Rory Bremner working on a kids’ version of Brecht

6 July 2006 Rob Buckley News, Theatre 3 Comments

Sometimes celebrities throw curve balls at you. Take Derren Brown, everyone’s favourite magician and fan of The Master from Doctor Who. We’re used to weirdness from him, but when he started speaking fluent German last season, I was staggered. Turns out he read German and Law at Bristol Uni. Impressive, huh?

This week, David Walliams took that a step further by swimming the Channel, raising nearly a half million pounds in the process, which was pretty awe-inspiring.

Now it’s Rory Bremner’s turn. He’s decided he’s going to translate a play by Bertolt Brecht so that it can be performed for kids at the Young Vic as part of their Big Brecht Fest (he came up with that particular pun himself).

Turns out as well that he’s a dab hand at this kind of thing. A King’s College language graduate, he’s already translated French and German texts for the opera: in 1999 he worked on Weill’s Silver Lake, and in 2001 Bizet’s Carmen, both for performances at Wilton’s Music Hall in London.

So they’re rich, successful and talented. Curse them all!

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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