【推荐2】Many older people around the world have at least one common concern: how to get younger people hooked on their electronic devices interested in classic literature? Take the Monkey King, or Sun Wukong, as an example. The main character in the 16th-century classic novel, Journey to the West, is a romantic figure of bravery and adventure that fascinated millions of readers before the appearance of online attractions.

Havoc in Heaven, a new Peking Opera film, attracted the wider public to the charm of the traditional Chinese performance art, featuring one of the best-known chapters from Journey to the West. This film, expected to create a new channel to promote Peking Opera, includes nearly all the key ingredients of Peking Opera. It covers all the basic techniques, more than 10 classic tunes, and makeup for dozens of facial representations of different figures’ characteristics.

It’s actually a big challenge to combine Peking Opera and film, each of which has its own rhythm, according to Cheng Lu, director of the film, who is adopting a fresh approach to present the traditional art form. One challenge that Cheng and his production team faced is how to balance the new approach with maintaining the fundamentals of the art. The basic principles and performance skills in Peking Opera cannot be changed.

Some background images on stage, such as a painted waterfall, remain, and a live band was on the set to provide sound for the film, rather than employing the prerecorded music. “If we change traditions to cater to people’s taste and preference for a regular film, it will no longer be a Peking Opera piece of art, Cheng said.

On the other hand, some creativity was needed because Cheng and his team did not just want to document a stage performance. Computer technology is also applied to achieve some visual effects and to present impossible scenes.

Peking Opera films played a powerful role in the 1960s and 70s, but they gave way to more diverse entertainment. In recent years, there has been a recovery in the popularity of Peking Opera films. However, the overuse of special effects in many film adaptations of Peking Opera plays has weakened the original charm of the stage performances. The imagination(enabled by the stage)can never be sacrificed for a film’s expression.

【推荐3】It is a celebration of the enduring（持久的） power of letter writing.

Letters Live, which started in December 2013, was held at the Freemasons' Hall in London from March 10 to 15. The show featured various great performers who read remarkable letters that had been written around the world over the centuries.

"Bringing letters alive through memorable performances is one of the most powerful ways in which the joy and pain and humor and tragedy of being human can be shared," Jamie Byng, managing director of Canongate Books publishing firm, told the Nowness video channel.

British actor Benedict Cumberbatch agreed."Letters are windows into the love, beauty, pain and humor of their creators and receivers," he told The Guardian. "Letters Live makes us stop and imagine the lives behind the letters read and where they came from. It's a privilege to read this oldest of communications live to an audience."

This year, the Sherlock（《神探夏洛克》）star treated the audience to an impersonation（模仿）of a 17-year Tom Hanks. He put on the young actor's voice when he read his letter to the Hollywood director George Roy Hill,a letter that urged Hill to "discover" him. The letter revealed that two-time Oscar winner Hanks' teenage dream was not to "be a big-time, Hollywood superstar" but to one day own a Porsche car and call his favorite US actor Robert Redford his nickname "Bob".

Other famous faces at the event included Carey Mulligan, who played a fictional laundry worker turned feminist(女权主义的) activist in the 2015 movie Suffragette（《妇女参政论者》）. The British actress once again played the role of a suffragette when she read a passionate letter demanding the vote for women by Bertha Brewster. The suffragette sent a forthright(直率的) 1913 note to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"Everyone seems to agree upon the necessity of putting a stop to Suffragist anger,but no one seems certain how to do so,"Mulligan read out."There are two,and only two,ways in which this can be done.Both will be effectual.One, kill every woman in the UK.Two,give woman the vote."