Crucible Rehearsals On the Way and Spooks Colleagues at The Young Vic

Just because I love this photo! No Crucible Connection

Rehearsals for #TheCrucible are well under way! RT @MaramaCorlett: My new home this summer @oldvictheatre http://t.co/i5ZDwnWtbA
— The Old Vic Theatre (@oldvictheatre) May 21, 2014

and also Richard was spotted by an audience member at the Young Vic the other day (Twitter), he was also in the audience of the play " A View From The Bridge". No pics of Richard, seems he was there to see the play.  Not my story really to share, but just sharing he was seen and was there. 

You might recognize one of the actors starring in this play at the Young Vic. That's Nicola Walker, also known to us Spooks fans as Ruth, and one of Richard's colleagues on that show. 

A View from the Bridge is also an Arthur Miller play.  Below is a brief description from Wikipedia:

"The play is set in 1950s America, in an Italian American neighborhood near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. It employs a chorus and narrator in the character of Alfieri. Eddie, the tragic protagonist, has an improper love of, and almost obsession with, Catherine. Miller's interest in writing about the world of the New York docks originated with an unproduced screenplay that he developed with Elia Kazan in the early 1950s (entitled The Hook) that addressed corruption on the Brooklyn docks (Kazan would go on to direct On the Waterfront, which tackled the same subject). Miller said that he heard the basic account that developed into the plot of A View from the Bridge from a lawyer who worked with longshoremen, who related it to him as a true story."

Why Spooks? Why?

I was lucky to be able to watch Episode 2 of Spooks (MI-5), Series 10, late last night. (Thank you friend M, for making it possible, and Ricrar for alerting me about last night's episode!).  I was shocked that another beloved character has passed on to Spooks Heaven (I won't give it away here, but the news is already out there).  But I was also not shocked because after all, this is Spooks,and as an old fan of the series,I've come to expect characters to depart in all sorts of ways. I was happy though to see that it was a heroic death and we could all have good memories even if with a tear in our eye. (*Also, I was reminded of the real life spy death that inspired last night's episode.)


But then this morning, thanks to RichardArmitageNet.com, there is this radio interview clip with Nicola Walker and Peter Firth (see link below), and Nicola talks a bit about how Richard Armitage dealt with the reversal of his character, Lucas North.


http://www.richardarmitagenet.com/latestnews.html


So here I am, angry again, so very angry again, about what the Spooks writers did in Season 9 to the heroic character of Lucas North we grew to care for and admire from Season 7 and Season 8. It wasn't very original, or original at all, to make Richard Armitage play another villain, when he had just played a villain in another BBC series, Robin Hood. (Though I confess I love Guy of Gisborne, who had the reverse story arc, starting as a villain and ending as a hero. Thanks to Richard Armitage he was the most complex character in the Robin Hood series.) Even Ros (Hermione Norris) who was not the most loyal of spies on the Grid for most of the character's career in Spooks was allowed to die a hero. So why Spooks writers, why? If Lucas had to go, because it was time or because Richard Armitage was cast in The Hobbit, why not let the character die a heroic death? 


We need more heroes in this world.

Thank you to RichardArmitageNet.com

*The Real Life Death-by-Umbrella** of Georgi Markov: In 1978 Bulgarian dissident writer Markov was killed on the streets of London after a ricin pellet was fired into his leg by means of an umbrella. His death was ordered by Bulgarian Intelligence. The real life case was referenced in Sunday's episode of Spooks in a scene with Sacha Gavrik. You can read the details HERE.  I  also thought the Spooks writers were inspired by the story of Alexander Litvinenko, a real life former agent of the KGB and later FSB. He had left with his family for the UK and lived in London. He died as a result of radioactive poisoning administered in a mysterious way after meeting with two former KGB agents. It is still an unresolved case.  Yes, truth is stranger than fiction.














** Thanks to The Compleat Sean Bean for inspiring the title :)