Taster Classes at the City Lit, Keeley Street WC2.

The City Lit is an adult education college situated in the heart of London’s West End. It has a huge number and variety of classes. Twice a year, usually in April and September, they have open days, where prospective students can visit the college, to see what it is like and to discover whether City Lit has anything to offer them.

During these open days they also host over 100 different Taster classes, so one can see what the course is like. Some of these are free, the rest cost either £5 or £10. Examples of taster lessons are: History, Discover Spanish, Adult Ballet, Stand Up Comedy, WordPress, An Introduction to Art and Architecture in Persia, Piano for Absolute Beginners, Screen Printing….. They even have a number of magical mystery courses where the student is not told what they will study until after they arrive in the classroom.

Over the course of past two sets of Open Days, I have attended four of the Taster classes and have enjoyed them immensely. This was really my introduction to the phenomenon of education as entertainment. The four classes that I took were: Introduction to Arabic, WordPress, a brief overview, Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey and Curious – blue which is one of the mystery lessons.

The Arabic gave a basic overview of how the language works, we did not really get any insight into the alphabet or written Arabic, and by the end of the lesson we were all able to introduce ourselves, say where we were from and make the general opening conversation pleasantries. This is certainly enough for one to be able to know whether taking the full term class is something that would be of interest.

WordPress was much more practical and the classroom had many very up-to-date PCs. By the end of the lesson everyone in the class has set up their own WordPress account,  made a webpage with text, pictures, video and sound. The computer courses are often single unit workshops to work on a specific programme or platform. The taster would be enough to inform you whether the medium would be constructive in your business or life.

Homer was a much more relaxed affair. An informative discourse, telling the story of his epic poems, the time in which they were written and a chat about why they have remained of interest for such a long period of time. City Lit has a large selection of humanities and social science classes and this would be a good test of whether this kind of course might be what would be of interest.

The Curious Blue course, the mystery course, was the busiest of all the classes that I tried. It surprised me that for so many people that it was not important what class they attended, it was more about the enjoyment of taking part. It turned out that the course was an introduction to Latin. The class was fun and very informative, we learned almost as much about English and language structure in general as we did about Latin.

There is a great deal of camaraderie in learning and I interacted with many people over the series of lectures – all of them in a positive way. Everybody I spoke to was having an enjoyable time and many were learning about themselves as well as their chosen subjects. One person I chatted to had taken the “Piano for Absolute Beginners” taster course and was amazed at his ability to play the chorus of “Ode to Joy” by the time the class was over. A lady I spoke to in the Latin class had signed up for the “Stand Up Comedy” course because she had taken the taster course and enjoyed it so much.

City Lit’s open days were, for me, a truly eye opening adventure. I enjoyed them thoroughly. I had forgotten that learning was such a positive experience, the building was buzzing with excited chatter. I recommend them heartily and I know that I will be looking out for the dates of their open days and taster classes in the coming years!

 

 

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Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece, British Museum, London

Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece is a fantastic exhibition, in terms of both content and context. The Parthenon marbles, which used to be known as the Elgin Marbles, are always in the British museum collection but exhibiting them with the Rodin sculptures, for which they provided inspiration, adds a frame of reference to both.

We see the timelessness in the Greek pieces where the damage of 2500 years only adds to their beauty.  In Rodin’s sculptures, the incompletion is intentional, but the pieces are no less pleasing because of that.  The show cleverly depicts both sets of pieces as individual parts of a larger work. Elgin removed decorations from the Parthenon in Athens and Rodin’s sculptures are part of his, never fully finished, Gates of Hell. It is very informative to see the representation of the wall near each piece which shows exactly whereabouts in the wall it came from.

 

The room is big and impact on entry is impressive. There is a large collection of Rodin’s works here, mostly on loan from Musee Rodin in Paris. We have Athena (Pallas), The Kiss, The Thinker, The Walking Man, The Age of Bronze, even The Burghers of Calais has been brought in from Victoria Tower Gardens. The Parthenon Marbles are interspersed among them and seeing, for example, the two intertwined headless Goddesses in the background of  The Athena with the Parthenon in her hair, adds to the attraction of both.

The ancient Greeks, Phaedias mostly here, tended to use an idealised form of the body in sculpture and frieze, whereas Rodin veered more toward realism in his, but this show brings attention to the association between the piece of art and its inspiration. This is its real success.

The British Museum holds one of the greatest art collections in the world, but surprisingly, it does not have any Rodin in its permanent collection, so if you did need an extra excuse to visit, this is it. Also, for the first time, photography was allowed in this exhibition.

Antigone, Greenwich Theatre, London

The Actors of Dionysus are touring the UK at the moment with this, a sci-fi tinged modern adaptation of Sophocles’ two and a half thousand year old play. Antigone, a Greek tragedy, has never really been an easy watch, but this adaptation has definitely made it more accessible.

Christopher Adams has written, a well thought out, updating of the play. I enjoyed the conceit of making the chorus of the original into the hive mind of linked computers. I thought the idea of making the soul into a chip that needed to be removed and uploaded worked well and gave us a good insight into Antigone’s motivation and into Creon’s harshness at refusing to allow it.

The stage setting is interesting, I guess touring made the set need to be as simple as it was, and I liked the current touches, the surveillance drones are particularly clever and fitted very well with the story and setting. The simplicity of the set did emphasise the universal themes of the play.

I found the acting good and I enjoyed the way each character pushed their agenda. I particularly liked the change in Creon from harsh dictator to broken soul. The well intentioned but misguided leader delivering tough love for the good of the populace can be a hard sell at times, but he brought it off well.

It is a Greek tragedy, so we cannot expect a happy or wholesome outcome, however it is a tribute to Antigone’s universal themes that it is still being performed over two millennia after it was written and this is as enjoyable and accessible a production as you are likely to see anywhere.  Thoroughly recommended.the