Martin Wood, Olivier, and Lyttelton

While the Glastonbury attendance may have outnumbered us 750:1 last weekend, those of us who went back to Oxford for the Mathematical Institute reunion event did get an Acheson and du Sautoy guitar and trumpet duet which I suspect wasn't to be heard at the Festival...

About 200 people turned out for the event (including a surprising scattering of families). Because of the numbers attending, the lectures had been moved from the Mathematical Institute to the (rather more impressive) Martin Wood lecture theatre at the Clarendon Laboratory; because of the weather, the garden party moved indoors at St Cross College. Despite the numbers, there were few from my contemporaries, but I did run into a couple of faintly familar faces (Keble doing well because the event coincided with the college's own Old Members' event).

The lectures were, as promised, non-taxing (thankfully), although they both brought back memories of Waves and Diffusion, one of my less favoured first-year lecture courses. (One might have expected it in a talk on applied mathematics, but it came as more of a shock when we got to number theory.)

( No detailed notes for non-attendees to photocopy, so these will have to do... )

At a theatre of a different sort a few weeks ago, I enjoyed the National Theatre's production of Cyrano de Bergerac with helenbr (who also commented on it; huskyteer also has a review).

Reading the cast list, we realised we'd missed a talk on (apparently) rich artistic history of the nose. Trying to think of noses of note ourselves (and with additional subsequent suggestions from addedentry), we did come up with Cyrano himself, Pinnochio, a hypothetical Cleopatra (Pascal's "Le nez de Cléopâtre: s'il eût été plus court, toute la face de la terre aurait changé"), and Tycho Brahe, with the possible addition of Julius Caesar (since I've not been able to find whether the Roman nose is connected specifically to him or more generally to Roman aristocracy).

And last night I saw Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis. Fortunately it was in translation: while the circle's being one-third empty on a Saturday evening surprised me, I suspect it would have been even emptier if Iphigeneia he en Aulidi were being staged. (One is reminded of the story - possibly apocryphal - of Harold Wilson's suggestion at the 1964 general election that, as well as moving Steptoe and Son from peak time on polling day, the BBC could "replace it with a Greek drama, preferably in the original".)

The language was modern but without any jarring anachronisms that stick in the memory (unlike Cyrano with its "breezeblock" and "Euros"). The production, on the other hand, had 20th century touches to it, with 1920s-ish music and occasional microphones, loudhailers, and helicopters (in sound effect only - no Miss Saigon extravaganza here!). The lighting was often dim, and the play ran relentlessly in a single act of two hours, resulting in an intense and slightly claustrophobic experience.

( Thoughts on the play's ending - significant spoilers )