A trip to Stratford to see the <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-seven-acts-of-mercy/about-the-play" target="_blank">RSC perform the Seven Acts of Mercy</a> at the Swan Theatre. This is a modern play by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Lustgarten" target="_blank">Anders Lustgarten</a> who is described at a political activist playwright and The Seven Acts interweaves the life of Caravaggio as he paints the "The Seven Works of Mercy" and a retired, dieing,  Liverpool docker who is teaching his grandson to feel the emotions in paintings and particularly how the Seven Acts of Mercy can be applied to the 21st Century.

<a href="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/7-Actsdec16.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-4127" src="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/7-Actsdec16.jpg" alt="" width="296" height="447" /></a><strong>Bury the dead</strong> - In the background, two men carry a dead man (of whom only the feet are visible).
<strong>Visit the imprisoned</strong> - <em>On the right, a woman visits an imprisoned man.</em>
<strong>Feed the hungry</strong><em> -  and the same woman gives him milk from her breast. </em>
<strong>Shelter the homeless</strong><em> - A pilgrim (third from left, as identified by the shell in his hat) asks an innkeeper (at far left) for shelter.</em>
<strong>Clothe the naked</strong><em> - St. Martin of Tours, fourth from the left, has torn his robe in half and given it to the naked beggar in the foreground, recalling the saint's popular legend.</em>
<strong>Visit the sick</strong><em> - St. Martin greets and comforts the beggar who is a cripple.</em>
<strong>Refresh the thirsty</strong><em> - Samson (second from the left) drinks water from the jawbone of an ass.</em>

The play covers food banks, Thatcher's "right to buy" and the subsequent shortage of affordable housing and homelessness and finally the docker in his hospital bed and his inevitable death.

As always the RSC production was incredible and I was in awe at the end of the evening.