Sunday Summary: Sunshine, Shakespeare, & Radiohead
Read about the highlights of the week, including my trip to see Hamlet Hail to the Thief, and the outcome of the composition challenge.
Midsummer Sun
Hello readers!
I trust you are well! Are you enjoying the weather? I must confess, it is too hot for me and I think I am naturally accustomed to colder climates. Must be those traces of Viking DNA!
This week I will be focusing on my trip Thursday , to see the Hamlet Hail to the Thief production at the Royal Shakespeare Company, announce the competition winners from last weeks composition challenge, and as always, the weekly track of the week.
Shakespeare and Radiohead
Thursday evening, my family and I went to celebrate the last part of my 40th Birthday shenanigans. What kicked off as a -4 degree celsius weekend in Oxford this January, accumulated nearly 6 months later in 32 degree summer heat in Sratford-Upon-Avon; I certainly gave the celebrations my all this year!
I must confess, I didn’t know what to expect on Thursday. I love a good Shakespearean Tragedy and wasn’t sure how mixing the production with Radiohead’s, Hail to the Thief album would work. For me, this is an album with baggage as it came out in my A-Level year with some mixed memories, and not really an album I appreciated at the time.
That said, you are always safe with the RSC, and what I saw was a masterful synergy between music and Shakespearean Verse that created a synergy that can only be described as sublime. A fantastic production indeed which was visually stunning, contemporary, relevant, and with Samuel Blenkin’s Hamlet, masterfully acted.
The production lasts until the 28th June and I can see from their website that are some limited seating remaining, so if you’re interested go check out the RSC website here.
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, March 2025
Composition Challenge
Well, I firstly want to to thank everyone for their positive response to last week’s blog that focused on composition. At the end of the blog I invited you all to have a go and capture moments and submit them for a chance of winning one of my art mugs.
It was overwhelming to see such beautiful and varied submissions. We have photographs from holidays, walks, time with friends and nature. All varied with either focus on light, tones, shade, shaping and the use of thirds.
Reviewing the submissions I couldn’t pick just one, so I have picked a few. Congratulations to the winners, who I will contact to send their mugs. Here are the winners and some of my favourites from the submissions. All submissions will also be given a voucher.
Song of the Week
It’s a bit of a difficult one picking a song of the week.
The obvious thing would be to pick something from the Radiohead, Hail to the Thief album, but as I wrote earlier, I have a complicated history with this album. One could even call it baggage. It is amazing really how a song can take you straight back into a moment, even if that is such a long time ago. Upon hearing it, the memories, the emotions, all flood back
For me, the album takes me back to the summer I completed my A-Levels, listening to the album of a friend that I loved dearly, who was there to see me off on the day I went to move to Stirling for University, and probably in many ways became my first love. I was never a fan of the album at the time, but he loved it and I patiently listened to it almost every day, while we hung out as I knew it meant something to him.
Still, these moments, they shape who you are, and listening to the tracks on Thursday, as the plot of Hamlet unfolded before me like everything with the passing of time, the memories seemed less confrontational; I just sat and relaxed into it all, allowing the music to take on new meanings and memories.
So you know what, I will pick a song from the album.