Elisabeth Anderson

Thursday

Elisabeth Anderson

A stranger to oneself

From our UK edition

Wendy Mitchell was diagnosed with dementia at the age of 58, three years ago. At the time, she was a non-clinical team leader in the NHS, managing rosters for hundreds of nurses and keeping much of the information stored in her head. She lived in York and had brought up two much-loved daughters on her own. She was clearly efficient, organised and independent. Mitchell realised something was wrong when, after a series of falls, she experienced a distinct lack of energy (she had been a keen runner and walker): a ‘fog’ in her head.

Wednesday

Elisabeth Anderson

Nicholas Nickleby

From our UK edition

In an interview with David Frost only three years ago, Trevor Nunn said that the highlight of his career was doing Nicholas Nickleby for the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych in 1980. Now, 26 years later, Chichester Festival Theatre has revived the play, with Jonathan Church and Philip Franks directing. The original staging ran for more than eight hours; this one, also adapted by David Edgar, has been cut to just under seven, in two parts. Dickens’s story of Nicholas’s life and adventures, of good and evil, of love given and love received has been imaginatively and triumphantly brought to the stage at Chichester with a cast of 23 playing nearly 100 characters between them. The great strength of this production is the ensemble acting.

Friday

Elisabeth Anderson

Diary – 17 June 2005

From our UK edition

Just back from a weekend in Venice, where I attended the 51st Biennale, along with what seemed like tens of thousands of others. I arrived in the city tired and late at night, so it wasn’t until the following morning that I realised I had been sharing a room with a skeleton. Really. I had been billeted with an eccentric artist; the skeleton was purely for reference. At the Biennale two years ago it was so hot that people were fainting into the canals. This year the weather was perfect: bright blue skies with warm sun. In the Giardini I clambered over upside-down beer bottles in Belgium’s pavilion, kicked small silver balls around the floor (Czech and Slovak) and overcame a blast of freezing air (Russia) in the name of art. Huge fun.