortune from me.

Messenger

But yet, madam,--

CLEOPATRA

I do not like 'But yet,' it does allay

The good precedence; fie upon 'But yet'!

'But yet' is as a gaoler to bring forth

Some monstrous malefactor. Prithee, friend,

Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear,

The good and bad together: he's friends with Caesar:

In state of health thou say'st; and thou say'st free.

Messenger

Free, madam! no; I made no such report:

He's bound unto Octavia.

CLEOPATRA

For what good turn?

Messenger

For the best turn i' the bed.

CLEOPATRA

I am pale, Charmian.

Messenger

Madam, he's married to Octavia.

CLEOPATRA

The most infectious pestilence upon thee!

Strikes him down

Messenger

Good madam, patience.

CLEOPATRA

What say you? Hence,

Strikes him again

Horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes

Like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head:

She hales him up and down

Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine,

Smarting in lingering pickle.

Messenger

Gracious madam,

I that do bring the news made not the match.

CLEOPATRA

Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,

And make thy fortunes proud: the blow thou hadst

Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;

And I will boot thee with what gift beside

Thy modesty can beg.

Messenger

He's married, madam.

CLEOPATRA

Rogue, thou hast lived too long.

(Shobu Kapoor and Sir Mark Rylance beside Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey)

CREDITS: Globe Theatre production at Westminster Abbey 20-21 April 2017