The Life of Galileo

A sensationally good production at the National Theatre of The Life of Galileo last night - completely absorbing throughout its considerable length. Simon Russell Beale quite outstanding in the title role. I was in tears at the end, which never happens to me in the theatre.

Slightly puzzled by David Hare's essay in the programme. He says "John Dexter's revival in 1980 offered a translation which freed Brecht from the grim series of academic renderings responsible for the author's relative unpopularity in English up till then." Now when I was at school Brecht was presented as one of the greatest of all playwrights: the translations we used may have been "grim", but his importance certainly was clear. And he was widely performed: I saw Galileo in Stirling, and my early years of Edinburgh Festival Fringe-going involved a number of his plays (Mother Courage, The Caucasian Chalk Circle and The Measures Taken, at least: the last of these making a particularly strong impression on me) . Certainly there were many productions of Brecht on the Fringe in the 70s. So what was this "relative unpopularity"?

I've seen three theatrical versions of the Galileo story in the last couple of years (including Philip Glass's visually stunning opera) and have also read Tom Stoppard's screenplay. I suppose it's no surprise that this has become such a canonical story. It's ironic that a story about the value of truth has itself become more myth than history.