Walking with Dickens

“Judith Flanders’s evocative and detailed survey of daily living in Victorian London, from the murk and the misery to the downright odd, is outstanding…” according to the Sunday Times,  which commissioned this short film for the online version of the newspaper. In it, Judith takes a tour of contemporary London charting the sweeping changes  that have taken place since Dickens’ day.

[youtube_sc url=8JBpocPXWsM]

1 Comment

  1. gershon hepner

    November 20, 2012 - 5:56 pm

    Dear Judith (if I may):

    Rereading your review of musicals by LArry Stempel, Stephen Sondheim and Charlotte Greenspan in the TLS on 4/22/11 I was inspired to write this. I hope you enjoy:

    THE SONG IS SERVANT TO THE PLAY

    In musicals the song is servant to the play.
    In life the play should be the servant of the song,
    the play the way we get things done and have our say,
    the song the aspirations for which we all long.

    Without a song life will inevitably cloy,
    becoming work without the rationale of pleasure.
    Life with a song enables everybody to enjoy
    their work, their play, their treasures and their leisure.

    Judih Flanders (“Song and Dance,” TLS, 4/22/11) writes about Broadway musicals, reviewing Larry Stempel’s Showtime, Stephen Sondheim’s Finishing the Hat and Charlotte Greenspan’s Pick Yourself Up:

    When Richard Rodgers started to work with Oscar Hammerstein in 1942, musical comedy became music theqater. Hammerstein was “convinced that whatever I wanted to say could be said in songs” that were no longer confined “to trie or light subjects”. The success of Rodgerws and Hammerstein ensured that for decaddes the song would be “servant to the play”, as Sondheim was to write, theater that told its story “through its songs, not just with its songs”, songs that showed character, and added to narrative as “intensified thought and speech”.

    11/20/12 #111953

    best

    Gershon

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