Blowings Off: Scandals, crosswords and a fantasy Hamlet

Just a bit of a miscellaneous, metaphorical desk tidying.

Scandals

We start with scandals: This is why we avoid the fringe and this is just bizarre.

Crosswords

We’re disappointed with – as Alan Sugar would say – the bladdy lot of you. Except for Mary McM who indulged our whim and dutifully solved the first ever West End Whingers crossword.

Asked which of our prizes she would like to claim as a reward, Mary wrote “Off the top of my head –  at the cocktail hour: Jay Rayner’s pen? A vegetable sculpture of Mr Hytner? A squeaky seat from the Old Vic? But if none of these are possible, your continued dispatches from the front stalls will be reward enough.”

Be careful what you wish for, Mary. And well done.

For those of you who attempted it and failed, the solution can now be found by clicking on the image above.

Fantasy Hamlet

We seem to have inadvertently tapped a rich vein of enthusiasm through our recent mention of Jessie Royce Landis (left) and our idle musing that she would have made an excellent Gertrude in Mr Doran’s production of Hamlet.

She is perhaps most familiar as Cary Grant’s mother in Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest and she turns in a very good performance for Hitchcock again in To Catch A Thief as Grace Kelly’s mum.

Pat Miller approves of our choice of JRL for a fantasy production of Hamlet while  Michael Sharpe exclaims, “Good Grief! I didn’t think anyone, other than myself, remembered Jessie Royce Landis. I can’t wait for you to drop Enid Stamp Taylor’s name.”

Well, Michael. We confess we had to look EST up on IMDB but were thrilled to realise that we actually saw her quite recently in The Wicked Lady (right) at the NFT and jolly good she was too.

But back to JRL. Given the similarities in the Freudian themes between Hamlet and North By Northwest (not to mention the echo in Hamlet’s “I am but mad north-northwest; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw”) it seems only logical to imagine a production of Hamlet with the following dream cast from the film:

Claudius/Old Claudius: James Mason

Hamlet: Cary Grant

Gertrude: Jessie Royce Landis

Polonius:Leo G Carroll

Ophelia: Eva Marie Saint

Laertes: Martin Landau

So there you are, a new parlour game for you to keep yourselves entertained while the Whingers take a well-earned break from all this self-imposed nonsense.

Above: Cary Grant as Hamlet and Jessie Royce Landis as Gertrude in the West End Whingers production of Hamlet.