Meeting Lyn's brother...

[fajrdrako]

Lyn has been my good friend since the 1970s, but I have never met her brother Michael or his wife Heli. They have lived in Calgary for a very long time, and have never come to Ottawa - until this week.

Lyn wanted her local friends to meet them, so she rented the party room at her condo building and invited us all over. We made it a pot-luck supper, and had a wonderful time. It was a bit like a Who Cares revisited.... A Who Cares was a kind of party we used to have every second Saturday night in roving locations, in which anyone associated with local fandom was welcome to turn up, and bring their friends.

Those days of easy socializing are behind us, but we had a wonderful time. There was a vast amount of food, and Beulah brought some delicious carrot cake.

I liked Michael and Heli, too. I expected Michael to resemble Lyn's father, whom I'd met, but he didn't. Nor did he resemble Lyn. He was just... himself, I guess, which is fair enough.

Afterwards, Beulah drove me home and we dropped in on maaseru to share some of the leftover carrot cake with her and maaboroshi. (Amazing, that there should be leftover cake, with that crowd!) We chanced on the beginning of the Kenneth Branagh As You Like It which instantly charmed us (and hooked us) with its multicultural melange of nineteenth-century Americans in Japan, Tudor England dialogue, ninjas, and Star Wars ambience. (And, muttered maaboroshi and I to each other, all this and femslash too. Gotta love Branagh.)

I didn't see more than the first third of it; dying to see the rest.

maaseru said that As You Like It was the first live play she saw, and that marked the moment when she fell in love with Shakespeare and with theatre. And she hasn't seen that particular play since, not even in movie form.

I don't think I've ever seen it at all - I've just read it.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I do want to see the Olivier version again. I saw it when I was - I'm not sure - 14 or so - and I hated it. I thought it was stilted and pretentious. I thought at that time that Shakespeare really could not be successfully filmed - it was Kenneth Branagh who changed my mind, but I've seen other good movie versions of Shakespeare since. The Ian McKellen Richard III springs to mind.

I'm still very fussy.

After Hamlet I refused to see another Olivier movie for decades. Then I saw him in Pride and Prejudice, and thought, hmm, not half bad - so I think I'm ready to try Hamlet again.

Come to think of it, the first time I ever saw Hamlet was in a film - a Hallmark Special on TV. It was horribly cut (but I was only about eleven then, and didn't notice the difference) and starred Richard Chamberlain, in spiffy Regency costume. I was a goner.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I did mention the Trevor Nunn filmed version of Twelfth Night to you, didn't I?

Highly recommended.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes - I just saw that a couple of weeks ago, and absolutely loved it.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Oh, good. I thought I had during our last Bardish discussion, but I couldn't remember.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I want more like that!

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Always. Which is one reason I so so appreciate Branagh...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I was really missing his movies. I'm delighted to have "As You Like It" now.