Rendering №5

The article “Jonathan Miller: 'I’d liketo have written more by the time I die” was published on February 5, 2013 in “The Telegraph”. The author, Jasper Rees, discusses Miller’s life, language and his fear of typewriters. It is clear that Jonathan Miller at his 78 has been exploring the no-man’s-land between the “two cultures” of science and the arts for as long as anyone can remember, and telling us all about it. Sir Jonathan since 2002 if we’re being formal – is staging a rare revival of Githa Sowerby’s play Rutherford & Son. The invitation came from Northern Broadsides. It is interesting to note that Miller is not often sighted in the stalls of other people’s productions, so he missed it. Instead he takes his entertainment at home, religiously listening to The Goon Show on Radio 4 Xtra, also doffing his cap in empathy to Jack Dee’s eeyorish sitcom Lead Balloon.

Speaking about the theatre it is necessary to mention that it’s the task which interests Miller rather than the experience of watching it. In fact he rarely goes to see even his own shows. He explains that if it’s a good production it’ll get better under its own development. If it’s not any good it gets worse and there’s nothing you can do about it. It is an open secret that Miller’s operatic productions continue to be revived with gusto – most recently The Mikado and Rigoletto at the ENO, Così fan tutte at Covent Garden – but he has not directed a play since Hamlet in Bristol five years ago. Compare and contrast with Miller, who has been in public life since even before Beyond the Fringe – as a star of the Cambridge Footlights, the Daily Mail reported on his marriage in 1956. It is necessary to point out that indeed by now his public may well have felt that they know everything that needs knowing. That changed this month with the publication of Kate Bassett’s exhilarating new biography. It is stressed that In Two Minds is the product of ten years’ research and Miller’s blessing, although he insists he’s not read it.

Analyzing the book it becomes clear that it shines a keen new light on his childhood as the first son of successful but unloving parents. Speaking about his peculiarities it is necessary to note that he can’t get anything down on paper – by the time he’s typed the first three words his brain is already at the start of the next paragraph. He tells that he’d like to have written more by the time he dies. There are lots of things which he’d like to say which he can say when he talks which he finds quite hard to write down. He gets paralysed when he’s opposite a typewriter or computer. In conclusion the author mentions about Miller’s interest in the anthropology of language, the anthropology of behavior and only hopes he leaves his brain to science. Or the arts. As for me, I think that Jonathan Miller is a man of a great talent, he is a man who aims to write more and more before his death despite he has publicity and fame. He is a great example to admire.