A quick check of interviews with Benedict in which he’s asked to “list favorites” almost always includes his admission that the list would change if he’s asked again the next day – and that lists are, well, a bit challenging for him. In fact, in true Cumberbatch fashion, he admitted as much to the folks at Two Paddocks who asked for his Top 10 favorite songs. Two Paddocks, by the way, is the vineyard in New Zealand co-founded by actor Sam Neill – not that it’s unusual for actors to venture into the vineyard. We’ve learned through media coverage that Ben enjoys the fruit of the vine every now and again:
Here, at Ben Caring’s birthday at Annabel’s, London in Oct. 2012 (photo courtesy GQ Magazine UK)
Or here, with Dr. Who star Matt Smith at an event hosted by Esquire in 2013
Over the weekend at Oz Comic-Con in Adelaide, Australia, actor (and book aficionado) Benedict Cumberbatch was quoted as saying that “prisoners should be given books,” encouraging the audience to “send books to prisoners.”
While Americans (like me) may have first thought their favourite TV detective was just being considerate of those serving time behind bars, and others believed it a call for compassion from an actor to his ever-increasing number of fans, news-savvy audience members (especially those in the UK) knew better. This wasn’t just an “Oh, isn’t he thoughtful!” moment, but a call to action – and criticism of a current situation. However, before you go through your bookshelves or do your spring cleaning and box up volumes to drop off at the nearest detention center, let me fill you in a bit so you can find the best way to follow Cumberbatch’s suggestion. (more…)
Sometimes you come across something so deliciously random, you just have to share it. In 2010 Benedict Cumberbatch reviewed several books for the Richard & Judy show. This conveniently took place in the grounds of a gorgeous Greek hotel in Mykonos and, luckily for us, was captured on camera.
Exhibit A, Benedict’s review of the book Mr. Toppit by Charles Elton (buy it here). Amazon description:
“When the author of The Hayseed Chronicles, Arthur Hayman, is mown down by a concrete truck in Soho, his legacy passes to his widow, Martha, and her children – the fragile Rachel, and Luke, reluctantly immortalized as Luke Hayseed, the central character of his father’s books. But others want their share, particularly Laurie, who has a mysterious agenda of her own that changes all their lives. For buried deep in the books lie secrets which threaten to be revealed as the family begins to crumble under the heavy burden of their inheritance.”
But let’s hear what Benedict thought about it. In a cowboy hat. In a whirlpool. And there are Crocs. Just do yourself a favour and click play:
That’s not everything, maybe Guernica by Dave Boling (buy it here) is the book for you. Amazon description:
“An extraordinary epic of love, family, and war set in the Basque town of Guernica before, during, and after its destruction by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War.
In 1935, Miguel Navarro finds himself in conflict with the Spanish Civil Guard and flees the Basque fishing village of Lekeitio to make a new start in Guernica, the centre of Basque culture and tradition. Once there, he finds more than just a new life – he finds someone to live for. Miren Ansotegui is the charismatic and graceful dancer he meets and the two discover a love they believe nothing can destroy . . .”
Benedict’s take on the book is presented in 2 very beautifully filmed minutes here (and before anyone asks: the girl is Olivia, his girlfriend at the time):
But we are not done yet, in this last video Benedict reviews Mystery Man by Colin Bateman (get it here). Amazon description:
“A superbly gripping and blackly funny mystery by the king of the comic crime caper.
He’s the Man With No Name and the owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when a detective agency next door goes bust, the agency’s clients start calling into his shop asking him to solve their cases. It’s not as if there’s any danger involved. It’s an easy way to sell books to his gullible customers and Alison, the beautiful girl in the jewelry shop across the road, will surely be impressed. Except she’s not – because she can see the bigger picture. And when they break into the shuttered shop next door on a dare, they have their answer. Suddenly they’re catapulted along a murder trail which leads them from small-time publishing to Nazi concentration camps and serial killers…”.
This video review features more whirlpool action, swimming, and more glorious facial hair.
I find these videos hilarious personally and think Benedict does a great job presenting the books. I’d certainly love to see more of the same. Maybe you got some inspiration for additions to your reading list? Or why not make Mykonos your next holiday destination? It certainly looks stunning.
“Oh my God yes, he’s really funny. He came to a read, and we had a couple of things that he said, “Hey, I could do those. Can I?” [Laughs] This was the first time someone actually just kinda muscled their way into being a guest star. He called us back and he said, “You want me to do anything else?” And we gave him a little more… He’s just this completely irresistible person. You mustgive him dialogue if you come within 100 yards of him.”
Completely Cumberbatched.
I like to imagine they had the Prime Minister role going to him already and then when he asked if they wanted any more from him he leapt into his Rickman impression before they could finish the sentence.
Because of course it is, in all seriousness, still realistic to pop Professor Snape into what is possibly the most British 30 seconds of The Simpsons we’ve seen so far, and if you’ve seen episode 4 of series 15 (originally showed back in November 2003) “The Regina Monologues”, you’ll know it involves the family being met at the airport by Tony Blair, Bart getting Sir Ian McKellen into an accident by the overuse of the word “Macbeth” and J.K. Rowling telling Lisa “he grows up and marries you! Is that what you want to hear?” (it is) when she enquirers as to the ending of Harry Potter. All of which voiced themselves!
They also spend an entire day stuck on a round-a-bout and end up crashing into The Queen earning her a diamond studded neck brace. Not voiced by the real thing unfortunately.
But anyway.
The moment of Benedict’s cameo involves the Simpsons boys and a group of other men trying to learn how to impress their partners with a big romantic gesture by watching British movies. In this particular case “Love Indubitably”. No prizes for guessing what that’s a parody of.
This then leads to a shot of Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes and Isaac Newton dancing behind a TARDIS. Yes. Really.
On a personal note, I am such a huge fan of The Simpsons, and have been for as long as I can remember. To know that Benedict was also a huge fan of the show let alone going to be part of it was a fantastic moment for me. There’s been guest stars upon guest stars in the Simpsons as you can probably tell. I won’t list them all or we’ll be here until next year, but it definitely feels like one of those “you know you’ve made it when” moments.
“Love is a Many-Splintered Thing” is episode 12 of series 24 and was originally broadcast February 2013. So if you’re like me and don’t live in America and don’t have Sky TV you can probably buy it on DVD in about….8 years [insert “I’m not even exaggerating” face here]. (They really need a better system than one series out on DVD each year). It’ll be doing its rounds on Channel 4 before then I’m sure, so keep an eye out!
It’s never too late to start watching The Simpsons if you haven’t already! Personal recommendation – don’t skip the early series, they’re the best ones! We can see ideas starting to run a bit thin these days but who can blame them. There are still some gems out there!
The breaking of the Enigma coding system was not a one-time event.
The Polish Cipher Bureau (which first decoded Enigma messages in late 1932/early 1933), Bletchley Park in England, and codebreakers in other countries had to deal with different versions of the Enigma machine, as well as ever-changing technical details and modes of operation. Methods devised by the Polish cryptanalysts in the 1930s no longer worked in the 1940s after the Germans made additional changes to the machine in 1938 and improved their flawed key exchange protocol in May 1940.
By this point Alan Turing had figured out a new way of cracking the code and had designed the Bombe, an electro-mechanical machine that could help break Enigma (and which later incorporated an important improvement made by Gordon Welchman). This, however, did not mean that cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park were able to continuously read Enigma messages throughout the war. Further changes to the machine caused setbacks and information blackouts. In addition, the German Navy used a more sophisticated and complex model that was much harder to crack.
In addition to the Enigma code, cryptanalyst also had to deal with the Lorenz cipher, a teleprinter code that was produced by a different machine, the Geheimschreiber, and was used between the German High Command and their army commands throughout occupied Europe. Breaking the Lorenz cipher in Bletchley Park lead to the creation of the Colossus, the world’s first digital electronic computer, an invention that was kept secret for decades.
It is also important to remember that while the main codebreakers deserve attention and praise for their breakthroughs, these would not have been possible without the tireless work of the countless other members of staff at Bletchley Park and at listing post throughout the country, many of whom were women, whose jobs included intercepting radio signals, deciphering, analysing and translating messages, maintaining the equipment etc.
Before I get to the fascinating story of Alan Turing, Bletchley Park and the equally intriguing Polish codebreaking efforts before the war, I’d first like to share some basic information about the invention of the Enigma machine. In Part 4 I will try to explain its basic functions with the help of a DIY paper cut-out version, as I think being able to visualize what happened inside the Enigma machine may make it easier to understand it and, by extension, the Bombe as well.
The invention of the Enigma machine
Scherbius’ Enigma patent, 1928
The Enigma machine, which would become one of the most fearsome systems of encryption in history, was invented by the German Arthur Scherbius in 1918. It was a battery-powered, electro-mechanical enciphering machine about the size and weight of an old-fashioned portable typewriter, and was kept in a wooden box. It consisted of the following three main parts, connected by wires:
A keyboard with 26 keys for inputting each plaintext letter.
A scrambling unit with three interchangeable wheels (also called rotors) and a reflector, which encrypted each plaintext letter into cipher. Each rotor had 26 inputs and 26 outputs which were wired to each other in a distinctive way. The scrambling unit was the most important part of the machine.
A lampboard with 26 lamps that indicated the ciphertext letters during encoding, and vice versa during decoding.
A fourth important feature, the plugboard for swapping letter pairs, was later added to the military version of the machine.
When an operator pressed a key, an electrical pulse was sent through the wiring of the scrambling unit and illuminated the corresponding ciphertext letter. The exact electrical path was determined by the position of the three rotors, which changed with every keystroke as at least one of the wheels turned and advanced one position. This meant that pressing the same key repeatedly resulted in different ciphertext letters. If an operator typed the letter A once, it might illuminate the letter E, pressing the key A again might encode it as R, and so on. (I will go into more detail in Part 3).
Arthur Scherbius tried to market a commercial Enigma model to companies and a modified version to the military authorities of various nations. Neither effort was successful at first. Businesses such as banks said they couldn’t afford the machine and German military leaders were equally unenthusiastic. The latter were not yet aware of the role played by insecure ciphers in World War I (See further ENIGMA Part 1 – Historical Background). Thus very few Engima machines were sold at that time.
The military was shocked into action in 1923 when several British accounts of the Great War were published, among them Winston Churchill’s ‘The World Crisis’. These detailed the interception and decryption of crucial German coded messages sent during the war, which forced the Germans to admit that they had been playing ‘with open cards’. In the aftermath of these revelations, they initiated an effort to find ways of preventing a repeat of this cryptographic fiasco, which led to the decision that the Enigma machine offered the best solution.
Since the various moveable elements of the machine (the rotors and cables of the plugboard) could be set independently of each other, the resulting number of possible settings was astronomical. The early military version had roughly 10,000,000,000,000,000 different ways of being set up. If a hypothetical cryptanalyst could try one setting a minute, it would take longer than the age of the universe to check every possibility. This mind-boggling number lulled the Germans into a false sense of security: up until the end of the war, they never believed or even suspected that the code could be/had been broken.
By 1925 the military version of the Enigma machine was being mass produced in Germany, and it went into military use in 1926. The military model was different from the commercial one (different wiring in the scrambling unit, added plugboard), which by this time had also found a number of buyers interested in protecting commercial secrets, so even if companies owned a freely accessible commercial Enigma machine, they could not read traffic encoded on a military model. Over the next two decades, the military bought over 30,000 Enigma machines.
After Hitler came to power in 1933, the German army was reorganized and the Enigma machine played a critical role in this. The concept of Blitzkrieg (lightning war) involved fast, powerful attacks by infantry formations, backed by air support, and the capability of coordinating these elements at high speed and with absolute security. ‘Speed of attack through speed of communications’ was the catchphrase. At the beginning of World War II the Germans were overwhelmingly superior to the Allies in the field of radio communications.
Gordon Welchman, a codebreaker at Bletchley Park and co-creator of the Bombe, describes in ‘The Hut Six Story’, an account of his experiences during the war:
‘Because the Germans had done such a good job, the problems with which we were faced were unprecedented. Never before had radio signalling and cryptography been employed on such a large scale to provide battlefield communications.’ [p. 20]
Simon Singh writes in ‘The Code Book’ :
‘Scherbius’s invention provided the German military with the most secure system of cryptography in the world, and at the outbreak of the Second World War their communications were protected by an unparalleled level of encryption. At times, it seemed that the Enigma machine would play a vital role in ensuring Nazi victory, but instead it was ultimately part of Hitler’s downfall.’ [p. 142]
HINSLEY, F.H., & STRIPP, Alan. Code Breakers. The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. Oxford, 1993
KAHN, David. The Code-Breakers. The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet. New York, 1996
KAHN, David. Seizing the Enigma. The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939 – 1943. Revised Edition. London, 2012
McKAY, Sinclair. The Secret Life of Bletchley Park. The WWII Codebreaking Centre and the Men and Women Who Worked There. London, 2011
SINGH, Simon. The Code Book . The Secret History of Codes and Code-Breaking. London, 1999
WELCHMAN, Gordon. The Hut Six Story . Breaking the Enigma Codes. Oxford, 1997
“We had the drive and the time on our hands, one little room and the biggest of plans,
the days were shaping up frosty and bright – perfect weather to fly, perfect weather to fly.”
Weather To Fly is the song that sums up Elbow for me. Its hypnotic tone and lulling rhythms, overlapped with Guy Garvey’s gorgeous, autobiographical poetry, wraps up their career in a nutshell. Formed in Manchester in the 1990s, they hovered underneath the radar of widespread commerical success until the release of the album which contains this wonderful song.
The Seldom Seen Kid, released in 2008, is an 11-track masterpiece that won the Mercury Music Prize and brought their gorgeous sound to the masses, through the anthemic hit One Day Like This. Those who love that song, including Benedict, who named it on a playlist of favourite songs in his Reddit AMA, had their ears opened to a whole world of incredible songs. Mirrorball is a sure-fire candidate as a wedding first dance song; The Loneliness of A Tower Crane Driver, is atmospheric; Grounds for Divorce is a real crowd-pleaser.
Before this album, they had released three studio albums, Asleep at the Back, featuring their first ever single, Red;A Cast of Thousands, which contains my other favourite, Fugitive Motel; and Leaders of the Free World, which has Mexican Standoff as its stand-out track.
Since hitting the big time, the band has stayed wonderfully true to their unique sound, with Build A Rocket Boys! scoring more chart success with Lippy Kids and Open Arms. Their latest album, The Take Off and Landing of Everything, is just released and looks set to continue that trend, with New York Morning an instant anthem.
As a studio band, Elbow are a wonderful diversion from the norm. But it is their live performances which really showcases their star quality.
Enjoy this, Elbow performing with the BBC orchestra, their entire album The Seldom Seen Kid.
http://youtu.be/sd8cnPUMPF0
ETA: At the recent OzComicCon panel in Sydney, Benedict proclaimed his love and admiration for the band, citing My Sad Captains as one of his favourite tracks of the moment.
‘And if it’s all we only pass this way but once – What a perfect waste of time’. That’s a pretty beautiful motto for life really, isnt’ it? Elbow. Lots of Elbow.”
So here, for your listening pleasure, is another live performance, this time of My Sad Captains
Benedict’s hotly anticipated film, The Imitation Game, centers on the life and achievements of British mathematician and war hero, Alan Turing. For those unfamiliar with Turing, he played a major role in helping to decode German intelligence during the Second World War. Building upon the pre-war work of Polish codebreakers, Turing devised techniques to break German codes as well as improved upon bombe technologies that assisted in deciphering text sent from Engima machines. Turing’s work also laid the philosophical and scientific foundations of computer science and artificial intelligence. Many experts and historians claim that the work he and other codebreakers contributed to the war effort ultimately helped shorten the duration of the conflict by two years, thus saving countless lives.
Bletchley Park served as a center for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). Shrouded in secrecy, handfuls of professionals and clever individuals from all over the country worked together to break codes. Turing himself initially led the Hut 8 team that took care of German naval transmissions. Once the war ended, all the documents at Bletchley Park were stored away or destroyed. Those who worked as ciphers lived on, keeping their war work a secret. Thirty years later, with the lift on the Official Secrets Act, the work of those at Bletchley Park finally surfaced to the public conscience.
Today, Bletchley Park is a museum, dedicated to sharing knowledge about the work of the codebreakers. There are lots of exhibits to see, including some rooms that are set up to mimic what one would have seen during the war era. Bletchley Park is currently undergoing some remodeling, restoring, and construction, but come June 2014, everything should be open to see in full view.
For those who are interested in visiting Bletchley Park, here are some tips for your visit:
The closest train station to the park is Bletchley station. This can be accessed by the London Midlands or Southern train lines. Alternatively, you can take a train to Milton Keynes Central, and then take a local bus.
Despite the high admission fees, your ticket allows you to visit the park as many times as you’d like for one year.
When you arrive at Bletchley, you have the option of renting a multimedia pack, which is essentially an iPod loaded with videos and pictures of Bletchley. There is an adult version of the guide, as well as a kid’s one, full of games and easier to understand historical tidbits. It’s fun for the entire family!
There are free, one hour tours given at the park, leaving every half hour (subject to availability). As mentioned by the staff, your multimedia packs give you a lot of information about what you’re seeing, but if you have questions and want to hear more stories, it’s good to pop on with a tour. Make sure you collect a tour ticket to sign up for a time slot.
If your visit sparks a greater interest in codebreakers/Turing, the gift shop has some great literature available (you will see the Hodges and Copeland biographies available).
While you can see a replica bombe machine at Bletchley, you can also see a working Colossus machine at the neighboring National Museum of Computing. There is a separate admission fee though, so do be aware of that.
Turing is one of the stars of Bletchley Park, so you’ll see several exhibits and pieces dedicated to him and his work. There are handfuls of photographs, letters, and other written memorabilia. Personal highlights, however, were seeing Alan Turing’s watch, his mug (which he famously chained to the radiator to prevent others from using it), and his teddy bear Porgy that he had while at Cambridge.
Other highlights include a memorial to the Polish codebreakers; other stories of espionage and codebreaking from the war; and a working replica of the bombe machine (which was used to help decipher codes en masse).
If you leisurely stroll around, it’s easy to spend a half to full day at Bletchley. It is all utterly fascinating, and amazing to think how so many people had to keep the place a secret, even from their loved ones. If the weather’s nice – bring a packed lunch and sit on the green by the pond. You can then get an idea of how the place served as a sort of idyllic community for those who lived and worked there.
All in all, take your time while at Bletchley and soak in the history. You never know what interesting factoids you might take home with you that day.
“After the show the actor had showered, danced around to Skeleton Boy by Friendly Fires to “shake off” the interwar years, and dived into the National’s Green Room to have a drink with his friends, but then escaped to the fresh air of a balcony, alone. ” via Cumberbatchweb from a Sunday Times Article
Each other. Metaphorically speaking, it’s easy to bump into one another on the journey from A to B and not even notice. People should take time to notice, enjoy and help each other.
In weak moments…
Try to imagine myself on top of Hampstead Heath, breathing in the fresh, cool air in order to calm myself, as opposed to the norm which would be losing my temper.
My philosophy is…
Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.”
There are various version of Benedict Cumberbatch reading Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats (1795 – 1821) located on YouTube for your listening pleasure. There is a voice over by Cumberbatch for scenes from Fanny and John (2009, Campion), but I don’t recommend it. The visuals and the voiceover don’t work well together. There’s a heavy echo chamber on the voice over. I didn’t enjoy the film scenes or Cumberbatch’s truncated performance. I prefer this Cumberbatch recitation with some photos and music.
John Keats (1795 – 1821) wrote ode to a Nightingale. He suffered from tuberculosis for most of his life, losing his father, mother, and brother to the disease. Keats fell in love with Fanny Brawne, a young woman above his station. The romance lasted for three years, during which time he wrote most of his works. He parted from his true love in with the hopes that a change of scenery in Italy would strengthen his health. Unfortunately, it did not; Keats died in Italy at 25. His beloved Fanny mourned for him for 10 years, finally marrying at 33. She wore the ring that he gave her until her death at age 65.
Therefore, as is characteristic of the CumberCollective and our ever inventive and creative fanbase, I wanted with chat the Poet himself, rather drone on like a Maths professors before a holiday. Through the magic of Skype, I looked under “Pre-Raphaelite/Romantics/Raphaelite” and lo and behold! – I found myself looking a dapper if somewhat shabbily dress young man, a Beau Brummel dressed by Kmart circa 1819.
“Hello, Mr. Keats. I am here to ask you some questions about your ‘Ode to A Nightingale’ as it is performed by Benedict Cumberbatch and what your…”
From off screen, there came the sound of someone pushing people aside and dashing about the room, “Cumberbatch!!! No way!! Let me chat! Let me see him! I haven’t seen cheekbones like that since Marlowe!” William Shakespeare, billiard cue in hand pops into the frame above Keats’ head.
“It’s not him; you boob, it’s a fan,” replies Keats, clearly annoyed.
“Really”, Shakespeare looks at me; with the disappointed air one gets from seeing James Clarkson rather than J Lo, he storms out of range, “Tell your friends, particularly whatever Ninja, that I am completely out of fanporn. Totally!!! That leather thing, really! Pull the old jerkin on me, will you? MOREOVER, let BC know he’s on his own for Hamlet. Tennant fellow wore me out! Danish? – thanks for the Glasgow laddie, and Fiennes? please, damn near killed me.”
“Sorry, love, you were saying? Don’t mind Bill, he gets a bit testy these days, what with fans calling up, asking for more and more stories for the Batch. The Bard’s been a bit bitchy,” Keats says.
“I heard that, Shorty,” Shakespeare retorts off camera, amid the crashing billiards. “Love you, too, Keats. Now Lovelace? Austen? are you going to play the game or screw around? Percy, it’s your turn. Terrific! Coleridge is sleeping it off, again…”
“You were saying,” Keats props his booted feet on desk, nearly knocking of the keyboard, “Sorry, Wadsworth has the IPad and Fanny forgot to charge the IPhone…Again. Of course, Bill has an Android, and Hemingway has…”
“Oh, Fanny Brawne, your beloved? Who inspired you to write about the joys of love? Whose love totally changed your life and inspired some of the most wonderful poetry in the English language? How romantic that you’re back together,” I was polite, but the interview was not getting to the heart of the matter, so to speak.
“Yeah, well, I died at 25, and she gets here in her 60’s. Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore we’re not. It’s been a bit of an adjustment. All that “Tender is the night” with Fanny was great but then, we lost track of each other. I was dating Sylvia Plath for a while. She is so depressing; not good with the oven either. Yeah, Fanny and I are working it out. I mean she still has my ring. We see Freud on Wednesdays, and there’s a marital group Thursdays at 6. Tennyson’s on Friday for…”
“I was wondering what you think if Cumberbatch’s performance of your poem?” I interjected, in hopes of redirecting Keats’ conversation.
“So, you were saying…Ah! Cumberbatch’s performance of ‘Ode to a Nightingale’? Loved it! An intimate whisper, so deep and resonating!”
“Cause the mate’s tall, Shorty,” quips Shakespeare as he pops his head back into range of the desktop camera. Keats throws the nearest book from the desk, and Shakespeare clears the room. I believe it was “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (T.S. Eliot. 1920) first edition, of course.
“AS I was saying the performance evokes the deep and sinuous call of the nightingale as I heard it that night on Highgate Hill (if I can believe what Leigh Hunt said about it). The sound was haunting and captivating. I like how Cumberbatch captures that the drug-like effect of the song of the nightingale. He is able to evoke what I longed for, what the nightingale represents for me: the green earth and beauty of nature, “ a beaker ful of the warm South.” Yet, it is for me, the call of death itself. Benedict (if I may be so bold) conveys that this brew would enable a life to flow within me and allow me to “leave the world unseen, and with thee, fade away, into the forest dim.” I was swept up into the sound of the musical bird! Cumberbatch reads, and I am there, awaiting the next note and hoping it will carry me away from all my problems. I mean, being sick sucks, even if you can write great poems about it. I particularly like the way he handles the end of the poem, the way he says ‘forlorn’. Then last stanza:
Forlorn! The very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! The fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! Adieu! Thy plaintive anthem fades
Past near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and not ‘tis buried deep
In the next valley glades:
Was it a vision or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: – do I wake or sleep?
“Cumberbatch does this part with the voice of one who, while lost in his passionate reverie, begins to doubt his own senses – could this have been true? Damn good job, that Cumberbatch…” Keats appears misty eyed.
“Sorry, sinuses you know…Hate the spring,” Keats wipes his noses on his handkerchief.
“John, if I may call you that, your reading was particularly moving. So I take it you would recommend Cumberbatch’s performance?”
“Oh, yes, I really like this one – here, I send you the link…Hmmm love the photos. Nice music, not too distracting.” Keats wistfully plays with the picture of Cumberbatch photobombing U2 at the Oscars next to the monitor.
“Well, you know I have to run, the game and all…Thanks for stopping by. Tell Benedict we are following his career with great interest,” Keats smiles and picks up the Russian GQ from the desk.
“Hey, didn’t mean it about the Hamlet thing. Know I’d be thrilled to help…really let him know,” whispers Shakespeare. He smiles and pops back out of the frame but not before saying, “Tell Gatiss and Moffat the 2016 thing is ridiculous. It’s like an eternity, for god sakes.”
“Will do, Thanks again, John” and I closed the Skype screen.
Well, don’t take John’s and my word for it. Listen with the ear of one who understands the fine line between life and death, joy and sorrow, of love gained and love lost.
For an in-depth story, check out Andrew Motion’s biography about Keats or Jane Campion book about Keats and Fanny, (also a film) “Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne” (2009, Penguin Books Ltd., London).
