Adamantis

Cover design challenges for a “names out of a hat” competition.

1 - using only straight lines. Trying to capture the essence of a hare with no curves was fun.

2 - using up to 3 marks only, to demonstrate what can be done with limited tools. Gold pen was too fat to dash

I fail at digital design.

Oh they’re marvellous, thank you so much!

That would be brilliant, if you really wouldn’t mind? (I would be using the images to make decorative pallets to experiment with, as I’m not a huge fan of rolls, despite having far too many of them!)

That blind tooling is very nice. I don’t suppose images of the covers exist elsewhere for a better look?

I’m gutted I couldn’t get down to London for this. Absolutely the best Shakespeare from the RSC in a long while (I saw it four times in a week when it was in Stratford, on top of the earlier viewings 👀). Enjoy ❤️

I turned it off as soon as that came up. What a shame.

It’s nice of the #BBC to tell me that #LucyWorsley’s Victorian Murder Club includes the use of AI, so that I can switch it off before I get invested. What a shame. It’s an interesting case, but no.

It’s nice to know that my habits are approved of in other countries.

Biiiiiiig stretch!

We can’t afford a $1M trailer slot 😔

But reposts on Bluesky cost $0 - and they really help tiny teams like ours ❤️

If cozy medieval creativity is your thing, here’s our Scriptorium trailer!

My beautiful boy left on his final adventure last week, and I am utterly broken.

Thank you for everything Medyg - my search partner, my trusted friend, my companion on uncountable adventures.

Nearly twelve years by my side, and it will never be enough.

- whose father died at Hallowmas: was't not at Hallowmas, Master Froth?

- All-hallond eve

I have, yes - I very much enjoyed her discussion of the various productions. The 1994 is (to date) my favourite in a number of ways - it isn’t perfect, but it’s beautiful. The production I want to see (but involves a lot of travel!) in Robin Phillips’ 1975 for the Ontario Festival. One day!

Have decided against it. I’ll only come away feeling annoyed at the whole production again, and driving grumpy at night isn’t a great idea.

Post-show discussion: Emily Burns on Measure for Measure The director on cutting Shakespeare's 'unfunny' jokes about sex workers, adding in quotes from Mary Queen of Scots, and being inspired by MAGA wives

Yes!
The opening scene is completely rewritten with text from sonnet 21, Much Ado and others. Two scenes for Mariana are added with Othello, Aphra Ben, MQoS and some other stuff (exeuntmagazine.substack.com/p/post-show-... for an overview).

I think I’ve watched the recording of the 1994 RSC version about 14 times 👀
But I mainly need to see whether they actually changed “their perch and not their terror” to “their perch and not their pleasure”, or if TM was having a bad night. (My life consists of Measure, Lupton, and making books…)

I was hoping Cyrano wouldn’t be sold out so that I could head down and make a decision on the spot, but that idea has been scuppered by sensible people buying all the tickets.

Decisions decisions…
I have a free evening tomorrow.
I have a ticket to Measure at the RSC.
Can I be bothered to do a 7 hour round trip to see it for a third time? (I dislike it, but there are a couple of things I want to check for my notes so that I don’t have to do it from the archive copy).

I saw it in previews as well (from the bar seats!), and found it such an intimate experience - I felt complicit in the violence, it was great. I’m somewhat confused by the majority of the reviews (especially given those for another RSC show that doesn’t even touch this! 👀) Never trust the critics!

It’s going to take a while to recover from that. In a very good way. This is what theatre is for. #Cyrano

“…the clock gasps, history halts, tomorrow forgets itself and I fall between seconds…”

“Dido and Aeneas” as my background music as I await Cyrano at the RSC. Who doesn’t love a MfM related Tate/Purcell mashup?

Just out of the matinee, and it’s the best Shakespeare I’ve seen this year I think. Captivating.

I’d not paid attention to the casting for this. What an absolute treat to spend the afternoon with Jodie McNee!

Waiting in the BL for a manuscript to come up (and hoping they let me photograph it!) before a mad dash across the river for Troilus and Cressida at the Globe. (To be followed by Mincemeat tonight…again!)

It was an enjoyable night of lowbrow comedy. It’s not the best production I’ve seen, but it was very funny (which is always a good start!). Feste and Maria were the standouts for me, but a crowd pleasing show from the whole cast. It was my first time at the Globe (shocking!).

It was Twelfth Night!

Yes, that review pretty much summed up my take on it. I might have worded it a bit more strongly (“ramming a single message down our throats with a sledgehammer” perhaps). But the delicate balance and complexity of the original is very much lost.

I suspect if I’d gone in without 30 years of love for the play (and having seen an awful lot of productions and recordings of it) I would have enjoyed it far more!

I like the picture painted by the lowlifes of the effects that changes at a governmental level have across the spectrum of society, but what do I know… I think adding text from other plays to dictate the motivations of characters, and making them far less complex, was a travesty.

Next up - 23.5Ct gold leaf time. Of course, it wasn’t until I’d tooled it onto the leather that I realised my lines aren’t quite true 😒 Still, it’s a sample board and not an actual book, so that’s a relief!

It was, yes. It got a lot of good reviews, however the one I felt closest to what I felt while watching it was from Whatsonstage (3*). The cast were great, they worked amazingly with what they were given. But what they were given was… subpar.