Musing on Gabriel’s tenderly feathered ankles in Keith Baylisss’ Hortus Conclusus at the Mission Gallery yesterday (see the previous post) carried my thoughts from the annunciating archangel to mercurial Hermes, and from him to Shakespeare’s Ariel.
…
Ariel has been much on my mind of late, and there has been not a little of him in some of the drawings for Marly’s The Foliate Head. Perhaps it’s just not possible to be thinking on the theme of Green Men without the greatest of Shakespeare’s spirits nudging away at the edges of imagination, and not so surprising either given that Puck… who makes a memorable appearance in Marly’s collection of poems… and Ariel, have been constant presences throughout my life.
Shades of Ariel…
… and Puck!
…
It is an abiding regret of mine that I never saw the actor Ian Charleson play the role of Ariel in the RSC’s 1978 production of The Tempest. but there is a recording available of him singing composer Guy Woolfendon’s ravishing setting of Come Unto These Yellow Sands. Charleson died too young, and there is tragically little to be found of him in recordings. So seek out this one and weep for what we lost.
…
Click HERE for the Ariel Music discography.
…
Clive Hicks-Jenkins' Artlog: 
Hi, I thought I would let you know that you can hear Ian Charleson sing Ariel’s poem ‘Full Fathom Five’ on the BBC recording of Dame Harriet Walter’s Desert Island Discs from 2011. She was in the same year as him at LAMDA and talks about him briefly at about 12:30 on the 45 minute recording of the programme, followed by his singing as Ariel.
I’ve also found that there is a limited edition CD of three recordings of Ian Charleson as Ariel which has been remastered from the original EP from 1978. It’s available from Ariel Music. I have just sent them an order. I love Ian Charleson’s voice.
Georgina, thank you for the information. It was most kind of you to offer a lead. I’d found my way to Ariel Music some time ago, but had I not then your comment would have sent me in the correct direction.
After hearing Harriet Walter’s choices on Desert Island Discs I searched for many months without avail for a recording. Finally I found the website for Ariel Music and left a message there. Guy Woolfendon’s wife contacted me to explain that while there was currently no cd, there was a single though ‘extended play’ of the songs on vinyl. I acquired one from her, and it sat around for quite a long time while I tried to figure out how/where to make the transfer. Later the Woolfendons themselves produced a cd version… I think that I may have been but one of many trying to find a recording of the music on cd… and that’s what I have now. It was a long search, but it was finally fruitful.
The disc comprises four songs:
Come unto these yellow sands
Full Fathom Five
Where the bee sucks
Honour, Riches, Marriage, Blessing
Short and bitter-sweet. Charleson had a voice of such aching beauty that I wish there were more, but this is all the available music recorded from the production, and I am grateful for it. You’re going to love the disc when you hear it, Georgina. I treasure mine.
Very Best
Clive H-J
Hi Clive
You are welcome. I have become mildly obsessed with Ian Charleson recently. After six months working at the Royal Free Hospital and daily walking past a sign to the ‘Ian Charleson Day Care Centre’ I became curious about him.
I remembered him from Chariots of Fire but had no idea he has this heartbreaking voice as well as being such a talented actor. Everything I have read about him suggests that as well as being so gifted, he was gracious, brave and very nice without being insipid. His performance as Eric Liddell in CoF is what makes it a great film and it’s a testament to his powers as an actor that he made this rather difficult character – who could so easily have seemed rather inflexible and pious – likeable. Charleson seems to have been universally loved by the people who knew him and to have been a beautiful person in all ways.
With the therapies available since the late 90s, people with HIV now have the prospect of a normal, or near-normal lifespan, but in 1986 when Charleson was diagnosed it meant being sentenced to a horrible death. It is tragic that the world was robbed of his talents and that he suffered and died so young.
Georgina
I spoke recently to Guy Woolfendon’s wife, who kindly recollected her memories of Ian Charleson for me. Like you I found him a beguiling presence on screen, and I longed to know more about him. Quite clearly he was a man who inspired fierce loyalty and love within his circle.
I have friends these days who manage their HIV statuses with relative ease. They have expectations of a good lifespan. But back when Ian Charleson was infected, the outlook was grim in ways I can barely bring myself to recall. I saw too many friends go down with terrifying speed, and it felt as though we were in the middle of an apocalypse.
It’s a fine thing that there’s an Ian Charleson Day Care Centre to commemorate him, though it’s reassuring too that some of what made him so special was captured on film and on sound recordings. Too little of course, though perhaps… just perhaps… the poignancy of ‘too little’ is a better legacy than those whose lustre becomes tarnished by over-familiarity. I guess we’re always more attracted to the performers whose promise was cut short, because we wonder about how they would have developed their artistry. I feel the same way when listening to the voice of the sublime Kathleen Ferrer, another who died too young, and Susan Chilcott, whose every recording I tracked down because I thought her a spectacular talent snuffed out just when we had all begun to realise how special she was.
Nice mention and tribute, Clive! Just as a reminder: Ian’s last name does not have a T in it: it’s Charleson.
Oh what a fool I am! I’m much obliged to you for pointing that out. All corrected now.
I once indelibly inscribed a very expensive book, misspelling the recipient’s name in the process. She wrote back to me really quite archly, commenting that as she’d earlier inscribed her recently published book to me, there was no excuse for my having written her name incorrectly when I reciprocated! I fear name spellings are a failing of mine. Clearly I am the Mr Malaprop of nomenclature!
Such lovely singing! Such evocative music!
The Tempest was the last play I was in, over thirty years ago. I was Trinculo. Of course.
In the interests of history I think we need photographs of this, so if there are any please send to me or post on Form is Void.
Ariel never came my way though I did play Puck, and several times. (And once, his second cousin Peter Pan, in a drama club production.) If ever there were Puckish photographs of me I have no idea where they are now. Perhaps that’s as well. I recall little by way of apparel save a few leaves!
Oh, I missed this with that primal-color red-white-black foliate head! Should have posted your Puck earlier, but HERE he is.
And I shall go listen!
Oh Marly!
(-:
Mmmm smooth and lovely, and his My Love is Like a Red Red Rose is just divine too.
I agree Jacqui.
Very beautiful singing! Unfortunately i missed this – maybe Cate saw it. Your ‘ Shades of Ariel’ fits his rendition superbly.
Oh that voice. It fills me with joy and melancholy in equal measure. All the longing, all the pain.