I wish I could have listened to this before “knowing him” (the same problem as when I heard “Venetia”, I’m afraid not to be believed by the non-well-wishers). I have just listened to chapter two and my heart is beating thick; I’m shocked. Literally. S.H.O.C.K.E.D.
Pure acting, excellent writing, superb skill.
You are great, sir. You. Are. Great.
PS. In the next weeks, when I will have heard the whole piece several times and will be able to type without trembling due to the emotion, I will write an intelligible post about this.
Wormwood Scrubs 
I’ve just gone over to telling people that something is enjoyable without mentioning Richard Armitage. Somehow they listen to me more 🙂
Well done!
I’ve made an experiment yesterday with a friend that doesn’t speak English and has other, let’s say, “interests”. I’ve forwarded her the free samples.
Well, she has been able to identify the different characters in one of the samples (Hamlet and Yorick) and has said something about that she wouldn’t mind to have a man with that voice to tell her bedtime stories (although she presumes that few sleep would follow afterwards).
This is the so-called RAeal effect 🙂
I think there’d be an interlude between the bedtime stories and the sleep if she had a man with that voice. Just sayin’. Glad to know the voice transfers cross culturally. So there’s hope for getting him to act in Spanish and German and French and and …
Let’s include in the list also the so-called “dead languages” don’t you think? Would be nice hear him saying that of “Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus…” or “Da mi basia mille, deinde centum…” 😉
Thank you very much for your comments
or יִשָּׁקֵ֙נִי֙ מִנְּשִׁיקֹ֣ות פִּ֔יהוּ כִּֽי־טֹובִ֥ים דֹּדֶ֖יךָ מִיָּֽיִן׃
would be fine too ! 🙂
Hahahahaha!!!! 🙂
I was thinking… although I have made “His Discovery” just a few months ago and I have seen/heard/read a relatively small number of interviews and articles on him… I just have the impression that he’s not completely aware of the reactions he provokes (and I’m not talking only at a “hormonal level”) 🙂
I think he’s aware *now* but I think it still amazes / surprises him.
Armitage reading Catullus, in the original! Now, that would be a real pleasure. I wonder if he ever took Latin?
Who knows… He’s a man of almost infinite resources! 🙂
But… wish for wish… the “animula vagula blandula” declaimed with that voice would send me directly to the hospital.
Which reminds me that I am long overdue in reading Yourcenar’s “Memoirs of Hadrian”…
One of the few books I’ve read twice. I’ve lived also the incredible experience of seeing a theatrical version in the real Villa Adriana. One of the best living italian actors, Giorgio Albertazzi, played Hadrian.
That sounds amazing! I would love to go there in the evening. I’ve been twice (on hot summer days) and both times I got heat sickness.
This is what I saw. The audience was placed in one of the extremes of the Canopus and Hadrian approached. It was amazing. But, strange country as Italy is, last time I was at the gates of Villa Adriana (I live in Tivoli) was to protest because they wanted to make a garbage stock just 700 metres away from the gate. Fortunately, and after Unesco’s threat to delist Villa Adriana as a world’s patrimony monument, they changed their idea.
Thanks for the link! He’s wonderful. I like the music too. How delightful to live in Tivoli. I remember the view from that restaurant with the temples built in–is it Sibylla? And the Villa d’Este is nearby, one of my favorite places ever!
Imagine them wanting to put a garbage dump at Hadrian’s Villa. Unbelievable! I guess the garbage has to go somewhere, but obviously they managed to think of a different place 😉
You remember correctly, Sybilla. I live a few meters away from one of the side gates of Villa d’Este. 🙂 As I’ve written in my yesterday’s post, it would not be possible for me to live in this country should it not be for their beauties. Which are constantly menaced. 😦 Right now a neighbour has given us a petition for the next mayor (elections are this weekend) to care more about Tivoli and its area. Villa Adriana is menaced again by a real state project nearby. 😦 Sometimes it’s like the fight of David against Goliah. Let’s hope for the best!
Italy has so many treasures that I think some of the inhabitants must take them for granted. I am glad that you and your friends realize how rare such beauty is. Good luck with the fight against Goliath!
In the vid I’ve linked the setting of the theatrical representation is not the Canopus (as when I saw it), but the big baths.