Moby Dick - Rehearsed

Kevin G's parents were among the party at yesterday's Hamlet matinee. Over a spot of lunch before the event, Kev's dad told us he had seen Orson Welles on stage in Moby Dick in the 50s.

"Was he playing the whale?" I deadpanned.

No such luck we were told. Welles was Ahab. Kenneth Williams was in it as well, and it was performed with little in the way of props on a bare stage. "They mimed harpooning the whale in the orchestra pit."

At this stage, quite frankly I was beginning to suspect that Godding pere had lost the plot.

Not at all. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_Dick%E2%80%94Rehearsed.

The original cast included Welles, Christopher Lee, Kenneth Williams, Joan Plowright, Patrick McGoohan, Gordon Jackson, Peter Sallis! Let's just savour that.

An ingenious idea is employed to accommodate the sweep of this classic story on the stage. A Shakespearean company puts down their rehearsal sides of Lear and curiously take up those of a new play entitled Moby Dick.

King Lear! As our own tragedians are off to do it in New York. "The wheel is come full circle, I am here."