robert butler's blog

family life

2009-08-30T18:22:00.002+03:00

There are more of us than there is trouble.

Bobby Kennedy

just doing what cary grant did

2009-08-30T18:20:00.000+03:00

If, as predicted, direct action over coal-fired power stations and airport expansion increases (and the number of arrests rise), there will be more and more effort on the part of defendants to use the defence of 'necessity'. That is, the defendant's conduct was necessary to prevent a greater harm taking place.

The defence of necessity is not admissible in English law but it is in American law. What was so interesting about the cases of the Kingsnorth Six and the Drax 29 was the degree to which the judges did or did not allow the defendants to explain their motivation.

The Wiki entry on necessity uses the example of the drunk driver who had to escape from a kidnap - just what Cary Grant has to do early on in North By Northwest. Half a pint of bourbon is poured down his throat, and then he himself is poured into a car, and the car heads towards the edge of a cliff.

Cary Grant could justifiably claim that he had no reasonable alternative, he ceased to break the law as soon as the danger had passed, and that he did not himself create the danger that he sought to avoid.

time for anybody

2009-08-30T18:15:00.002+03:00

'In Ireland,' says Peter Sheridan, director of the stage version of The Shawshank Redemption, 'anybody who was anybody in the 20th century spent time in jail ... Being in prison for us isn’t a negative thing.'

smoking them out

2009-08-30T18:10:00.001+03:00

If every writer who smoked and drank pulled out of a literary festival, you wouldn’t be left with much of a festival.

what's going on

2009-05-30T12:51:00.003+03:00

'I could blah on forever about what’s going on in the book technically, but am unable to say anything intelligent about what the book means.' Geoff Dyer

three in a fortnight

2009-05-23T09:46:00.000+03:00

Three plays with strong environmental themes have opened in London in the last two weeks.

My Guardian theatre blog on the 'Green shoots of climate-change theatre' appears here.

backstage slides

2009-05-17T17:21:00.003+03:00

Slideshow version of my month behind-the-scenes at the National Theatre is here. Pics by Brian Harris.

where the ice goes

2009-05-09T09:42:00.003+03:00

If there's one line I had to choose from The Contingency Plan, Steve Waters’s terrific new double-bill of plays about climate change, now on at the Bush Theatre in London, it's the moment when Will Paxton (Geoffrey Streatfeild), a young glaciologist, explains the concept of displacement to the new Tory minister for climate change. Having spelled out that ice is 'basically parked water', Will warily predicts that the enormous West Antarctic Ice Sheet may well melt (much like the smaller Larsen B ice shelf).

'But this is thousands of miles from us,' chuckles the smooth Old Etonian minister (David Bark-Jones), whose schoolfriend, David Cameron, has become prime minister. Will replies with patience, 'If you pour water in the bath, it doesn't stay under the tap.'

My piece on 'Finally, A Good Play about Climate Change' appears here.

cover to cover

2009-04-27T20:48:00.000+03:00

I argue here that the IPCC's 2001 Assessment has done for the 21st century what Darwin's Origin of Species did for the 19th: changed the way we think about the world.

William Shaw blogs that artist Amy Balkin is recruiting other artists to help her read out loud the IPCC's 2007 report. The event will take place at Futuresonic in Manchester over three days in May. There will be 72 slots of 20-minutes each.

cold shoulder

2009-04-14T12:29:00.000+03:00

Spin doctors are like the daemons in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials - not only do they sit loyally on their master's shoulder, they also reveal the character of the one they serve.

definite article

2009-04-09T13:36:00.000+03:00

Spain is moving to grant basic legal rights to apes. American law schools are offering courses on animal rights. In California it will be illegal to keep a calf, pregnant hog or egg-laying hen in a pen or cage in which the animal can't stretch or turn round.

In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof argues that these attitudinal shifts stem from the 'deep intellectual ferment' that began with one article by Peter Singer that was published in 1973 in the New York Review of Books.

liberal tease

2009-04-07T19:50:00.002+03:00

'He teases away with Socratic guile at the things that underpin the lifestyles of middle-class liberals.'

My preview of the Wallace Shawn season at the Royal Court.

(More Wallace Shawn: he wants Naomi Klein's audience here; he's unlike David Mamet here; he sums up enterprise of theatre here.)

take your pick

2009-04-03T16:01:00.004+03:00

Simon Singh says you can be intelligent and deny climate change and you can be honourable and deny climate change, but you cannot be both.

still only

2009-04-01T17:45:00.005+03:00

If 'sustainable theatre' produces work that is essentially anthropocentric, it is still only another kind of greenwash.

we need to talk about kevin

2009-03-31T20:45:00.000+03:00

Kevin Spacey does an ad for American Airlines.

character reference

2009-03-30T21:03:00.002+03:00

The success in France of the new movie Welcome suggests that Odysseus will become a character we can't hide from.

the darwin of our day

2009-03-29T11:33:00.003+03:00

Charles Darwin wrote about how species began; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change now points to how it all might end.

In a piece for Intelligent Life, I argue the IPCC reports constitute the paradigm-shifting publication of the 21st century.

See also: Happy Birthday Darwin

froth and commentary

2009-03-28T09:43:00.002+02:00

David Simon (left), creator of The Wire, on bloggers: 'The internet does froth and commentary very well, but you don't meet many internet reporters down at the courthouse.' On aiming high: The key principle of Simon's storytelling emerged last year on BBC2's Culture Show: 'Fuck the average viewer.' And from an earlier interview, 'If you start empathising with the characters you'll find they do things that conflict with your ideology. That is good storytelling.'

tiny art of tweeting

2009-03-27T21:10:00.000+02:00

The Daily Telegraph shocks its readers with the news that 'Primary school children must learn to use Twitter and Wikipedia but will not be required to study the Victorians or World War 2 in the biggest shake-up of lessons in a decade.'

After tweeting Mozart for 12 hours, I spoke to Bob Jones on Classic FM Arts Daily and tried to suggest (27 Feb: it's the second item) that people who really mastered the tiny art of tweeting might be developing a similar type of skill to writing haikus. Its power would come not just from what is included, but from what is implied.

The alternative view, that tweeting is for people who talk rubbish and have no friends, is nicely captured here.

playing dumb

2009-03-26T21:37:00.000+02:00

Eleven minutes into this video clip, Michael Blakemore explains his role as the director of Michael Frayn's Copenhagen.

'When I do a play with Michael Frayn we go through it any number of times together. I get him to read it to me so I think [about] what he's reading and I play dumb. I ask anything that comes into my head that's at all confusing and I try as much as I can to get inside his head and know what he wanted. In something like Copenhagen he didn't have any idea how it might be physically staged.'

I did a 15,000-word intro for the Methuen student edition of Copenhagen (above) and wish I could have included that quote.

tweeting salome

2009-03-25T13:06:00.000+02:00

Tweeting Salome in Birmingham this evening with Erika Sunnegårdh as Salome (left). The tweets will appear here.

A piece about doing last month's first bilingual backstage tweet - at the WNO's Marriage of Figaro - appears here.

golden signature

2009-03-23T22:02:00.001+02:00

You can buy a copy of The Art of Darkness, my backstage account of the National's staging of Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials, for £12.99.

Or you could get a second-hand copy on Amazon with 'a small scuff to top of spine' for £2.88.

Or you could buy a signed 'mint' copy that's also been signed by Philip Pullman for a mere £244.26.