Directors realise that audiences are not likely to have much grip on Shakespeare’s King John

Directors realise that audiences are not likely to have much grip on Shakespeare’s King John. They hardly know what to expect, except perhaps something about Magna Carta, which doesn’t figure in the play at all. Perhaps Shakespeare had never heard of it. In any case, he presents King John as a patriot, misguided, certainly, when he connives at the torture of his nephew little Prince Arthur, but standing out to his last breath against France. In the high Victorian theatre the actor playing the king used to sweep the crown from his head during his death scene and even hurl it into the wings, partly to indicate magnificent failure, and partly to keep some attention for himself. By that time the audience had already seen little Arthur die and his mother Constance run mad, their handkerchiefs were soaked, they had no more tears to shed. King John himself was left ranting on, against unfair competition.

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 89

Most of them are rubbish and do not help me understand him

Got some of Hardy's poems out of Holborn library ... Most of them are rubbish and do not help me understand him. They make me think of him as wallowing and moaning and wishing for the olden days and that he hadn't been such a cunt to his wife.

N. Stibbe, cited in J. Rogers, 'Living in someone else's life', SF88 (2025), 55

Heaven might comprise eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.

Meanwhile, Smith's Christianity was one we might all enjoy. With God he was on good terms. God is, he wrote, best served by 'regular tenour of good actions ... the luxury of a false religion is to be unhappy'. And, on a trip to Brussels, he noted 'I think, possibly correctly, that Heaven might comprise eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.'

S. Bayley, 'Taking the short view', SF87 (2025), 25

Freddie herself had fulfilled the one sure condition of being loved by the English nation, that is, she had been going on a very long time

Freddie had no need to depend upon her friends in the theatre. Neither did she have to dread time’s encroachments. The place could hardly get any shabbier, and Freddie herself had fulfilled the one sure condition of being loved by the English nation, that is, she had been going on a very long time. She had done so much for Shakespeare, one institution, it seemed, befriending another. Her ruffianly behaviour had become ‘known eccentricities’. Like Buckingham Palace, Lyons teashops, the British Museum Reading Room, or the market at Covent Garden, she could never be allowed to disappear. While England rested true to itself, she need never compromise.

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 53

Not precisely disagreeable, it suggested a church vestry where old clothes hang and flowers moulder in the sink, but respect is called for just the same

Everyone who knew the Temple School will remember the distinctive smell of Freddie’s office. Not precisely disagreeable, it suggested a church vestry where old clothes hang and flowers moulder in the sink, but respect is called for just the same. It was not a place for seeing clearly. Light, in the morning, entered at an angle, through a quantity of dust. When the desk lamp was switched on at length the circle of light, although it repelled outsiders, was weak.

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 4

Homer, the father of Greek poetry, noted the excellent of the tripe prepared in honour of Achilles

The origins of tripe dressing are lost in the history of time. It has a known history of over 2,000 years, having been esteemed by both the Greeks and the Romans. Athenaeus praised it; Homer, the father of Greek poetry, noted the excellent of the tripe prepared in honour of Achilles; Thomas Muffet (in his Health's improvement, edited after his death by Christopher Bennett in 1655) declared that, 'the taste of Tripes did seem so delicate to the Romans, that they often killed oxen for the Tripe's sake.'

it was said that William the Conqueror enjoyed tripe accompanied by Neustrian apple juice. However it is unlikely that the cooks of the Middle Ages were adept in the preparation of tasty, well-seasoned dishes!

M. Houlihan, Tripe: a most excellent dish (1998. This ed. 2011), 20-21

The philosophy of Karl Marx ... is really an extreme version of High Victorian liberalism

The philosophy of Karl Marx ... is really an extreme version of High Victorian liberalism: the fact of the worldwide British Empire created the fantasy of the worldwide Socialist Revolution.

J. Hawes, cited in J. Law. 'as old as the hills', SF 84 (2024), 40