Adam B
@adambcqx.bsky.social
Editor, Early Modernist - formerly MA and half a PhD at the Shakespeare Institute, now with Reading Early Plays
From the BFI melodrama list linked below, I’ve just watched Victims of Sin (Mexico 1950) - sizzlingly sexy, then shocking, beautiful b&w, and a song about dancing that I don’t think was about dancing at all.
(“Ay, José, do that again.
Ay, José, that’s not the way!
Ay, José, now the other way!”)
(“Ay, José, do that again.
Ay, José, that’s not the way!
Ay, José, now the other way!”)
November 30, 2025 at 9:29 PM
From the BFI melodrama list linked below, I’ve just watched Victims of Sin (Mexico 1950) - sizzlingly sexy, then shocking, beautiful b&w, and a song about dancing that I don’t think was about dancing at all.
(“Ay, José, do that again.
Ay, José, that’s not the way!
Ay, José, now the other way!”)
(“Ay, José, do that again.
Ay, José, that’s not the way!
Ay, José, now the other way!”)
- late night snack - pani puri (spiced potato & chickpea filling); found a handy little dispenser for the mint puri.
November 28, 2025 at 11:09 PM
- late night snack - pani puri (spiced potato & chickpea filling); found a handy little dispenser for the mint puri.
The OED historical thesaurus entry for “impotence” seems quite keen to … shift responsibility?
November 21, 2025 at 2:49 PM
The OED historical thesaurus entry for “impotence” seems quite keen to … shift responsibility?
*** The Reader is supposed to be on the Stage, facing the Audience.
- the classic theatrical nightmare, via the paratexts of “The Devil’s Elixir” (1829)
- the classic theatrical nightmare, via the paratexts of “The Devil’s Elixir” (1829)
November 19, 2025 at 1:09 PM
*** The Reader is supposed to be on the Stage, facing the Audience.
- the classic theatrical nightmare, via the paratexts of “The Devil’s Elixir” (1829)
- the classic theatrical nightmare, via the paratexts of “The Devil’s Elixir” (1829)
Floodwaters of Storm Claudia work their way down the Severn, breaking its banks in Worcester now.
November 17, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Floodwaters of Storm Claudia work their way down the Severn, breaking its banks in Worcester now.
Meanwhile, in local news …
(Police described the wanted man as “unexpectedly short.”)
(Police described the wanted man as “unexpectedly short.”)
November 10, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Meanwhile, in local news …
(Police described the wanted man as “unexpectedly short.”)
(Police described the wanted man as “unexpectedly short.”)
Louis Jourdan in ‘Count Dracula’ (BBC 1977)
- available to stream in the UK on @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social until 8th November
⬆️🔉🔊⬆️
- available to stream in the UK on @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social until 8th November
⬆️🔉🔊⬆️
November 6, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Louis Jourdan in ‘Count Dracula’ (BBC 1977)
- available to stream in the UK on @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social until 8th November
⬆️🔉🔊⬆️
- available to stream in the UK on @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social until 8th November
⬆️🔉🔊⬆️
Our #Playmakers project has reached the stage where I can sit in a café, drumming out pentameters on the table with my fingers & searching the OED for the non-anachronistic mot juste.
#AmWriting
#CunningFlorentines
#VeryFirstDraft
#AmWriting
#CunningFlorentines
#VeryFirstDraft
![1.1. Cunning scratch
Great Venice welcomes you, our honoured guests,
The lions of st marks do roar their x. [praise] [your xx roar] a golden jewel in an azure sea, This xx city now so [filled/runs/flows] with gold That [xxx] we cannot choose but build A [massive] treasury beyond the xx dreams [scrambling] Of Babel's ancient tow'ring engineers To store and safeguard all our xx wealth.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:24k7knxe3drox5waa6rsh3ay/bafkreibjo7cm5aollohtzcqzjkozqqsrijcdg4dc4w3zcnnmursnzo247e@jpeg)
November 5, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Our #Playmakers project has reached the stage where I can sit in a café, drumming out pentameters on the table with my fingers & searching the OED for the non-anachronistic mot juste.
#AmWriting
#CunningFlorentines
#VeryFirstDraft
#AmWriting
#CunningFlorentines
#VeryFirstDraft
It’s odd there’s no stills from the Hamlet on that page (or from a later sequence of a soliloquy of Juliet’s); both do seem somewhat shoehorned in.
November 5, 2025 at 12:41 AM
It’s odd there’s no stills from the Hamlet on that page (or from a later sequence of a soliloquy of Juliet’s); both do seem somewhat shoehorned in.
From the documentary Our Mister Shakespeare (1944) - a travelogue of Stratford Upon Avon & the surrounding area, including this and one other scene from #Shakespeare
- unclear who the actors are playing Hamlet & Ophelia. Does anyone recognise them?
- unclear who the actors are playing Hamlet & Ophelia. Does anyone recognise them?
November 4, 2025 at 3:46 PM
From the documentary Our Mister Shakespeare (1944) - a travelogue of Stratford Upon Avon & the surrounding area, including this and one other scene from #Shakespeare
- unclear who the actors are playing Hamlet & Ophelia. Does anyone recognise them?
- unclear who the actors are playing Hamlet & Ophelia. Does anyone recognise them?
The Magisterium’s Musical Exorcism Unit attempting the capture & removal of an irregular rodent daemon from the pipes of what has come to be known as the Cathedral’s Marvelous Mechanical Mouse Organ.
November 4, 2025 at 1:54 PM
The Magisterium’s Musical Exorcism Unit attempting the capture & removal of an irregular rodent daemon from the pipes of what has come to be known as the Cathedral’s Marvelous Mechanical Mouse Organ.
- arrived in the post today, Tower of London (1938) with Basil Rathbone as Richard III; having recently streamed the 1962 remake where Vincent Price was the King (in the earlier version he’d played the Duke of Clarence); Olivier’s Shakespearean Richard III was filmed in 1955.
November 1, 2025 at 9:47 PM
- arrived in the post today, Tower of London (1938) with Basil Rathbone as Richard III; having recently streamed the 1962 remake where Vincent Price was the King (in the earlier version he’d played the Duke of Clarence); Olivier’s Shakespearean Richard III was filmed in 1955.
Along the Bridge of Lights trail, Worcester Poundland avoids the warm & wintry colours of other festival installations, and embraces a stark white neon modernism.
… either that, or it’s just closed down.
… either that, or it’s just closed down.
October 31, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Along the Bridge of Lights trail, Worcester Poundland avoids the warm & wintry colours of other festival installations, and embraces a stark white neon modernism.
… either that, or it’s just closed down.
… either that, or it’s just closed down.
- from Worcester’s Bridge of Lights festival last night
October 31, 2025 at 10:15 AM
- from Worcester’s Bridge of Lights festival last night
Youth in European dress. Iran, 18th century or later, @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social
October 24, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Youth in European dress. Iran, 18th century or later, @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social
Just voted in @nationaltrust.org.uk AGM
October 20, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Just voted in @nationaltrust.org.uk AGM
Dante descends into the seventh circle of Hell …
![[Still from Thunderbirds: Scott Tracy, wearing a fireproof suit, talking to his brother Virgil via radio]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:24k7knxe3drox5waa6rsh3ay/bafkreid6x5ufjaav2pirjhjoybvzwslcsnr2pwrhxftwf77lmkumhj7rhy@jpeg)
October 19, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Dante descends into the seventh circle of Hell …
For every character providing exposition at the beginning of the play (an ‘Expo Lord’) there must be another requesting such exposition (‘Expo Req Lord’?) and here, in Beggars’ Bush, is a fantastically open (“tell me everything that’s happened in the last five years”) example.
October 14, 2025 at 11:00 AM
For every character providing exposition at the beginning of the play (an ‘Expo Lord’) there must be another requesting such exposition (‘Expo Req Lord’?) and here, in Beggars’ Bush, is a fantastically open (“tell me everything that’s happened in the last five years”) example.
*Shake fist at … Queen Elizabeth* according to this episode of Sir Francis Drake (1962)
October 11, 2025 at 9:31 AM
*Shake fist at … Queen Elizabeth* according to this episode of Sir Francis Drake (1962)
Terence Morgan, as Drake, talks to the young actor (Duncan Burns) who has just played Katherine in Taming of the Shrew (in front of the Queen aboard the Golden Hind) in Sir Francis Drake: S2.19 Johnnie Factotum (1962)
October 10, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Terence Morgan, as Drake, talks to the young actor (Duncan Burns) who has just played Katherine in Taming of the Shrew (in front of the Queen aboard the Golden Hind) in Sir Francis Drake: S2.19 Johnnie Factotum (1962)
“And they made statues of Elon The First, and put them in the museums where the old rulers had been; and they told us that with his outstretched arm he was pointing to the stars …”
October 9, 2025 at 12:19 PM
“And they made statues of Elon The First, and put them in the museums where the old rulers had been; and they told us that with his outstretched arm he was pointing to the stars …”