A dish of tea with Dr Johnson, Doctor Johnson's house, London, review
A joyous encounter with the melancholic master .
Genuinely close encounter: Russell Barr and Ian Redford in A Dish of Tea with Dr Johnson Photo: Robert Workman
4:43PM GMT 09 Mar 2011
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I have long thought that if it were possible to meet one great figure from the
past I would choose Shakespeare, so eloquent in his plays, so elusive as a
man. My second choice would be Dr Johnson, with his wit and wisdom and his
courage in his battles with what he called melancholy and we call depression.
The great thing about this new show from Max Stafford-Clark’s Out of Joint
Company is that you emerge feeling that you have had a genuinely close
encounter with the great man, especially if you have been lucky enough, like
me, to catch this touring show at Johnson’s House off Fleet Street, where
the play is staged in the very garret where he laboured for nine years on
his dictionary.
Once the audienceare seated, the great man himself, splendidly played by Ian
Redford, climbs the stairs and introduces himself.
“You are expected,” he tells us warmly, for he was a man who hated to be
alone, and over the next hour and 20 minutes we feel we have come to know
the great lexicographer, essayist, critic and conversationalist extremely
well. His company is a delight and an education.
The show is based on Boswell’s great biography and his journal of their tour
to the Hebrides, adapted by Stafford-Clark and his two actors, Redford and
Russell Barr, who, as well as offering us a smooth, stylish Boswell, also
switches roles with virtuosic assurance to play other members of Johnson’s
circle, including the playwright Oliver Goldsmith, the painter Sir Joshua
Reynolds and even Johnson’s evil-tempered housekeeper, Mrs Williams.
At most performances he also plays the last unrequited love of Johnson’s life,
Mrs Thrale, but on press night the part was taken by Trudie Styler. Those
tantric sex sessions with her husband Sting are clearly efficacious, for she
looked terrific and after a hesitant start proved a proficient actress, too.
Ian Redford, with his bulk, his physical awkwardness and a face like a battered potato, brings Johnson to wonderfully persuasive and endearing life, delivering the epigrams with panache in a broad Midlands accent, while also capturing the sudden terror and gloom that so often afflicted this wise and apparently confident man.
It’s a tremendous performance in a show of continuous pleasure. And the appearance of Dr Johnson’s beloved cat Hodge is a comic tour de force that it would be a crime to reveal.
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Statue of Hodge (with oyster) in the courtyard outside Dr. Johnson's House, 17 Gough Square, London.
Hodge was one of Samuel Johnson's cats, immortalized in a characteristically whimsical passage in James Boswell's Life of Johnson.
Although there is little known about Hodge, such as his life, his death, or any other information, what is known is Johnson's fondness for his cat, which separated Johnson from the views held by others of the eighteenth century.
Johnson bought oysters for his cat. In modern England, oysters are an expensive food for the well-to-do, but in the 18th century oysters were plentiful around the coasts of England and so cheap that they were a staple food of the poor. Johnson refused to send Francis Barber to buy Hodge's food, fearing that it would be seen as degrading to his servant, so he would personally buy the food for Hodge.[3]
Boswell also noted how Johnson went out to purchase valerian to ease Hodge's suffering as death approached.[4] Although Hodge was not Johnson's only cat, it was Hodge whom he considered his favourite. Hodge was remembered in various forms, from biographical mentions during Johnson's life to poems written about the cat. On his death, Hodge's life was celebrated by an elegy by Percival Stockdale. In this poem the phrase "sable furr" indicates that Hodge was a black cat; also, the fact that Stockdale was Johnson's neighbour from 1769 onwards suggests that Hodge was alive at that time.
Ian Redford, with his bulk, his physical awkwardness and a face like a battered potato, brings Johnson to wonderfully persuasive and endearing life, delivering the epigrams with panache in a broad Midlands accent, while also capturing the sudden terror and gloom that so often afflicted this wise and apparently confident man.
It’s a tremendous performance in a show of continuous pleasure. And the appearance of Dr Johnson’s beloved cat Hodge is a comic tour de force that it would be a crime to reveal.
---
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Hodge (disambiguation).
Although there is little known about Hodge, such as his life, his death, or any other information, what is known is Johnson's fondness for his cat, which separated Johnson from the views held by others of the eighteenth century.
Contents |
Life
Most of the information on Hodge comes from Boswell's account. It is in this passage that Johnson is claimed to have an affection for animals in general, or at least the ones that he kept:Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he showed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, 'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.'The latter paragraph is used as the epigraph to Vladimir Nabokov's acclaimed poem/novel Pale Fire.[2]
This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'[1]
Johnson bought oysters for his cat. In modern England, oysters are an expensive food for the well-to-do, but in the 18th century oysters were plentiful around the coasts of England and so cheap that they were a staple food of the poor. Johnson refused to send Francis Barber to buy Hodge's food, fearing that it would be seen as degrading to his servant, so he would personally buy the food for Hodge.[3]
Boswell also noted how Johnson went out to purchase valerian to ease Hodge's suffering as death approached.[4] Although Hodge was not Johnson's only cat, it was Hodge whom he considered his favourite. Hodge was remembered in various forms, from biographical mentions during Johnson's life to poems written about the cat. On his death, Hodge's life was celebrated by an elegy by Percival Stockdale. In this poem the phrase "sable furr" indicates that Hodge was a black cat; also, the fact that Stockdale was Johnson's neighbour from 1769 onwards suggests that Hodge was alive at that time.
...Who, by his master when caressed, warmly his gratitude expressed, and never failed his thanks to purr, whene'er he stroked his sable fur.[4]Today he is remembered by a bronze statue, unveiled by the Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1997, outside the house in Gough Square he shared with Johnson and Barber, Johnson's black manservant and heir.[5] The statue shows Hodge sitting next to a pair of empty oyster shells atop a copy of Johnson's famous dictionary, with the inscription "a very fine cat indeed".[4]
Popular culture
The cat Hodge – along with Dr. Johnson's second favourite cat, Lily – are the subjects of a book by Yvonne Skargon (Johnson is also given authorial credit) entitled, Lily and Hodge and Dr. Johnson. The book consists of quotations from Johnson's Dictionary, accompanied by Skargon's woodcarving illustrations of the two cats, contextually associated with the dictionary entries. Hodge also appears in Charlie Fletcher's "Silvertongue" as a brave and fearless cat. Hodge also appears in Samuel Beckett's early dramatic fragment Human Wishes.See also
Notes
- ^ Boswell p. 294
- ^ Sean R Silver, "Pale Fire and Johnson's Cat: The Anecdote in Polite Conversation," Criticism 53 (2011): 241–264.
- ^ Wain 1974, p. 375
- ^ a b c "100 Cats Who Changed Civilization: History's Most Influential Felines", Sam Stall, p. 88-89, Quirk Books, 2007, ISBN 1-59474-163-8
- ^ "The A-Z of Samuel Johnson", BBC News, 30 March 2005, retrieved 16 June 2009 [1]
References
- Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson. Ed. Christopher Hibbert. New York, Penguin Classics, 1986. 375 pp.
- Wain, John (1974), Samuel Johnson, New York: Viking Press, OCLC 40318001.
External links
- Popular account of Hodge's life
- Pictorial account of Hodge's legacy
- Project Gutenberg abridged e-text of Boswell's Life of Johnson
- Text of "An Elegy on the Death of Dr Johnson's Favourite Cat", Percival Stockdale's eulogy of Hodge
- Literary Cats
