Visual Arts
I have been working in Melbourne since April rehearsing Wagner’s Ring cycle, and saw Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy at the Comedy Theatre. It was a very inspiring experience to see two actors with a combined age of around 170 still loving their work. I also saw Barry Humphries, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Meow Meow doing a programme called the Weimar Cabaret, which was based on familiar and bizarre and totally forgotten music from the Weimar Republic.
Books
I am re-reading Lytton Strachey’s Elizabeth And Essex for the umpteenth time as it is so useful in preparation for Gloriana. It is the basis for the opera, and Strachey, who was a leading member of the Bloomsbury group, transformed the way biographies were written.
Visual Arts
Being away in Australia, I made sure I had Stella series two in my suitcase! It appeals to my Welsh background enormously and I am a huge fan of Ruth Jones. I have been sure to catch up on UK TV online. I can’t miss an episode of Corrie wherever I am in the world.
Films
I watched the whole of the Glenda Jackson series about Elizabeth the First. She was magnificent and she made me feel that I really knew Elizabeth from every angle.
Susan Bullock stars in ‘Gloriana’, Royal Opera House, London WC2 (www.roh.org.uk) 20 June to 6 July
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