The Bobby Kennedy Experience Arrives in London

The National Geographic documentary JFK: Seven Days that Made a President was made in London in 2013. Russell Lucas was cast as the president’s younger brother Bobby, but it wasn’t his introduction to the Kennedys.

“When I was 12, I used to watch a lot of soap operas with my mom, Dynasty, Dallas, The Colbys,  East Enders, you name it…” Lucas recalled. “One day she was watching something called ‘Kennedy’ which was about JFK. I watched and thought it was a soap opera and found out years later it was absolutely true. I remember my mom saying to me, ‘His younger brother was also assassinated,’ and I remember thinking, ‘What?! His younger brother was also assassinated, how did that work out?’” 

In a converted courthouse in Clapham, Lucas-as-Bobby was filmed persuading a cameraman to get close to Richard Nixon’s sweating face during the presidential debate and making calls to help have Martin Luther King Jr. released from prison. He convinced a film company to release Marilyn Monroe to perform at Madison Square Garden, and endured the aftermath of his brother’s murder. 

The shooting schedule of Seven Days is described in the opening moments of Lucas’ The Bobby Kennedy Experience, a one-man matryoshka doll dissecting the medium of theatre and the dissemination of myth in the media age. Stitched together like a needlepoint reproduction of a Jackson Pollock, every word and gesture is carefully considered as a politician’s pictorial in an old issue of LIFE magazine. It packs quite a punch.  

Robert Kennedy was the idealistic son of a ruthless capitalist and the brother of a president, the US attorney general and then a senator who was killed during his own presidential campaign, two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King. The latest collaboration between Lucas and Sarah Louise Young (the co-creators of An Evening Without Kate Bush) it’s a phantasmagoric passage through a traumatic American decade; a history lesson and a 21st century theatre presentation about a Shakespearean drama. 

The role of the audience shifts along with the piece while Lucas conjures up pieces of American history like a magician, with flags and balloons. In a tour-de-force performance he channels a devoted father, sedulous candidate, and a brother destroyed by grief. Inspired by RFK’s inclusive populism—”He said we’re going to have to start recycling our waste and using renewable energy in 1964”—the piece was created for Kennedy obsessives and people who have never heard of RFK, “the best president America never had.” 

“If he ever found out that he was wrong,” Lucas said. “He would admit that he was wrong. And by Jove, I wish we had that these days.” 

The Bobby Kennedy Experience opened at The Town & Gown Pub and Theatre in Cambridge on April 23rd 2022.

The Bobby Kennedy Experience is in London from November 4-6, 2022: https://greenwichtheatre.org.uk/events/the-bobby-kennedy-experience/

Russell Lucas

Shake Shack Napkin

The free, disposable napkins at Shake Shack in Leicester Square promise the earth. “Save the environment, one napkin at a time,” the bleach-free, natural coloured, 100% recycled napkins urge patrons. “Make a difference, just take one.” 

201grantk at the Prado

Grant K of Yenda, Australia objects to the “no pictures” policy at the Prado. Here is his 2021 response to Stephanie’s question on Trip Advisor.com, “Can I take photos at the Prado?”:

“I got harassed for taking a photo. It was absent minded of me, but they got persistent in reminding me. Nagging even.

I eventually asked a museum employee about it. He said art lovers were sick of people & selfie sticks. Museums in France have a much more relaxed attitude & policy on phone cameras.

They also have much better museums buildings & art”

Photograph: Schnäggli, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Guest-Starring Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary guest-starred as the caller on Season 1, episode 16 of Frasier, which aired on February, 3, 1994. “The Show Where Lilith Comes Back” was watched in 33.1 million American households. 

News as a Commodity, 1982

“Sometimes I wonder whether it is possible for the television industry to balance  public good with private gain. As Eric Sevareid noted in a recent interview with National Journal, ‘A few years ago the news department began to show a profit, and I was worried. I knew it would be looked at differently by top executives when it began to mean millions of dollars for three or four ratings points.’

News is a commodity. By now, viewers know they will hear the major news events of the day no matter what station they tune in, so they watch a particular newscaster for one or two reasons: because the channel is already on or because they have an allegiance to a newscaster. Anchors have become as newsworthy as the stories and personalities they cover.

Television, as the nation’s top advertising vehicle, is big business. The competition, hype, and political maneuvering are clear indications that news organisations resemble most other industries. Super gets like Richard Leibner negotiate multimillion dollar contracts while stations bid to seduce newscasters from other stations. About the same time Tom Brokaw joined Roger Mudd on NBC Nightly News in a publicity blitz, Dan Rather over at CBS took to wearing a sweater every night because its first appearance correlated with a surge in ratings, and ABC rushed to remind the public through full page promotional in the New York Times that it was still number one.”

Anchorwoman, Jessica Savitch, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1982.

Kitty Kelley in Princess Margaret’s Quarters

Biographer Kitty Kelley gained access to the Kensington Palace home of the Queen’s sister when she was writing The Royals and described it in the introduction to her book:

“During a time when Princess Margaret was travelling abroad, a member of her staff, whom I already knew, offered me a personal tour of her living quarters… When we walked into the residence of HRH the Princess Margaret, I gawked in disbelief; because I was standing in the home of the sister of the wealthiest woman in the world I had probably anticipated something grander, more imposing. I half expected diamond-studded walls and floors inlaid with rubies. Instead I saw plastic flowers arranged in vases on the windowsills and an electric heater with a badly frayed cord. A collapsible aluminium tray was stashed behind the door of the drawing room. I was told that it was placed in front of the television set when the Princess dined alone. Two large blackamoors statues guarded the entrance to the vivid blue room, where she displayed her vast collection of loving cups, crystal goblets, and pitchers. Lining the walls were porcelain plates and dishes embellished with great globs of gold. On a mahogany dumbwaiter by her desk, she had placed a collection of tiny porcelain boxes . One, circa 1800 carried an inscription: ‘May the Kind Live to Reward the Subject Who Would Die for Him.’ … I gazed at the portraits and photographs, including the framed picture of Princess Margaret and her former husband, Anthony Armstrong-Jones, at a White House dinner with President and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson. The photo, signed by the Johnsons, hangs in the bedroom.”

Kitty Kelley, The Royals, Warner Books, Inc., 1997.