regshoe

It's NTS Kidnapped's second anniversary tomorrow, and in a nice coincidence it was Erasure's 40th anniversary yesterday, so time for some music :D



PyshechkaPushkova recently very kindly sent me some more information on Kidnapped adaptations, which I have added to the Adaptations page on the website, along with a couple of other bits and pieces. Particularly notable:

• I am slightly surprised to learn that there exists only one adapted version of the song Alan composes after the battle in the round-house—and it's not even in an adaptation as such, but this 1970s Soviet documentary about Stevenson. Er, not exactly the musical style I'd have expected, but there you go. :D But then I wonder, if the song is universally cut from adaptations, are there any unofficial fan-made versions? I've not found any, but it feels like they ought to exist.
• Three more comic/graphic novel adaptations, including two different ones made by Marvel Comics in 1978 and 2009. I didn't know they did adaptations of otherwise-unrelated stuff, and I am amused to learn of this.

Because a) a cursory search on Ebay suggests that copies of those comics are fairly reasonably available, b) Puskha also supplied a link to another of the animated adaptations on Youtube and c) I was already planning to do an anniversary rewatch of the play, I'm thinking of restarting my vague project of watching/reading various adaptations and comparing them. I will not watch anything that includes het romance, and a saddening number of adaptations are just not available, but applying those two criteria I think I've got that animated film, the 1960 Disney film, the three comics, the dramatised audiobook of mysterious provenance, a range of shorter bits and pieces (some of which I've already looked at and never got round to writing up) and maybe the 1994 radio adaptation if I can find a copy???

Well, here we are!

My lovely 'Sir Patrick Spens' gift was by zdenka—thank you :D

As for my own writing... The Warm Hands of Ghosts was one of my 'maybe' offers going into sign-ups, but I absolutely loved tullycat's Laura/Pim prompts and was delighted to end up matching on it! However, the first idea I had was one I could tell was going to get a bit plotty and ambitious, and facing a busy few months IRL I decided to set it aside and write something shorter:

Better in the dark (2001 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Warm Hands of Ghosts - Katherine Arden
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Laura Iven/Penelope "Pim" Shaw
Characters: Penelope "Pim" Shaw, Laura Iven
Additional Tags: Sharing a Bed, Implied Fix-It
Summary:

Sharing their bed at Couthove, Pim and Laura realise a few things.

But I kept going with the longer idea too, and happily did manage to finish it in time:

That Would Make a Sick Heart Heal (9054 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Warm Hands of Ghosts - Katherine Arden
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Laura Iven/Penelope "Pim" Shaw
Characters: Penelope "Pim" Shaw, Laura Iven, Faland (The Warm Hands of Ghosts), Wilfred "Freddie" Iven, Hans Winter
Additional Tags: Background Freddie/Winter, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rescue
Summary:

Or, Laura Iven Does It Again.

Aww, I really enjoyed finding a happier way to work things out for Laura and Pim in both these stories. Whether I'll write anything more for the fandom, I don't know; I have some vague ideas floating around, but no more definite fic concepts yet.

My next priority—just barely accomplished in time—was to write a Kidnapped! treat for muccamukk. This story was actually an idea I'd had floating around since soon after I first saw the play, but hadn't been able to work out—Mucca prompting for something about Frances alongside talking about how much she liked the Alan/Davie presumed-dead bit in the play gave me the key to how it should go:

Tusitala (1431 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Kidnapped! - McArthur & McCarthy & Stevenson
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Frances Stevenson/Robert Louis Stevenson, David Balfour/Alan Breck Stewart
Characters: Frances Stevenson
Additional Tags: Layered Storytelling, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending (kind of)
Summary:

Frances makes one last ‘adjustment’.

(Or, a speculative interpretation of the play’s ending.)

And, er, apologies to the rest of you who won't have seen this yet because I thought it would be funny and appropriate to tag with the exclamation mark, and new fandom tags are always wrangled really quickly in Yuletide, right?... Oh dear—never mind :) I'll go and add the canonical tag now, since goodness knows whether this one ever will be wrangled.

It's been a good Yuletide on the whole, I think.

I was reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes this week (recommended, by the way—his travel writing is very entertaining). These travels took place during the time after he and Fanny had met and fallen in love, but when she'd gone back to America to divorce her awful husband and his family were meanwhile trying to persuade him out of the relationship; this context isn't explained in the book, but it's clearly enough there in the background. Anyway, imagine my feelings on suddenly coming upon this passage—in which RLS is camping in the mountains, sleeping outside alone:

And yet even while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect. And to live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most complete and free.

Right? ♥

(McArthur is totally right, by the way; it really is something that he wrote that and then wrote the 'only one coat' bit in Kidnapped.)

...revolved over a couple of months or so, and from my most recent rewatch last weekend. I am still appreciating and enjoying new things about this play, and love it more than ever. ♥

Why does James of the Glens live in a cave? I can understand changing Cluny's Cage to a cave, but James just has a house in the book. Maybe it's that that big boulder thing represents a cave more easily than a house? Oh well.

The inclusion of an (apparently) English character called Keith was probably not a deliberate reference, but I think it's very funny anyway.

It's occurred to me that the role of Robert Louis Stevenson in this play is really very similar to that of John Uskglass in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. So there you go?

I cannot get over the first kiss scene! (er, not that I'm trying especially hard). It's so beautifully composed! The music, the lighting, Alan's sleeves (he looks very nice in those sleeves with his coat off, despite the weirdly cut waistcoat), the way the song is combined with the rest of the scene, the way Davie and Alan walk across the stage together and go to lie down... ah, I love it. I get this, canon, for my OTP! ♥ ♥

If I had a bit more time than I have at the moment, it would be fun to spend an afternoon with the recording and the Tartan Register trying to identify all the tartans used in the play. James of the Glens and family are wearing something that looks similar, if not quite identical (it doesn't seem to have the narrower green bits going across the red squares) to the Stewart of Ardshiel; there are actually several different Balfour tartans, but none of them seems to be what Davie is wearing at the end. Hmmm.

Here is what Isobel McArthur and Michael John McCarthy are doing next: what looks like a rewrite/adaptation of the seventeenth-century play The Fair Maid of the West by Thomas Heywood, at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in December and January. Aww, it looks great! I was hoping I'd be able to go and see it, but circumstances have tragically made this impossible. But if anyone else can go and would like to, there it is...

Have a couple of screencaps:

So, this is my favourite picture from anything ever, obviously (no, still not over it):



But actually I think this might be my very favourite Alan-and-Davie moment, right at the very end. Look at them, they're so happy ;___;

I've been thinking a lot about this song...

So that, when my life is over
And I never see you again
The singer may die
But the song will remain

...both within the show, as how Frances's telling of this story that Louis wrote with her help, as she's grieving his loss, becomes the way that he stays with her; and of the show, as how this story whose author has been literally dead for 129 years is in fact still alive, and is brought out in full, beautiful, new and faithful life by the creators of this play.

I really wanted to write fic for NTS Kidnapped, but both in anticipation of and after actually rewatching it, all the ideas/scenarios my brain could come up with were just plotless, disconnected, very fluffy bits and pieces about Davie and Alan after their reunion at the end and what they might do. (Mainly 'lots of kissing'). But then I thought, well, 'scenes from the next day' isn't a bad concept for a fic, I'm sure I can do something with that...

‘Lang hae we parted been...’
At Ye Jacobites By Name | On AO3
Fandom: NTS Kidnapped
Relationship: Davie Balfour/Alan Breck Stewart
Characters: Davie Balfour, Alan Breck Stewart
Rating: G
Content warnings: None
Length: 2,141 words
Summary: Davie and Alan, the next day.

This is pretty firmly play-specific fic; you could read it only knowing the book, but I think a lot of the details wouldn't make sense.

The National Theatre of Scotland's Kidnapped is now available to view on their online Education Portal.

I didn't anticipate it taking quite so long, and it's been a while since my last post about this, so to recap: The website provides recordings of plays for educational use, and requires a login to access; it's aimed at schools and FE colleges in the UK, but email addresses from universities and institutions in other countries are also accepted, and any kind of email address will be accepted from someone who signs up as a home educator. International email addresses may require manual approval, and this should take about a week. I am given to understand that the NTS are willing to look the other way if a few people use the platform not quite for its intended purpose.

As well as the show itself, there are some behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast and crew (which don't seem to require a login to view).

Have I mentioned that I love this play very dearly, and I am very pleased there's a way for people who couldn't get to a performance in person to see it?

Anyway, there you go!

♥

Here we go :D

I've definitely focussed disproportionately on the canon Alan/Davie, but: the material is there in the sources, all used in Wikipedia-approved fashion, and it is that important to me; and if other people want to add other things, they can do so, so there you go.

The article image is the NTS's promotional poster, although I don't really like it much. Both characters, especially Alan, are styled quite differently to how they actually look in the play, and I think they both look much nicer in the play! Also it's a shame not to have Frances or any of the excellent ensemble there. But none of the production shots would have worked very well at that size, and in any case using those kinds of pictures doesn't seem to be the done thing on Wikipedia. So it'll do!

The National Theatre of Scotland may not be quick at responding to emails, but they are very friendly and helpful when they do. As for the question I asked, there is bad news and good news...

The bad news is that there are no plans to make a filmed performance of Kidnapped generally available for streaming or purchase.

The good news is that such a recording does exist, and will be added to the NTS's Education Portal. This provides recordings of plays for educational use; it's aimed at teachers and pupils in schools and FE colleges, but I asked whether someone at a university in another country rather than a school/FE college in the UK would be eligible to sign up, and was told this would be OK (although an unfamiliar email address might require manual approval, which would take about a week). The sign-up form is here.

So there you go! An option exists, and I hope this information is of some help.

I recently went to see the National Theatre of Scotland's touring adaptation of Kidnapped. In brief, it was amazing, I loved it, and I highly recommend it to anyone who can possibly get to any of the upcoming performances in Inverness, Perth, Newcastle or Brighton. And here are some more thoughts! With a warning for big spoilers for things specific to the show, and a caveat that I am not used to reviewing things I can only see once and may have missed or misinterpreted various details. Quotes are paraphrased.

( This got a bit long )

...here's the director talking about the book and the adaptation:

It has hidden within it, not so hard to find I suppose, a love story as well.

Quite right too ♥