What could have been...

The life of a Classicist is one filled with doubt, frustration and the eternal shadow of incomplete evidence. Here are a few of the reasons why, from Cracked.com:

6 Mind-Blowing Archaeological Discoveries Destroyed By Idiocy

"Tales From Ovid"

Next term's show (enthusiastically put forward by our very own fratres Hyder) will be a play adaptation of Tales from Ovid, by Ted Hughes. This modern interpretation of Ovid's Metamorphoses is acknowledged to be one of the most successfully updated Classical works, as well as being a peculiar and beautiful text in itself. If you'd like to learn more, the Ted Hughes Society has published a few musings on the Tales and their background:

"Acclaimed in its own right, Tales from Ovid also illustrates Hughes’s late preoccupation with myth during the writing of his final book of poems, Birthday Letters.  His lifelong interest in myth is well documented and is evident to anyone familiar with his writings and translations.  Having studied English, anthropology and archaeology at Cambridge, Hughes would have known that the word ‘myth’ is derived from the ancient Greek mythos and that for the ancient Greeks and Romans mythos performed many vital functions in society.  It explained the mystery of origins, birth and death, and offered coherent explanations for the objects and mechanisms in the objective world.  It provided a dramatic form for the intangible inner-world of instinct, desire and emotion, and offered a stage upon which traditional values could be celebrated or challenged. " [Full article can be found at link below]

Ted Hughes Society - Tales From Ovid

Amara West Egyptian Dig

Check out some new finds from the 2012 dig at Amara West, Egypt:
http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2012/12/13/amara-west-2012-the-first-glimpses-of-ancient-living-conditions-and-health/

Christmas Gift Idea?

http://ancientimes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/pewter-calathus-featuring-scenes-of.html

Nonsequitur Issue #7

The November edition of Nonsequitur is currently being circulated around all you good people. Comments, congratulations and criticisms always welcome - as well as submissions, of course.

Exciting news from Herculaneum!

What will they find under the Herculaneum?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1567194/Greek-treasures-expected-from-Herculaneum.html

Film Festival Society

Are you an aspiring film maker? Do you enjoy writing, acting or directing?
If so, the Film Festival Society are offering you a great opportunity to make your own Classsical film, to be shown at Classics Day in March. For more information, there will be a meeting tonight in IN045 at 7pm.

The Praetorian Guard - Bodyguards or Political Players?

An article on the role of the Praetorian Guard from The Ancient Roman Blog.

http://ancientstandard.com/2011/05/18/the-praetorian-guard-bodyguards-or-political-players/

Who's writing for the newsletter this month? Reviews, opinion pieces, academic discussions and personal experiences are all accepted, whether 100 or 600 words long. Anyone can make their contribution to keeping the Classical ball rolling, and we really want you to get involved.
Email submissions to Eleanor.Halstead.2010@live.rhul.ac.uk or contact me on Facebook if you have a topic you'd like to discuss/get some thoughts on, and I'll get back to you :)

New article from Iris Online artefacts series

Article on the Nolan Amphora

http://irisonline.org.uk/index.php/lite/lite-archive/109-nolan-amphora

Halloween meets Hellenism

This year the Classical Society does Halloweed in style: five monsters, five teams and a LOT of competition. Here's a little guide to our chosen creatures, in case you were running low on costume ideas....

Minotaur

The Minotaur was the infamous child of Minos' wife Pasiphae and a bull that she had inexpicably conjured a sudden lust for. Its bizarre origins and terrible strength caused King Minos to hide it in Daedalus' labyrinth and feed it only once a year, on the flesh of young men and women.
When creating a minotaur costume, you're probably safest to go for the classics. Ring through the nose, cardboard hooves, and some badass horns. If you're feeling particularly confident stick with the traditional hide loincloth, but always remember that October weather is rarely -ahem- forgiving. It's also best to remember that Medicine usually has a 'No Massive Evil-Looking Axes" rule.

Furies

The Furies, or 'Erinyes' were the godesses of revenge. In the Oresteia, they pursued Orestes for the crime of matricide (although he was eventually saved by Athena.) They are generally portrayed as fearsome women, sometimes with blood dripping from their eyes and snakes entwined around their waist.
In order to really capture the spirit of the Erinyes, think dark. Think: angry. We're looking for greys, blacks and reds here, with maybe a little side-helping of snakeskin and feathers. Go heavy on the kohl and light on the fake tan; these are creatures of Dis, after all.
NB: above picture is for illustration, and not recommended for direct imitation.

Centaur

Centaurs, like the Minotaur, are a half-animal half-human hybrid. In this case, they are obviously half horse. They have appeared in myths as both soldiers and teachers; they famously battled the Lapiths in a long and bloody conflict. Centaurs are traditionally the symbol of untameable nature and strength, mostly depicted with a bow and arrow (as above.)
This costume presents some obvious problems i.e. our lack of quadrapedal status. There are a few solutions to this problem, each less practical than the last. First, you could create some kind of extra legs from a spare pair of jeans attached to your belt or several milk cartons taped together and painted a disturbing shade of brown; second, you could convince a particularly suggestible friend to follow you round all night, bent in half like the back end of a pantomime horse; or lastly, you could actually attach your torso to the body of a horse and earn a place in the 'Most Interesting Deaths' hall of fame. Just don't forget the bow and arrow.

Phoenix

The phoenix is not a particularly prominent character in Greek mythology. It appeared in basically all early myths, from Persia to Greece to China. It was portrayed as a fire-creature (hence the name phoenix, from the Greek for 'crimson') and it was said that Apollo stopped his chariot every morning to listen to its song.
Though the Phoenix may not be a popular animal in mythology, it certainly presents some very exciting costume options. My recommendation would be to just go crazy with all the fire colours you can find; sparkle, shine and glitter as much as possible. Sequins are ideal, as are coloured hairsprays in red or gold. Feathers are an obvious yes, although potentially difficult to find and/or apply in the quantities you'll be needing. I would definitely not recommend trying a Katniss Everdeen and literally setting fire to yourself before heading out on the town. Third degree burns may ensue.

Cyclopes

The Cyclopes are primordial giants, possessing one eye in the middle of their forehead and, usually, a terrible temper. According to Callimachus they were assistants at Vulcan's forge, and in Homer Odysseus escapes the cyclopic monster Polyphemus by blinding him. They are rarely portrayed as having any particular supernatural place except as blacksmiths, owing to their massive strength but relatively undeveloped nature.
Much like the centaur, you can probably see the big problem with a cyclops costume. If you're unwilling to go the whole hog and poke your eyes out in the name of Classics, it's probably best to just draw one on your forehead and hope it'll distract everyone enough to get away with the whole 'other eyes' thing. Hooves are also a good idea, and as rudimentary clothing as you can find. A few smudges of soot wouldn't go amiss for authenticity; after all, you have been at the smithy all day forging Zeus' thunderbolts.

The event will be held on Wednesday 31st in Medicine (we'll be the strangely dressed ones at the back.) Looking forward to seeing all your inventions!

Locusta - Rome's Professional Poisoner

Blog article from The Ancient Standard:
http://ancientstandard.com/2011/06/16/locusta-romes-professional-poisoner/

Fontanalia Strikes Back

Last night we celebrated the gods with yet another Classical festival. Amongst the fun, games and dancing we poured many a libation, which served only to increase our fervor. Thank you to everyone who came and participated so enthusiastically, it was another great night to remember.

Cat-chasers unearth Roman burial site.

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2012/10/men-chasing-cat-stumble-upon-2000-year-old-roman-treasures/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=20121019&utm_content=smartnewsromantomb1

A Doomed Love Affair Ends at the Battle of Actium

Link below:
http://ancientstandard.com/2012/06/11/a-doomed-love-affair-ends-at-the-battle-of-actium/

Wooden roof uncovered at Herculaneum

A photo of the new find at Herculaneum.
http://joliheroics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/roman-wooden-roof-uncovered-in.html

Beauty in Pannonian Budapest

by Liz Wilson

Hungary’s beautiful capital, Budapest, literally blasts its tourists with an amazing list of sites to see, things to do and memories to cherish.

The city itself is made up of two halves separated by the blue Danube, Buda and Pest. These were each two cities which joined to form one along during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. No surprises, then, when the whole of the city has a very 18-19^th Century feel: between the magnificent Széchenyi Fürdo Spa in Pest to the Castle district of Buda, the picturesque is never far away.

However, cross just outside of the city to the large county beyond and there is a third cultural spot. Óbuda, Latin: Pannonia, is a not a long trip from central Budapest, taking less time that it would to go from Egham to London. From the centre, take the metro (tube) to Batthyány Tr, where you will find the hev (train). This will drop you off at Aquincum.

Boasting the largest ancient Roman settlement to have been excavated, second only to Rome herself, Aquincum is a large park of the remains of broken villas. The disappointment in only seeing stone walls lacking the grandeur of Herculaneum or Pompeii was quickly rectified by the little quirks the archaeologists and caretakers of the park had taken care to put in place to inspire the interest of the classicist, the tourist and the children dragged along.

Myself, I was dragging a ten-year-old around a bunch of stone walls, in the baking sun, and whilst I was enjoying trying to translate the Latin on the side of the sarcophagi and explaining things to him, he grew progressively more and more irritable and, dare I say it, bored. There is nothing worse than a bored and irritated kid to ruin the ruins. So I gave up looking and deciphering what was left of the limestone tombs and busts; I took him to the house of the painter.

This was a refurbished house made of plaster in a style that was believed to be akin to the houses of the era. I admit to being rather sceptical about the fact that it had a triangular roof with no rain hole in the top. The tour and explanation of a painter’s job for the town, however, seemed accurate enough, so I let it drop.

Next to this was a “Roman Games Hut”. Clearly not Roman architecture, inside were several board games, believed to have been in use during the roman era. Believe me, playing chess with regulation pieces which more no distinguishing features made this one hell of a hard game. It was a real shame that none of the explanations were in English and my Hungarian was, and still is next to nonexistent.

The museum, situated next to the Mythological Playground, offered a much-of-a-muchness in terms of exhibits. Unfortunately, one oil lamp does not differ wildly from another, nor do glass vases, clay jugs etc. The real interest crept in when the downstairs interactive play area and puzzles were unleashed. Games of dice and varying puzzles, ranging from put-the-broken-pot-together and make-the-mosaic (which was very difficult). The game that interested me was a board game which seemed to coincide with something the Latin Language and Reading class had talked about while discussing the Emperor Nero. On the board were written four words, which escape me. There were five or six counters and each had to be placed on a letter, the purpose of which escaped the “let’s try and figure it out” process, due to lack of explanation.

The two most interesting features were the Chronoscope and the Mythological Playground. The latter had really taken its role seriously and adapted the myth to the game in a minimalistic, superficial yet pretty accurate way. To be honest, that’s more than most films, and children’s games demand less.

The Chronoscope was the highlight of this visit: a periscope viewer of the ancient city. It looked a bit like the tourist binoculars you find on the Eifel Tower or the Lion of Waterloo. This, however, did not give you a close up of the far off view. It recreated it. For 180°, the chronoscope offered you an oil painter’s recreation of what Aquincum would have looked like were it still standing today. There were even a few people dotted around. Not bad for 300 HUF (approx £1) entrance fee!

Back to the hev, by which point the kid had had enough and we returned to central Pest. However, had this not been the case, there is the Roman Bath Museum, a military bath that has lasted down the generations. When I return to Budapest, which I feel is inevitable, this will be the first thing for me to see!

Putting A Tragedy On Its (New Robotic) Feet

by Alexander Woodward

Hello. For much of the past six months I have been up to my eyebrows in the Oresteia as I was fortunate enough to perform with By Jove Theatre Company’s inaugural production The Women Screaming Beyond. We took the myth apart, closely scrutinised each part of it, and with the aid of modern dramatic techniques put it back together again to suit our purposes. It was recognisably the same myth with which we’d started but it was now better, faster, and stronger. It was like the Six Million Dollar Man but with Homer, Classical Athens, and Brecht instead of blood, muscle, and carbon fibre. It was the most interesting theatrical thing of which I’ve been a part. This said, theatre, like gin, is something for which I have a great love but rather limited technical knowledge, so I shall instead share some of the reasons why this was the most interesting Classical thing of which I’ve been a part. I shall limit myself to simply my most important realisations because I’m needlessly loquacious and senselessly sesquipedalian and space is limited; and will only become more so once I crowbar in another gin reference for my own amusement.
A script is a good starting point for a piece of theatre but we had a way to go to get to this point. There are several surviving versions of the myth we wanted to portray, or rather versions of parts of it. The differences between the versions varied from the precise details of character biography to full-on alternate realities – the differences between Aeschylus’ Eumenides and Euripides’ Orestes are like those between Batman as portrayed by Adam West and Christian Bale. Even once we’d settled on which storyboard we wanted to hang our play’s message we had to think about which bits of the myth needed to be showed to the audience, which could just be dealt with by exposition, and which could be quietly cut (sorry, Pylades, I love you, but you are just dead weight). We had fiddled with the myth extensively to get a version that made the points we wanted within the time an audience could reasonably be expected to sit on uncomfortable chairs in a Shoreditch theatre, but it was still definitely the same story. It doesn’t matter that what Euripides spent an entire play exploring in his Medea Ovid passes over in a single line in Book VIII of his Metamorphoses; they’re using the same gloriously flexible starting material to make masterpieces as different in their aims as they are magnificent in their execution.
The second point I have to make is one that, considering the likely audience of Non-Sequitur, you might say I don’t need to make. I am going to make it anyway because I believe it is fundamentally important to keep it in mind at all times. The point is this: having people properly educated in the ancient world (and other areas without direct relevance to specific careers) is vital. The director of the piece knew more about the plays relevant to the project than I do; the man who played Apollo knows more than his share of myth; the cast were all diligent in their research for their characters, but despite this there were times when their knowledge was not enough. At those times one of the Classicists in the company was able to resolve the query quicker than a library and more reliably than Wikipedia. We could jump in on the factual, ancient stuff because some excellent titbit Jonathan Powell once mentioned while resolutely not making eye-contact had happened to stick. We could help in the non-specific problems where our colleagues couldn’t because we’d immersed ourselves in different Great Works, ideas, and ways of thinking and so could approach the same problem from a different and more fruitful direction. For any education policy-makers who happen to be reading this, I suppose what I’m trying to say is this: You might not like gin, you might be genuinely confused as to why anyone choose to drink gin, but don’t go around smashing up the gin distilleries because you might find out the only thing that will make the mugger release your daughter is the flask of Bombay Sapphire that I happen to have concealed in the folds of my toga.

Do the Flaws in the Perseus Word Study Tool Matter?

The Classics students amongst you will be well versed in the ways of Perseus, a website that has often proved invaluable for translation and linguistic information. But the night before a seminar when you have 200 lines of Ovid to prepare, how closely do you look at what Perseus is telling you?
Below is the link to a blog post exploring the accuracy of Perseus sources - but also the wider ramfications of the problems presented.

http://blogs.dickinson.edu/dcc/2012/07/10/more-on-the-perseus-word-study-tool/

CLASSICAL COMPENDIUM: A MISCELLANY OF CURIOUS FACTS, BIZZARE BELIEFS & SCANDALOUS GOSSIP FROM ANICENT GREECE AND ROME

Reviewed by Michael Brandon

 

We all have those kinds of books. You know, those books. The easy-reference books that you quote out of at a party or meeting, which you hope will come across as interesting or humorous (and usually does). They are easy to read, easy to enjoy and easy to remember. From books filled with gut-busting funny jokes to fascinating facts about the world around us, there is a reference book for probably everybody out there. For the dedicated Classicist, Classical Compendium is a strong choice for such a read.

Classical Compendium is a miscellany on various facts and stories originating from ancient Greece and ancient Rome, arguably the two most important Classical civilizations. The book is near 200 pages long and is filled with quotes, stories and facts, ranging from believable to wacky, within multiple sections such as “Odd Jobs”, “Bizarre Beliefs” and “The Gossip Column”.

Written by Philip Matyszak, the author of titles such as Chronicles Of the Roman Republic (2003), a doctorate in Roman history from Oxford book gives confidence that many of these facts present in the book are well-researched and believable. This especially comes across in the writing and presentation of the book, which is well-ordered and includes a section on acknowledgements (which credits Frontinus and the younger Pliny for much of the gossip). The subtitles and bullet points help divide the information into bite-sized chunks that is easy to understand and absorb, making it particularly easy to remember and therefore quote at your next Classics society meeting.

Humour is the main trump card of Compendium, showing that Matyszak has an eye for picking out the parts of history that seem most bizarre and preposterous to a modern world. Just looking at the blurb gives you a good impression of this. “A Roman suffering illness could be cured by being rubbed with puppies”. “Julius Caesar’s horse had toes instead of hooves”. “Hannibal won a naval battle using exploding clay pots filled with poisonous snakes”. If you didn’t at least raise an eyebrow at those examples, then this book is still worth a gander, for there are many more stories and anecdotes that may make you smile.

While humour is certainly present in Compendium, it is by no means the only value the book has; it is pretty educational too, as you’d expect. From basic Classical facts such as the different types of Roman Gladiators (from the Secutores to the Laquerii) to the names of different second-hand Roman vehicles (from the Arcera to the Postellum) to the detailed list of Roman Emperors, dated and all, you can pick up a lot about Rome…and Greece too! We also have profiles for many famous classical individuals such as Socrates and Sappho, which is particularly useful to those that are only just starting out with Classical knowledge and want to get onto an even keel with classics-loving pals. And of course, there are all the quotes too.

Great to read and great to quote too, Classical Compendium is not a bad purchase for the aspiring Classicist at all. For those already greatly familiar with Classics, this is still a good pickup. But the greatest beneficiary of this book would be anyone who has a rough, basic knowledge of Classics who wish to further their knowledge by filling in missing holes, all the while enjoying themselves along the way.

September Edition

Nonsequitur has been distributed this evening - I hope you all enjoy reading it.
As always, I'm here for any questions or submissions.
The unabridged versions of articles that were edited will be going up on here over the next few days, so keep visiting!

Pula, Croatia

Another follow-up on last night's forum: here are some pictures of our choice of destination for the summer trip to get you all excited :D

RAG Week Plans

As some of you may have heard at the forum, we're planning on holding some charity events this year. Follow the link below to learn more about the Iris Project and what they do:
http://irisproject.org.uk/

As always, we're open to suggestions for events and fundraisers so please get in touch. Post on our Facebook wall or email me at Eleanor.Halstead.2010@live.rhul.ac.uk

Committee Meeting currently in process...

Hope you've all renewed/signed up for membership in time for the Forum tonight!
For anyone still unaware, we're holding a forum tonight at 6.30pm in ALT2. Come to vote on play and trip bids - this will affect a lot of your social calendar this year, so make sure you have your say!

Fresher's Olympics Today!

Despite some problems with location, the 2012 Fresher's Olympics will be held at noon today. Meet on Founder's Field for an afternoon of sun, alcohol and a lot of competitive spirit.

Calling all Freshers...

Welcome to RHUL! Hopefully you're all settling in well and having an awesome first week.
Although I'm sure you won't need reminding, the society will be running a stall at Fresher's Fayre where you can sign up, ask questions and have a chat with some committee members. We'd really like to see a good turnout, so keep an eye out for us (we'll be the ones with columns and wine.)
Enjoy the rest of your week!

British Museum - Pompeii and Herculaneum Exhibition

As a precursor to their exhibition on Pompeii and the Herculaneum (which we are hoping to visit when it opens in March 2013) the British Museum have released this article, providing an overview of some of the areas examined. Follow the link to read more:

Pompeii and Herculaneum: two ordinary cities with an extraordinary story

Artefacts - Iris Project Online

For those of you unfamiliar with the organisation, the Iris Project is perhaps the foremost proponent of Classics and, in particular, Latin, in the UK. They run courses, fairs and raise awareness of the subject predominantly with young people who may not have been exposed to it in their school career.
They've just started running a small series of articles on ancient artefacts on their website, IrisOnline; most recently on this Minoan table. Follow the link below to read more:

http://www.irisonline.org.uk/index.php/lite/lite-archive/103-artefacts

First committee meeting of the year!

Your devoted committee convened today in Crosslands for the first meeting of the year; notepads ready and brimming with ideas.
Our social calendar is already looking packed with events to suit any taste. Keeping the old and welcoming the new, we can look forward to an explosive Fresher's Week and a busy winter term. Between plays, socials, trips and a few never-before-seen events we'll be hitting the ground running for a year full of Classical revelry.
So we'd advise you all to dust off your togas, get some sleep and keep an eye on the society page for some pretty epic times to come.

Congratulations, finalists!

Whether you're rejoining us for an MA or moving on, the Classical Society wishes you all the best of luck.

Goodbye, 2011/2012

Today is a day that many will be celebrating, due to the posting of all student's pass/fail results in the department. Whether you eagerly ran down to Founder's or saw your results on our Facebook group (thanks to Joshua Scholey), there is certainly much jubilation in the Classical community. Myself and the committee offer our congratulations to everyone who passed, comiserations to the few who weren't so lucky, and are incredibly proud of you all for managing to keep up standards of academic excellence whilst maintaining a spirited society dynamic.
It's been a fantastic year for the society, and to commemorate the great times, oustanding achievements and astounding progress we've all made there will be a round-up issue of Nonsequitur released at some point this month. Please send anything you think sums up 2011/2012 (photos, stories etc) to me on Facebook or at my college email: zvlc078@live.rhul.ac.uk. None of it would have been possible without the commitment and enthusiasm of our lovely members, so get involved and make sure that this year is remembered :)

After the long sojourn of exams, we are now embarking once again upon the adventure of Classical Society hijinks! So prepare yourselves and your hampers, and get down to Virginia Water for our picnic on the 24th :)

Revision Rooms Available

Throughout the exam period, the Society will be booking rooms on campus for evening study sessions (usually 6-10pm) - to take advantage of this facility, contact a member of the committee or post on our Facebook wall :)

p.s. Happy Easter, Classicists!

Review of Pseudolus - M. Brandon

The article published in part in this month's Nonsequitur, here in full for you to view at leisure.

I might know nothing about the greatest comedy actors of all time, especially ancient ones, but I do love a bit of Rick Mayall. His comedic acting shines as his movement, facial expression and loud, insane line delivery makes the often gouache and rude comedy sections emphasized to the point of being cringeworthy (think Blackadder Goes Forth or Bottom). Acting like this has the power (yes, the power) to transform any material into something amusing and worthwhile even to the least humorous individual, and it’s well advised to see acting magic like this whenever you can.

Now that I’ve got my tangibly related foreshadowing out of the way, on to infinitely more important things. On Thursday 15^th March I went to dutifully watch the first of three performances of Pseudolus, performed by the mighty Classics society. For those who don’t know (I certainly didn’t, thanks for the help Wikipedia), Pseudolus is an early Roman comedy and the child of the playwright Titus Maccius Plautus, a writer of some of the earliest Roman literature available to us in the modern day. A brief plot summary may go like this: the slave Pseudolus enters a bet where he must return the prostitute Phoenicium from the dastardly pimp Ballio to his master Calidorus before she is sold to an Alexandrian officer, thus winning a reward from Calidorus’ father Simo. Using all his cunning and charisma, Pseudolus succeeds in tricking the messenger Harpax, posing a slave of Calidorus’ friend as an imposter Harpax to take the girl from Ballio and leave the pimp in great financial inconvenience, Pseudolus claiming his reward from Simo.

The play itself is full of banter and plot exposition which keeps the situation and position of the characters clear, but there are not too many segments which a modern-day audience would naturally find gut-busting. I could see this meant that a lot of commitment and gusto would be needed to drive the performance and keep it funny in a consistent manner, staying tongue-in-cheek even through the plot exposition and character introductions and interaction in between the humorous set pieces, deceptions and payoffs. Not surprisingly, the actors worked their sandals off to achieve this (I should know, the rehearsals two weeks earlier made me wait an hour for the Troy drinking game to get started!). And just as unsurprisingly, they pulled the performance off in fine fashion.

The acting ranges across every scale of silly, from cocky and boisterous to mean and straight-out teenage-Mr Bean territory; all of it is deliciously overacted. Every facial expression was a treat to view, changing from instant to instant so often that any grumpy audience member is likely to find a pout or a steely or embarrassed look hit the funny bone. I identified with the characters through their motion and expressions, from Pseudolus’ (Jevany Thompson) flouncing, hands-on-hips confidence to Calidorus’ (Jack Rigby) neurotic pouting to Charinus’ (Helen Rowland) helpless bumbling innocence. Props were used magnificently here as well, from Ballio’s ever-ready whip to the swirled and floor-bashed walking sticks of Simo (Alexander Woodward) and Callipho (Zara Malik).

Each line delivery is filled with energy and sarcasm, spoken with such clear and almost booming volume that the start of every scene with Harpax (Siobhan Duffy) almost forced upon me involuntary heart attacks. This kind of energy is why I brought up Rik Mayall earlier (in what I laughably call an introduction), because it carries the performance from “a Classic play” to “a Classic play and a pretty funny night out too”. This attention to any single actor’s performance even shines through here when it is the other actor speaking, with facial expressions and bodily actions being performed constantly throughout the period from one line to their next.

As impressive as the monologues and dialogues are the set pieces. Some of the most memorable include the early first-part dance performed by the Belly Dancing Society, (achieving hip-wiggling with velocity I never thought with my small uneducated mind to be physically possible), as well as the utterly hilarious and madly-engineered kitchen sequence during the second act; not only did we have two outrageously funny cooks (Alex Lawson and Nathaniel Horne), but the movement and actions of the slaves in the background added to the utter chaos of the entire scene. This production shows itself to be a team-effort, as everyone is given something to do whenever they hit the stage.

As for the production values, a lot of creative and solid work went into this piece. The set was colourful and nicely themed, and I hear a lot of work went into the drawing and co-operative painting of those backgrounds; congrats to Isabel Sudbury and Kelly Braund for the set design. Costumes and make-up (worked by Hannah Doncow and Laura Dann) were well-realized and practical (I should get myself one of Simo’s sweet-holding toga-bags!) Hannah Wiltshire deserves special mention for her technical work with the lights, as I would have been scared if I was tasked with pushing all those intimidating buttons and sliders. And the team effort was topped off with Matt Hyder and Lois Pearce showing their support and selling drinks (especially wine) and sweets at the door.

A barebones, forced-out work this is not; this is an excellently acted piece, and to any audience member it was clearly painstakingly directed, direction duties taken by Alex Payne and Freddie Clayton. All in all, it was worth every penny of the £4-£5 ticket, and at time of writing I’m sure anyone following up with a second or third viewing would still get their money’s worth. Even if you are unfamiliar with Roman literature and performance, performances from the Classics Society should be on your priority list for going out and watching some quality antique comedy.

P.S: Any members and contributors to the production I have not mentioned here, or any of those named in this review that I have not credited fully or properly, I wish to give my credit here, and explain my lack of awareness due to lack of involvement in the production and work involved with the play.

Election Results

Last night was our society elections (as well as a thinly veiled excuse for the last chance to get hammered together before Easter.) The new committee-elect are as follows:
President: Helen Rowland
Social Sec: Alex Payne
Secretary: Kelly Braund
Newsletter Editor: Eleanor Halstead
Treasurer: Archie Macleod
Trips Officer: Will Clarke
Proconsul: Lois Pearse
Congrats to the new members!

THE END!

Pseudolus is now over and was fucking excellent. Sometime in the forseeable future the video of the show will be up and ready to view. But for now well done to everyone involved, it was a fantastic show.
      -     Matthew Hyder

Prepare your livers, people...

Our Troy drinking game is approaching, so it's time to forget everything you know about Classics and get really hammered!

Meeting Tonight.

For all those paticipating in the March 7th event, there's a meeting tonight at 6pm in Crosslands. The event is getting steadily closer so we really need people to show up on time and ready for action!
Hope to see you all there :)

Who's got their Society Ball ticket?

Another successful committee meeting completed.

Keep checking Facebook for upcoming events :)
And for all those attending Society Ball: because we are good-hearted souls, the committee are now offering to subsidise your tickets down to £20. To claim the money back, save your SU receipt and bring it to a committee member for validation.

RHUL Classical Society Blog is going live from our very own Film Night!

If you're not down here, you're missing out on some pretty outstanding farcical comedy.