June 7, 2009
An amiable speaker, Prof Richard Holmes captivated his audience with a passionate and competent talk about the Duke of Marlborough, ‘Britain’s Greatest General’ who led Britain to great success in battles against the French in the 1700s and who was also responsible for building Blenheim Palace. I was expecting a little more focus on Blenheim Palace, but nonetheless Prof Holmes was clearly extremely well researched and delivered a flawless talk on the life and accomplishments of the Duke, about whom he has written a recently published book, and which he kept as light-hearted and humorous as possible for such a weighty topic.
For me, the real star of the show was Sarah, the wife of the Duke, who Prof Holmes spoke at length about throughout the talk. Sarah was obviously a fiery, feisty headstrong woman and clearly the Duke’s rock during his life – she sounded like an amazing character.
The audience – presumably avid historians and readers of Prof Holmes recent book were appreciative, attentive and asked relevant questions at the end of the talk. My only criticism is that, in these days of us being well aware that we encourage our children to not try to revise for more than 20 minutes at a time as the human brain cannot concentrate solely on anything for more than this timespan, it was a bit of a drag having to listen to a solo talk with no props (e.g. lighting, photos, music) to break up the monotony, no matter how competent and passionate the speaker.
For me, the real star of the show was Sarah, the wife of the Duke, who Prof Holmes spoke at length about throughout the talk. Sarah was obviously a fiery, feisty headstrong woman and clearly the Duke’s rock during his life – she sounded like an amazing character.
The audience – presumably avid historians and readers of Prof Holmes recent book were appreciative, attentive and asked relevant questions at the end of the talk. My only criticism is that, in these days of us being well aware that we encourage our children to not try to revise for more than 20 minutes at a time as the human brain cannot concentrate solely on anything for more than this timespan, it was a bit of a drag having to listen to a solo talk with no props (e.g. lighting, photos, music) to break up the monotony, no matter how competent and passionate the speaker.