Later Blake, briefly taught English at the French Lycée in London and some of his ex- students' most vivid memories of his lessons are playground performances of scenes from Shakespeare. One remembers the time when their homework consisted of making fake blood for Julius Caesar. Lastly, when properly embarked on a career in illustration Blake, now drawing for Punch magazine, did several three week stints of reportage drawing at the theatre. He would show up at a first night and work late after the performance to deliver the drawing, in which of course recognisable likenesses of actors were an added demand. These early pressures may be one of the reasons why Blake is famously reliable in meeting his publisher’s deadlines.
I AM ABLE TO HAVE
PRIVILEGED TO HAVE BEEN
Of course, there are many more strands to Blake’s genius than the theatrical one. One of the reasons I wanted to write the book was to propose Blake’s work as the world’s best unintentional learning resource. Having been a teacher myself I recognise how his drawings encourage children to ask and answer questions and the apparent simplicity of the work often hides subtle situations which bear repeated looking. I can truly say that his drawings to Michael Rosen’s Sad Book (a work for children), contain more learning about bereavement and how to cope with it than many books for adults in the Mind and Body section of the local bookshop.
WATCHED HIM SO CLOSELY’ FROM THE WINGS’....
“ ”
The other (linked) motivation for writing was to point out that Blake is so much more than a cheerful cartoonist or the illustrator of the Dahl books. Over the years I have worked with him on several arts- in- hospital projects. For these, Blake produced series of drawings for wards, private and public rooms, corridors and even building façades. The drawings are not based on some notional idea of brightening up the space (although they do that too), but on genuine empathy with patients, staff and visitors in their respective situations. In a scheme for a maternity hospital in Angers the hardened administrative chief was moved to say of the images that the important thing about them was ‘the exchange of looks between the mothers and their babies’. Of course, looks exchanged are part of ‘la comédie humaine’ as the French describe the human comedy, that rich variety of all human life. That really is the subject of all Quentin Blake’s drawings and I am privileged to have been able to have watched him so closely’, from the wings’.
As Managing Director of Digital Orchard, I am very used to working with the on‐set crew, producers and post‐ production teams of many high profile films but, until now, only films that have been shot digitally.
MURDERON THEORIENT- EXPRESS
When cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos who has shot films such as Mamma Mia, Thor, Cinderella and Jack Ryan, came to us saying he was collaborating with director Kenneth Branagh on Murder on the Orient Express and could we help him out, we agreed
straight away. However, it turned out that he wanted to shoot on 65mm film, which hadn’t been developed in the UK since the 1950s!
We worked with Kodak and adapted our daily workflows to accommodate his request and, as a result, Haris and Ken were able to watch what they had shot each day as we projected everything onto a big screen near set.
It was an exciting and ambitious project with incredible set builds at Longcross Studios in Surrey, where an entire Orient Express train was constructed on a snow-ridden viaduct to the backdrop of the M3! Even my kids were able to visit and touch fake film snow for the first time.
With a huge amount of work, day and night, from all our technicians, the making of the film was a huge success and we are very proud of our efforts.
Go and watch the all-star cast re-create this classic in cinemas from 10th November this year! OC
Sam Margaritis (née Parsons) Class of 1995
The Old Cornelian SUMMER 2017 19
Ghislaine Kenyon (née Latham‐Koenig, Mayfield 1963‐8) is a freelance trainer, arts education consultant, curator and author.
After a teaching career, she ran Education Programmes at The National Gallery and was then Head of Learning at a Somerset House. She has curated exhibitions such as the highly successful Tell Me a Picture with Quentin Blake, with whom she also curated the re-opening exhibition at the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris. She produces Arts and Health projects in both France and the UK. In addition to training and development work with teachers, she is an Associate Fellow of the King’s Fund, and the NHS Academy, for whom she contributes to Leadership programmes. She is a Governor at Barrow Hill Junior School and board member of the Museum Prize Trust, Artichoke Productions, The House of Illustration and The Friends of The Institut Français. In March 2016, her book Quentin Blake: in the Theatre of the Imagination was published by Bloomsbury.
OC
Ghislaine Kenyon (née Latham‐Koenig) Class of 1969
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