Game of Thrones: The Mad King (Dominic Cooke, 2026)

The play is still (just!) on at the RSC in Stratford, and playgoers are being asked to keep schtum about the plot, the staging and all things potentially spoilerific, albeit not for very much longer. This, of course, presents an interesting challenge when writing a blog post about it, but it's the sort of challenge that I'm minded to accept, so here goes...

My very lovely fiancee and I, courtesy of her very generous dad, found ourselves in the best seats imaginable when watching the play last night. Whilst I'll say nothing of the details, the staging is creative and brilliant. The script and story, too, are superb, very Game of Thrones. The story, as one might guess, deals with the late reign of Aerys II Targaryen, but more than that I won't say, except that both the plot and the characterisation are deeply satisfying. The worldbuilding is, of course, also satisfying, but at its core this is a very human play that is absolutely about human emotions, relationships, choices and free will. 

One spoiler-free way to praise the play is to say that, yes, the cast is large, but it doesn't feel that way at all.  

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

I watched an episode or two of the television series many years ago... but hesitated. Should I not read the novels first? And so, during the Coronavirus plague, I started on the first novel, began to enjoy it... and alas, could not continue, as life was simply too overwhelming and would not stop.

Now, finally, I've read the first novel and oooooh... I see exactly why these novels are so revered. George R.R. Martin has produced a fictionalised mediaeval world that feels real, characters whom one feels one knows, and prose in which to get drunk. Reading this novel is a rich and fulfilling experience, and I have many more to go... possibly with a final novel to go unritten, but for now, I care not. 

Martin is, I suppose, an epic fantasy equivalent of Patrick O'Brian, of yetbeyond his genre. His setting, the continent of Westeros, has the sense of deep history that Middle Earth does, as the book takes us from a loose kingdom united under a week king to a state of utter chaos and civil war, and does so via chapers that each focus on the viewpoint of a single character, all with their own view, desires and quirks.

The situation is, I suppose, similar to the Wars of the Roses, yet there is no exact parallel: one cannot say that the very unpleasant "King" Joffrey is wholly based on Edward IV, for example. The fantasy elements are kept light, yet- at the ending especially- they are there. One cannot help but feel that, as Caetlyn fears, the men of Westeros will cause so much death and destruction fighting each other.... and we know, as she does not, that Danaerys is waiting.

Exquisite.

I plan to alternate A Song of Ice and Fire with another novel until I've finished. So, a shorter novel next. Then A Clash of Kings...

Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 1 ("Winter is Coming")

"Do the dead frighten you?"

Doctor Who starts again tomorrow. Yay! And I'm blogging so many other series at the moment, some at an embarrassingly slow pace- Sherlock, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, Marvel's Agent Carter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Grimm, the Quatermass serials, Daredevil, and Penny Dreadful. There's nothing else for it: I'm going to have to start blogging another long-running series.

A few words before we start: you know that feeling of missing out on an important piece of popular culture by not being there at the start? And then, year by year, the season's roll along and there are more and more episodes to catch up on. And yet... how can I call myself a geek if I don't at least make an effort with Game of Thrones? Breaking Bad can wait. Especially as the first episode features a beheading, incestuous sex and a dwarf receiving a blow job.

I start out almost completely unspoiled; I'm trying to read the novels at the same pace to see how things diverge, but at this point I know nothing except the "red wedding", a massacre of unknown characters at someone's nuptials which I know will occur at some point. I also know that it's loosely based on the Wars of the Roses and will be looking for signs of this. Other than that I know nothing. So let's start.

It's an HBO show, so we can expect quality, and it certainly looks awesome. The cast is impressive, too: there are only so many tags at the bottom there and I've not been able to include the likes of Roger Allam or Donald Sumpter.

We are in the land of Westeros, ruled by a King Robert I. This land looks like mediaeval Europe and peoples' names are almost, but not quite, English. We begin in the northernmost province of Winterfell, ruled over by Lord Eddard Stark, played by Sean Bean in his native Yorkshire accent. It's a nice conceit, done consistently, to have the "southern" characters speak RP while the northerners speak in such a way as to make it very clear that this planet has a North.

We're clearly meant to feel that ominous tidings are afoot. Demonic and undead creatures are seen at the northern edge of the world, while Eddard Stark keeps banging on about the fact that "Winter is coming" which, I suspect, is meant to be both literal and metaphorical.

Plotting and skulduggery is rife at court, with the king's "hand" having recently been murdered, probably by Queen Cersei's brothers, Jaime Lannister and Teyin Lannister who is, incidentally, a dwarf (a short human, not the bearded, digging kind), and received said blow job. The king (and entourage) this visits Eddard to offer him the position, which he eventually accepts in the full knowledge that he is headed into a pit of vipers. 

He certainly has: Eddard's younger son Bran, seeing Cersei and Jaime, who are twins, shagging each other, is suddenly defenestrated to death, which is not a phrase I've ever had previous cause to use.

Meanwhile, across the sea, Luke's Prince Viseys, who also claims the throne. He's a thoroughgoing bastard, and we are most certainly meant to think so: his first act in the programme is to force his sister to marry a brutal and lecherous warlord.

This is pretty faithful to the novel, looks good and is very fast moving. I'll need a while to get to know the characters but this is a promising start.