Barnacles and Bondage

I've enjoyed a rare day off from the play today. It cometh not a moment too soon because the voice is beginning to go and I needed to spend a good 24 hours in complete silence— rest and hydration I tells ya!

Feeding and snoozing and farting and generally doing 're-charge' stuff that requireth no use of the vocal chords has been fun.

What was I at?

Somebody recently mooted the idea of a free trip to Norway for Bloomsday, ( for any willin' actor who'd do a bit o' Ulysses for them) and I reckoned that, ( seeing as I have a 'tache and roundy glasses)— I might just be their man.


Be way of research, I reckoned I'd have another read of a bit of it, and, what was the bit I read?— only the row in the pub; then I had a look-see on the interweb of Angeline Ball doing her Molly Bloom monological what-have-you.

All marvellous, and why not go all out and get yourself a feed of Dennys sausages? says I ! (which I did, and why wouldn't I?) and a drop o' black tae and eggs and rashers while you're at it?



Sated and bloated with literature and protein, there was nothin' else for it but to watch an oul fillum for meself.
Why not?— says you; and what's with all these self-directed questions anyway?—would you not get on with what you're gettin' on with and not be botherin' the good people of the interweb with your blatherin oul' shite that makes no sense to man or beast you ignorant illiterate mongolian monkey man?

Faith I will, then: Right, the 'oul' fillum',

and, when I say oul' fillum, I do mean OUL fillum:

' Of Human Bondage ' 1934

Instantly watchable by doing a clicky here.

The pace and acting style of old fillums are likely to turn folk off nowadays: when you hear Bette Davis' british accent you may squirm slightly, or even a lot. Still, I enjoyed this old chestnut immensely.



It started off quirky and clumpy and odd with Ashley Wilkes from Gone with The Wind playing a quirky, clumpy and odd young painter with a club foot trying to make his name in Paris, but it became interesting very quickly.

If you have the time, you might try it, and just as the flavour of basil goes with tomato, it is the perfect accompaniment to the soliloquay of Molly Bloom. Watching them together is the way I done did it and it's agot me athinkin'...




Molly Bloom and Nora Barnacle and Matilda from ' Of Human Bondage ' had plentymany in common, I reckon. True to the social mores of pre-war cinema: Matilda ( who doesn't want to marry a decent, sensitive man when he proposes ), is portrayed alternatively as a bad guy*, and a bunny-boiler but there's a lot more goin' on there.

Ladies be complicated.