Revenge Tragedy Talk at Harrow

Last week I gave a talk on Revenge Tragedy at Harrow. Happening on the school from the road is rather a wonderful experience: as if, turning a corner, you've left London and slipped into another world.

My lecture was, specifically, on Hamlet and The Duchess of Malfi. Revenge tragedy is such a fascinating concept: two people on a stage; one wrongs the other, and then everything spirals out from there. I looked at the origins of the genre, from the House of Atreus' first crimes to their absolution in Orestes; and at the threads that bind Orestes to Hamlet (with a sideglance at Titus Andronicus - and those poor Goths baked in a pie.) I discussed how Hamlet's attitude to revenge is very much linked to memory, and whether he really wants his revenge; and then looked at how The Duchess of Malfi isn't really a revenge play at all. There was plenty more to discuss, and meat (quite literally) for myriad articles.

I note now the aptness of talking about revenge at Harrow: the school of Lord Byron, whose heroes, moody, implacable and aware of their own villainy, can be seen as logical extensions of the revenger. And his links to vampires make it even more fitting: the vampire as revenant, seeking revenge from beyond the grave. Next time...

How to be Danish by Patrick Kingsley: Meatballs and jumpers

A famous Dane

"The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge." (Hamlet)

 To Elsinore! I cried to my squire as he saddled up my raging steed. The sledded Polacks were attacking, and it was time to do some smiting... Well, maybe not quite. To the Danish Embassy! I cried, rather grandly, to my cabbie, who said he thought it was somewhere near Harrods, which it was. Of course I am not always popping in and out of embassies - I was there for a reason, which was to celebrate the launch of Patrick Kingsley's book, How to be Danish.

He wrote it having wept after seeing the first episode of The Killing, and was soon drawn into the friendly, social democratic world that is Denmark, where knitted jumpers are fashionable, and judges earn two and a half times what a cleaner does. Everybody gets a chance to chill out in their teens, and they are the happiest people in the world. Or are they? These were the questions delved into as Patrick chatted to journalist Jenni Russell, and fielded by the ambassador, Anne Hedensted Steffensen, who greeted us warmly (though not wearing a jumper) as we entered the ambassadorial residence, which combined quite severe style with some odd little quirks. The Danes, suggested Patrick, became much more community based after their empire collapsed, and they realised that the only people they ruled were themselves. A lesson for Britain?

It's not all good, though; the Danes have their own problems of social cohesion and immigration, but they certainly make good meatballs, and a pretty marvellous soup, at the bottom of which lurks something that looks a bit grisly but turns out to be another sort of meatball. I must confess that I have never seen The Killing, or any Danish drama; but having spent a couple of hours on Danish soil, I shall certainly seek them out, and look to Patrick's book as an excellent guide. Although, as I left, I did hope for a little bit - just a tiny bit - more wassailing.