My last word (I promise) on the fantasy film: I could accept Ralph Fiennes as
Sidney, just not Joseph after his insipid Leicester in Elizabeth; but for a
much closer physical match, I'd go with Ioan Gruffudd.
I came across an item about a radio adaptation of the Arcadia that apparently
ran on Radio 3 last November, pasted below. Did any listmembers in the UK
happen to hear this, or know anything about it?
>11/04/2001
>The Independent - London
>FOREIGN
>(Copyright 2001 Independent Newspapers (UK) Limited)
>Here's one for the pub quiz: name the premier English prose work of the 16th
>century. And no, Shakespeare, Jonson and Marlowe had nothing to do with it.
From >around 1580 and for the next 200 years, pride of place in the prose
stakes went to >Sir Philip Sidney's escapist fantasy Arcadia.
>Taking the form of a pastoral romance, it tells the story of two young
princes who >struggle to reconcile their yearning for romantic love with a
nobler commitment to >honour and duty. Full-blooded and often comic, it is
also a meditation on morals >and politics, and in its day it influenced many
other writers, including Shakespeare. >Its popularity continued unabated
until the 19th-century novel came along.
>Pembroke, Arcadia (tonight, 6.30pm Radio 3), by DJ Britton, is the first
radio >dramatisation inspired by this work. It doesn't merely adapt the story
but >counterpoints the narrative with biographical accounts of Sidney and his
sister, >Mary, the Countess of Pembroke.
>Britton's play sets the story in Wilton House, Wiltshire, where much of
Sidney's >original work was written and read aloud to guests. He sets the
Arcadian myth itself >in Wales, where the Pembrokes were prominent
landowners.
>Stars Greta Scacchi (a rare foray into radio drama) and Philip Madoc.
William >Houston, who recently took the title role in the RSC's Henry V,
plays Sir Philip >Sidney.
Renee
Renee Pigeon
Professor, Department of English,
CSUSB
5500 University Parkway
San Bernardino, CA 92407-2397
(909) 880-5896
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