Stealing is easy in a cloak
Words of wisdom*, he chortled, sharing nothing
With artists, writers, musicians, playwrights and poets
Who made it work so well for their hearts and audiences
She shouldered more than 50 years of trials and tribulations
She made a fantasia, breaking the fourth wall over and over
In the name of initiation, collaboration and discovery
And a vow of poverty
He’s laying waste to all this for money and fame
Using adulation and established reputations
A new poverty of spirit
A Darlington, stealing The Remains of the Day.
A Cannibal Lecture, Hannibal Lecter; Anthony Hopkins
Another comic biting the hand that feeds him
Climbing on the shoulders of the people he first buries.
He was Shylock in Something Rotten. And Fagin before
The Thief of Bagdad, Grand Vizier, Jaffar, usurping Ahmad
He wears a mask, a Citizen Kane in disguise, Orson Wells
Alarming fantasy, War of the Worlds, becomes The Stranger
Like William Randolph Hearst, 1920s San Simeon, California
Creating his own comic strip
Pillaging the ancient wonders of the world for gaudy display
A whole zoo; animals from around the world
Actors and actresses flown in for adulation
Trampling and taking. The spectacle. A greater glory?
A comical renewal? Invasion. Destruction on his shoulders
See that skeleton on the scaffold
We watch as he hangs his head in shame
© Christopher 2025
Notes for your interest
The Thief of Bagdad is a 1940 British Technicolor historical fantasy film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan, with additional contributions by William Cameron Menzies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thief_of_Bagdad_(1940_film)
The Spy in Black (US: U-boat 29) is a 1939 British spy film, and the first collaboration between the British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
The Stranger is a 1946 American thriller film noir directed and (although uncredited) co-written by Orson Welles, starring himself along with Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young.
The Remains of the Day
At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving ‘a great gentleman’. But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington’s ‘greatness’ – and graver doubts about his own faith in the man he has served.
War of the Worlds The night before Halloween in 1938, 23-year-old Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air performed a radio adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds. It would become one of the most notorious radio broadcasts in history… Up to six million people tuned in, most of whom had no idea that what they were listening to was fictional. It prompted mass panic.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct74k3
Xanadu, Hearst Castle and William Randolph Hearst
Hearst Castle was the inspiration for Xanadu, and William Randolph Hearst himself the main model for Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welles’s 1941 film Citizen Kane.[68][69][70][71] …Welles began a collaboration with the screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz on a screenplay originally entitled American. The film tells the stories of Kane… who inhabit a castle in Florida, filled with “paintings, pictures, statues, the very stones of many another palace – a collection of everything so big it can never be cataloged or appraised; enough for ten museums; the loot of the world”. ..Hearst … sought to damage the film’s circulation by alternately forbidding all mention of it in his media outlets… and harmed Welles’ subsequent career.
Hearst’s mistress Marion Davies acted as his chatelaine at the castle.[42] The Hollywood and political elite often visited in the 1920s and 1930s. Among Hearst’s guests were Calvin Coolidge, Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, the Marx Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Jean Harlow and Clark Gable.[43] Churchill described his host, and Millicent Hearst and Davies, in a letter to his own wife; “a grave simple child – with no doubt a nasty temper – playing with the most costly toys … two magnificent establishments, two charming wives, complete indifference to public opinion, oriental hospitalities”. In another letter to Clementine, Churchill dismissed criticism of San Simeon; “his house is rudely described as Monte Carlo Casino on top of the Rock of Gibraltar – but it is better than this.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearst_Castle
Animals of All Varieties
The field animals were indeed a memorable sight. White fallow deer were the most numerous and prolific species with a herd of more than 300 animals. These striking white animals are of a breed that has graced European animal parks for centuries. Other exotic animals which grazed the hillsides included: African and Asian antelope, zebras, both Bactrian (two-humped) and dromedary (one-humped) camels, sambar deer from India, red deer from Europe, axis deer from Asia, llamas, kangaroos, ostriches, emus, Barbary sheep, Alaskan big horned sheep, musk oxen and yaks. As many as four giraffes were kept in a small pen located next to the road.
https://hearstcastle.org/history-behind-hearst-castle/the-castle/the-zoo/
* Circle and Star have taken over the performance space of Pentameters Theatre, Hampstead.
They have made no contact with Leonie Scott-Matthews, who ran it for over 50 years, or with any of the artists there.
She wishes to continue to curate and provide for community performance and theatre.
Claimsnot honoured by the new Circle and Star Theatre:
Hampstead Heart, Local roots. People First Real connection between artist and audience. Courage in Craft Bold ideas, brave choices, new writing, new risk. Shared Light, and Living Theatre Born in the room.
…to protect creativity and public trust
…with transparency, clarity and integrity
…protect artistic freedom
…a welcoming, equitable organisation