The Rake June 2022 - Issue 82

While escapism is often seen as a coping mechanism, I look at it differently. Escapism to me is the ability to wholeheartedly lose oneself. To momentarily break free from the hegemonic oppression of reality by immersing one’s mind in a realm that provides for the soothing decoupling from the diabolical dissonance of daily life. The beauty about escapism is that you can travel many roads to this destination. From transcendental meditation to Burgundian appreciation, the pathways to escape are myriad. For me, escapism has often been horological in nature. For example, I can achieve that precious mental escape by looking at my incredible tourbillon created by my friend Denis Flageollet for his brand, De Bethune. The basis of a tourbillon is as follows. From the onset, watches were meant not just…

For some time my happy place has been a tiny town called Bargemon, in France, where I got married and every year spend a few weeks doing very little. Editing a magazine is a noisy game, so the kind of quiet available in Bargemon feels like a revolutionary change — it provides a contentment and catharsis that perhaps other people get from yoga retreats or weekends in Ibiza. Bargemon is also far from the crowds south of the A8. The remote hills of the Var region, above the vineyards, are a retreat from sparklers attached to champagne as well as tourists who would otherwise be spending their way through Dubai were it not high summer in the desert. Not that I’m a snob or anything. Recently, however, I have reconnected with…

CHARLIE GRAY Charlie is a British international fashion and portrait photographer based in London. His playful vision and dedication to the art of narrative grew out of his love of theatre and early documentary photographic projects. Charlie has captured some of the most famous faces of our time; equally, he often shoots poetic fashion stories with film and theatre’s faces of tomorrow. In this issue, Charlie flew to New York to shoot our cover star, Ethan Hawke. Such is Charlie’s professionalism, the fact there was a live bird of prey on set was no major hurdle. See the results of his shoot with Hawke (and hawk) on page 74. KIM LANG The Luxembourg-born photographer Kim Lang had his first taste of the medium at an early age, as he travelled around the world…

Tis call’d the evil:A most miraculous work in this good king;Which often, since my here-remain in England,I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people,All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,The mere despair of surgery, he cures,Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,Put on with holy prayers: and ’tis spoken,To the succeeding royalty he leavesThe healing benediction. With this strange virtue,He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,And sundry blessings hang about his throne,That speak him full of grace. These words are spoken by Malcolm in Act IV of Macbeth. The ‘good king’ in question is Edward the Confessor, one of the last of England’s Anglo-Saxon monarchs. The king’s touch capable of restoring those scrofulous wretches to health was a medieval belief that persisted into the early…

In The Great, the court of Catherine II of Russia unfolds like a comic marionette show. The acclaimed television satire is a modern Hogarthian take on the period drama, setting the stage for Gwilym Lee’s suave Grigor as he survives the perils of court life. Or perhaps not. “We never know if we’re going to be killed off next,” he says with a laugh. With the third season of The Great announced, it seems we will be seeing more of Lee. His portrayal has made him a favourite among viewers and critics alike, garnering award nominations from the Screen Actors Guild. With its sweeping story and witty script, Lee is well positioned to pull off the tragic Grigor: Lee is an alumnus of Guildhall, a one-time player for the Royal Shakespeare…

To describe a writer who sold 40m copies of his books in his lifetime — inaugurating one of the most profitable franchises in history — as underrated would seem counterintuitive, but Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, has always seemed to provoke the ‘yes, but’ response (‘Yes, but Le Carré was the real deal’; ‘Yes, but he was too sybaritic to be serious’ — as if the two were mutually exclusive). To be fair, Fleming himself was often foremost among the non-cheerleaders. He described the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, as “an oafish opus”, and further downplayed expectations in a 1963 BBC radio interview: “I’m not in the Shakespeare stakes. I have no ambition.” Perhaps it was simply politic to hide your light under a bushel if you found yourself…