"Although the backdrop is a pattern," Ms. Colker said, "it's also meant to suggest antique navigators' maps, with lands and routes that may or may not exist.
Dexys were performing their cover of the Van Morrison song Jackie Wilson Said, a tribute to the titular soul singer, although the backdrop featured not Jackie Wilson but a grinning mugshot of Jocky Wilson, who at that time was a household name.
Although scoring the backdrop for Shakespeare was often seen as incidental to the acting, Susa said he was inspired to create music that serves as "part of the unconscious world of the play".
Although composed against the backdrop of Nazi ascendancy (roughly from 1934 to 1942), which forced the Jewish Zweig into exile, the author's real elegy is for the Austria-Hungary of 1914, before the Great War wrecked its civilisation and Europe's alongside it (Zweig, a pacifist, spent the war in Switzerland).
And although summertime swelter was the backdrop for 50 days of fighting in July and August, tens of thousands of people were inadequately sheltered this winter against the biting cold, driving rain and scouring sandstorms.
"Although the macroeconomic backdrop still remains uncertain, particularly in Europe," the bank said, "we believe that the price risks are now shifting more to the upside".
And when Mr. Pisoni describes the dissolution of his parents' marriage, the show begins to cover well-worn broken-family territory, although the sawdust backdrop provides a novel twist even for the familiar stories of familial regret, estrangement and decline.
His speech, delivered with his customary brio, visited every sore spot represented in the hall, although it was set against "the backdrop of the gravest possible international situation".
Unlike the battle against the Taliban, this uprising receives little international attention, although it is set against the backdrop of competing superpower interests, reminiscent of the Great Game when Russia and the British empire fought for control over this region.
Although it is set against the backdrop of arid hillsides and surrounded by the city's medieval stone wall, it is like a small oasis with a lake and gardens.
"Erm... W Shakespeare. F Dostoevsky... " Although his first years were played out against the backdrop of the US's great depression, Doctorow recalls his childhood as "a good time.
