Speak Frog

Jan.18
0

Marchland

Posted by in History, Literature, London, Music, Theatre

Franco – British theatre company Théâtre Volière is coming back to London with Marchland : a season of performances from the edges and in-between places of Europe. Based in Alsace, Théâtre Volière have always been fascinated by the turbulent history of this border region between France and Germany. Marchland is their response to the crisis of identity currently sweeping Europe. A recurring ‘rendez-vous’, Marchland will run each February from 2018 to 2020 at the historic Bridewell Theatre turned into a unique pop-up space. The former swimming pool will be transformed into a central European café and fitted…read more

Nov.02
0

Suzy Storck

Posted by in Blog, Language, Literature, London, News, Theatre

Suzy Storck, by French playwright Magali Mougel, directed by Jean-Pierre Baro, recently opened at the Gate Theatre. The play plunges us into the title characte’s life. Literally. Watch your step as you make your way through the toy-littered floor of Cecile Tremolière’s set. Performed by the magnetic Caoilfhinion Dunne, Suzy Storck carries the weight of the world. She lives with a man (Jonah Russel is utterly believable as Hans Vasilly Kruez) who doesn’t take ‘NO’ for an answer when she claims not to want children. He makes her give up her…read more

Mar.11
0

Tartuffe

Posted by in Blog, Humorous, Literature, London, Practice, Theatre

If you are looking to practice your French you could head to the French Institute and watch an original new staging of a classical French play. The French Institute’s theatre season En Scène! presents Molière’s Tartuffe in a new adaptation by actor Guillaume Baillart. Molière’s most performed play  has the double title of Tartuffe or the Impostor, it satirises self-interested hypocrisy and the power some of us hand over to gurus. Tartuffe is the name of the main character and the play made such an impression when it was first performed in 1664 that the term was quick to pass into everyday language. ‘Tartuffe’ is…read more

Body and soul

Posted by in Language, Literature

Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c’est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l’esprit. Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is sorrow that develops the powers of the mind -Marcel Proust in Le Temps Retrouvé

Sep.09
0
Jun.20
0

Love letter

Posted by in Art, Cinema, History, Language, Literature

Most of my students learn French because they have a French speaking partner. So, as the weekend begins, here is the ultimate French love letter. Je suis perdu, vois-tu, je suis noyé, inondé d’amour: ‘I am lost you see, I am drowned, flooded with love’… Romantic poet and playwright Alfred de Musset writes to his lover George Sand (aka Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin), another prominent 19th century writer. Their passionate and tumultuous relationship is also the subject of a 1999 film with Juliette Binoche: Les Enfants du Siècle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFwSYTLHEjE Baden, 1834 Voilà…read more

Sartre, Camus and the CIA

Posted by in Blog, Literature

The two most famous post-war French writers were closely watched by the CIA  over several decades. The american secret services were interested to know if existentialism and the philosophy the absurd were off shoots of communism. Ironically, the agents in charge of their surveillance had to study philosophy in order to decipher the hacked phone calls, the stolen documents, as well as the works of the two thinkers. Andy Martin (professor of French at Cambridge, and author of The Boxer and the Goalkeeper) is currently researching the extensive files of…read more

Dec.14
0