Its my favourite Shakespeare. Prospero is one of the greatest characters. He's not in it too much tho. Keep em keen. The Tempest is just packed with some of the best and most memorable lines. This is where we first hear the saying ''vanished into thin air'' .
Which reminds me, I didnt hear any news on how the recent Bristol International hot air balloon festival went. There were strong winds threatening to ruin it early on last week. But as soon as I saw pictures of corporate sponsored balloons lifting off, I lost interest. Im not a fan of all this (and this is coming from someone who loves Bristol and tries to support everything they do). But I draw the line at this kind of thing. Tesco balloons. Just a load of advertising flying about in the sky. Children waving at the insipid blue Barclays bank balloon as it passes by.
Bristol does however have a long history of balloons and ballooning. During the Georgian period it was the stomping ground of many an aspiring aeronautical inventor. The crowds at the fairs such as Bristol's St James and Lansdown would be wowed by the newest flying balloon powered by the latest deadly gas. Around the 1780's there was stiff competition between Bristol and Paris. There were numerous tethered flights at country fairs on both sides of the channel but the French eventually succeeded in recording the first 'free' flight with human passengers in 1783.
Other more rarified airs have been connected with old Bristol down the ages....The posh Clifton area (on the hill leading to the suspension Bridge) was home to many early scientists around 200 years ago. Most notably the likes of Dr Beddoes and Humphrey Davey who set up labs in order to play around with various gases and fumes. Nitrous Oxide or 'Laughing Gas' was just one of the discoveries. In later years the Victorian gentry would gather at friends houses for laughing gas parties, where they'd litterally piss themselves all night.
Late Georgian Bristol was also a drifting area for the new poets of Romanticism such as Coleridge and Southey.
Coleridge was a frequent vistor to Beddoes's laboratory in order to try out new and potentially dangerous gases. All part of the young poet's search for higher states of consciousness.
Dr Beddoes (who was operating at a time when leeches were a luxury treatment for dizzy ladies) believed that gases could be a miracle cure for all sorts of complaints. They had very silly names. One discovery that made the good scientist very excited was something he named 'Phlogisticated air' !!!! It was quite important but I cant remember now whether it was eventually used to fly poets or balloons?
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