‘The Devil and the Dark Water’ by Stuart Turton

28 November 2025

Having really enjoyed Stuart Turton’s remarkable novel ‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ (reviewed here in April 2019) - a murder mystery in which the narrator appears to be reliving the day of the murder, each time inhabiting the body of a different person - I was keen to read more by Stuart Turton. I have now finished reading his 2020 novel ‘The Devil and the Dark Water’ - a brilliant historical epic set in 1634 on a Dutch East India Company sailing ship on a journey from Batavia back to Amsterdam. It’s a wonderfully entertaining mix of detective fiction, thriller, period drama and ghost story - a bit more conventional in narrative structure than ‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ but just as inventive and with a similarly well-drawn cast. It reminded me of Matthew Kneale’s marvellous comic historical novel ‘English Passengers’, 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’ by David Mitchell (reviewed here in August 2011) and ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’. ‘The Devil and the Dark Water’ is a long book that gripped me throughout and seemed to whizz by. More Stuart Turton please! 

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

18 November 2025

I have been a member of the Northampton Symphony Orchestra for 25 years but last Saturday’s concert was special for me as it was the first concert programme I was involved in choosing. I joined the orchestra’s programming committee in August 2024 to help to decide the repertoire for our 2025-26 season. As we approached the first concert of the season I was surprised how responsible I felt. In particular I had pushed for the inclusion of the ‘Sunrise Orchestral Suite’ by the Finnish composer Ida Moberg - which had been suggested by a member of the orchestra and I had really enjoyed listening to. Rehearsing the suite over the past 10 weeks I began to worry that it wasn’t quite as strong as I had thought, but it provided a beautiful opening to the concert and seemed to go down well with our audience at the Spinney Theatre in Northampton. 

Peter Donohoe, who joined us to play the Bliss Piano Concerto, has been one of the UK’s best known pianists since winning the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow in 1982. I played the Grieg Piano Concerto with him as a member of the Didsbury Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester in 1983. So it was fascinating to discover that his first performance of the Grieg Concerto was in the Spinney Theatre in 1977 - the year it opened. The last time Peter Donohoe played with NSO was in our 125th anniversary concert at the Derngate in June 2019 when he performed Tchaikovsky’s ‘Piano Concerto No 2’. I remember the final movement as a frenetic romp with Peter Donohoe racing the orchestra to a thrilling finish. Sir Arthur Bliss is now best remembered for his music for the 1936 science fiction film ‘Things to Come’. His Piano Concerto was premiered in 1939 in Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. It was dedicated “to the people of the United States of America” and shows significant American influence, including echoes of Gershwin and Korngold, as well as a touch of Stravinsky and some recognisable appearances of the march theme from ‘Things to Come’. It is a spectacular showpiece concerto with two muscular outer movements and a beautifully delicate slow movement. Peter Donohoe gave a stunning performance and our conductor John Gibbons did a brilliant job of holding this complex piece together. There were excellent duets with the piano from Corinne Malitskie (‘cello), Richard Smith (violin) and Keith Crompton (timpani). It was wonderful to hear, after the concert, that Andrew Burn, Chair of the Bliss Trust, was astonished by the quality of the orchestra. As an encore Peter Donohoe treated us to the ‘Intermezzo in A major op.118 no.2’ by Brahms - an achingly beautiful performance that moved many of us to tears. 

We completed the concert with Dvořák’s ‘Symphony No 8’, which I have always adored as it was one of the first symphonies I played on joining the Didsbury Symphony Orchestra in my teens. I can still remember our conductor telling us, definitively, that the third movement of the symphony is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Whether or not you agree, the confidence of his statement made a big impression on me as a teenager. It was lovely to rediscover this gorgeous symphony - a great way to show off the wonderful NSO ‘cello section (though the haunting opening unison theme in the first movement is played by the horns, 1st clarinet and 1st bassoon as well as the ‘cellos). And there were many perfect flute solos throughout the piece by Graham Tear who always seems to make the most intricate passages sound easy. It was a really enjoyable concert and felt like one we will fondly remember for a long time. 

The Postal Museum

14 November 2025

For the majority of the seven years I worked for Making Music our office was in Rosebery Avenue in London, just a few hundred yards from the massive Royal Mail Mount Pleasant Sorting Office. Despite walking past the building every day it was only last weekend, more than 20 years later, that I got around to visiting the Postal Museum. The museum houses a fascinating and entertaining exhibition which walks you through the history of the UK postal service - from 1516 when Henry VIII established a ‘Master of the Posts’ to the present day. I realised I have now reached an age when I spend too much of my time in museums exclaiming “I remember having one of those”! But the main attraction at the Postal Museum is the opportunity to ride in the tiny Mail Rail train under central London. London's Hidden Postal Railway runs for 6.5 miles from Paddington to Whitechapel. It opened in 1927 and only ceased being used in 2003. Now you can squeeze into new passenger carriages and travel around one loop of the railway line, passing through narrow tunnels and disused station platforms, accompanied by an audio-visual history of the service. It’s an eerie and intriguing experience - a mixture of ghost train, theme park ride and archeological dig. 

'The Captive' by Ned Beauman writing as Kit Burgoyne

6 November 2025

Ned Beauman is one of my favourite contemporary authors: I have enjoyed all his novels, with ‘The Teleportation Accident’ (reviewed here in July 2013) and ‘Madness is Better Than Defeat’ (reviewed here in October 2017) my particular favourites. I was intrigued to discover that Ned Beauman’s new novel ‘The Captive’ is written under the pseudonym Kit Burgoyne. Reviews have suggested that this signals a shift of genre into fantasy/horror but I found ‘The Captive’ (which I read as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Sam Stafford) remarkably similar in tone to Beauman’s earlier novels. It was wonderful to rediscover his very careful, precise, and incredibly funny writing. I’m not sure I would describe ‘The Captive’ as horror: though there is some rather graphic satanic violence, the book feels more like a thriller - its kidnap plot gripping from the opening scene. The gradual introduction of supernatural elements to an otherwise accurately described present-day London reminded me of the magical realism of David Mitchell’s brilliant novel 'The Bone Clocks' (reviewed here in October 2014). The plot to expose and topple a mysterious, evil family who seem to control all of Britain’s public services reminded me of ‘What a Carve Up’ by Jonathan Coe. But despite these multiple elements, I think ‘The Captive’ is actually Ned Beauman’s most straightforward novel - a scary pacy thriller with a linear narrative that doesn’t outstay its welcome and comes to a proper conclusion. 

'Mrs Warren's Profession' by George Bernard Shaw

29 October 2025

This year we’ve made two visits to Shaw's Corner - the house where George Bernard Shaw lived in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire - at Easter and on the weekend of the playwright's birthday in July when we saw an open-air production of his play 'Arms and the Man' (reviewed here in August 2025. This Monday we were at the Odeon in Milton Keynes to see a NT Live recording of Dominic Cooke’s new production of ‘Mrs Warren’s Profession’ at the National Theatre in London. Shaw wrote more than 60 plays and only a handful are still regularly performed but ‘Mrs Warren’s Profession’ has struggled for performances since it was written in 1893 - not receiving its first public performance in England until 1925. This is because of its subject matter which explores the links between sex and society. The new National Theatre production stars Imelda Staunton as Mrs Warren and her real-life daughter Bessie Carter as Mrs Warren’s daughter Vivie. It’s a fascinating play. Initially the relationships between the characters feel confusingly odd, with the suggestion of something going on beneath the surface of the dialogue reminding me of the style of much more recent plays by Sam Shepard, Caryl Churchill and Edward Albee. But as the reasons for their behaviour towards each other becomes clearer it turns into a compelling series of arguments about morality, exploitation, and women’s rights which genuinely manages to make strong cases for opposing points of view. Imelda Staunton was wonderful but this was Bessie Carter’s play and she was brilliant. Our only disappointment was that this play that struggled for performances for so long hadn’t reached a larger audience: we were the only two people in the Odeon to see it.

'Born With Teeth' by Liz Duffy Adams

24 October 2025

In 2016 the Guardian reported new evidence, based on computational analysis, that Christopher Marlowe collaborated with William Shakespeare on parts of the Henry VI trilogy of plays - a collaboration subsequently endorsed by the New Oxford Shakespeare imprint of Oxford University Press which now also credits Marlowe. Liz Duffy Adams’ new play ‘Born With Teeth’, which we saw at Wyndham’s Theatre in London on Saturday, imagines Shakespeare and Marlowe working together on the Henry VI plays. It’s an entertaining and intriguing two-hander which, in this Royal Shakespeare Company production, directed by Daniel Evans, provides a star vehicle for two very successful TV actors, Ncuti Gatwa (as Kit Marlowe) and Edward Bluemel (as Shakespeare). Both actors entirely justify their casting with impressive stage performances, showing (across three short acts) the shift in power in the relationship between the two playwrights. The script is clever, witty and often very funny - using contemporary English in a period setting to make the interactions between the two writers believable and relevant. But, even at just 90 minutes without an interval, the play feels too long for its material. It’s an interesting thought-experiment which might have made a really strong 60 minute fringe play but doesn’t have enough content to sustain itself but is worth seeing for the performances by Gatwa and Bluemel. And it helped with my ongoing game of Doctor Who bingo: Ncuti Gatwa is the fifth Doctor I have seen on stage (following Peter Davison, David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston and Jodie Whittaker, since you ask!). 

'Clown Town' by Mick Herron

24 October 2025

It was wonderful to return to the world of Jackson Lamb and the Slow Horses in Mick Herron’s new spy novel in the Slough House series, ‘Clown Town’, which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Sean Barrett. The previous book, ‘Bad Actors’ (reviewed here in June 2024) felt like the climax of the series, so I was intrigued to see where ‘Clown Town’ would take us. As usual the book starts with a confusing violent opening scene involving unfamiliar characters. This is followed by a perambulation around the offices of Slough House - MI5's dumping ground for disgraced operatives - to slowly reintroduce us to each member of the team. After several chapters of what seems like entertaining but trivial sub-plots you begin to wonder when the main story is going to start, only to realise that the collision between those sub-plots is going to be the main story. Mick Herron frequently plays with the reader - keeping us hanging on for ages towards the end of the book before finally revealing who died in the big set-piece confrontation. But he also manages to create a cast of hopeless, helpless losers who are surprisingly likeable and sympathetic. 

Bologna

17 October 2025

We had a wonderful holiday in Bologna - the culinary capital of Italy and the location of the oldest university in the Western world, founded in 1088. It is a beautiful and very distinctive city, with most of the buildings conforming to a colour palette of warm tones of yellow, red and orange, and miles and miles of porticoes (wide arched covered pedestrian walkways) - more than any other city in the world. If you are visiting Bologna I would recommend reading John Grisham's 2005 novel 'The Broker' while you are there. It's a gripping thriller and its descriptions of Bologna - and the experience of learning to speak Italian - were the perfect companion to our holiday. We were lucky to see a Bologna Festival concert by the MDI String Quartet in the magnificent Oratorio di San Filippo Neri - one of the grandest places I have ever seen a classical concert. We had day trips, by train, to Milan, Ravenna and Venice. Milan was nicer than we were expecting with some stunning buildings, particularly the Castello Sforzesco. The town of Ravenna was a little less picturesque than we had imagined but its famous Byzantine mosaics were amazing. And it was wonderful to return to Venice, 24 years after our previous visit, and to manage to find the little hotel where we had stayed all those years ago. You can see a selection of my holiday photos at: https://culturaloutlook.blogspot.com/search/label/Bologna2025