‘Apples Never Fall’ by Liane Moriarty
30 September 2022
I’m new to the Australian novelist Liane Moriarty (the author of ‘Big Little Lies’ and ‘Nine Perfect Strangers’, both now adapted for TV) and have really enjoyed reading her 2021 novel ‘Apples Never Fall’. This is a family story, very much in the same territory as the novels of Anne Tyler, where the subtle interactions between siblings and parents tell so much while saying so little. But ‘Apples Never Fall’ also cleverly weaves in a genuinely gripping mystery plot which Liane Moriarty resolves very satisfyingly, with painstaking attention to detail: every little incident comes to have some significance as the truth is revealed. The relationships between the four tennis-playing Delaney children and their professional tennis coach parents reminded me a little of Jesse Armstrong’s brilliant black comedy-drama TV series ‘Succession’. This is a dysfunctional family full of regret and recrimination but whose members still love each other deeply. I’m looking forward to reading more Liane Moriarty novels soon.
Labels: Books
‘Venomous Lumpsucker’ by Ned Beauman
30 September 2022
Regular readers may remember that I'm a big fan of the young British novelist Ned Beauman. I loved his last book ‘Madness is Better Than Defeat’ (reviewed here in October 2017) which was clever, surprising, baffling, hilarious, and completely bonkers. Ned Beauman’s new novel ‘Venomous Lumpsucker’ (which I’ve just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by John Hastings) is set in the near future and takes on themes of climate change and species extinction. I had forgotten how much I love the absurd, almost poetic nature of the names he invents for characters and, in this book particularly, the Latin names of obscure species, the constant repetition of which (especially when you are listening to the audio book) have a hypnotic quality. In ‘Venomous Lumpsucker’ Beauman takes us to future versions of several Northern European countries which are recognisable but quirkily different from present day. This slightly adjusted parallel world reminded me of the bizarre alternative-reality visions of the UK in the novels of Jasper Fforde (see for example 'Early Riser', reviewed here in October 2018). But Ned Beauman, while often very funny, is more interested in ideas than gags. And his ideas are fascinating as he explores where climate change and current policies might logically take the world. ‘Venomous Lumpsucker’ is a picaresque journey around the Baltic and the cast of eccentric characters that our two protagonists meet along the way made me think of Douglas Adams’ ‘The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy’. But I didn’t enjoy this book as much as Ned Beauman’s previous novels. ‘Venomous Lumpsucker’ has too many lengthy interludes to explain its ideas, at the expense of plot, and lacked the comic set-pieces of his earlier books. If you haven't experienced Ned Beauman yet I would still suggest you start with 'The Teleportation Accident' (reviewed here in July 2013).
Labels: Books
'Watch Her Fall' by Erin Kelly
23 September 2022
I hadn’t heard of the thriller writer Erin Kelly before we saw her at the Ampthill Literary Festival earlier this year (reviewed here in April 2022) talking about the process of writing her latest book ‘Watch Her Fall’ during lockdown. I read ‘Watch Her Fall’ on holiday last week and I would strongly recommend it. It’s a psychological thriller about a dancer, which uses ‘Swan Lake’ as its inspiration and structure. The book is very cleverly plotted: it is really hard to see where it is going and Erin Kelly very effectively pulls the rug out from under you on several occasions with some stunning twists. A good twist needs to be both unexpected and believable and it is a sign of the writer’s skill that I now want to read the whole book again to spot the little clues I should have seen the first time around.
Labels: Books
Norway
23 September 2022
We enjoyed our holiday in the Norwegian fjords on the P&O cruise ship Iona last week but we were fairly unlucky with the weather, with lots of heavy rain coinciding with our time ashore. It was still good to revisit Stavanger, Olden, Alesund and Bergen but my photos are less spectacular than those from our previous trips to Norway. Iona is the biggest cruise ship we have been on (5,200 passengers) and is in its first season. It’s a beautiful new ship and we really enjoyed the food and the entertainment: it just would have been nice to have a little sunshine!
Labels: Holidays
'Much Ado About Nothing' by William Shakespeare
9 September 2022
It was very strange to be taking our seats to watch a Shakespeare comedy just as we heard the news of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. We were at the Curzon Cinema at Milton Keynes Gallery to see the NT Live broadcast of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ from the National Theatre in London. National Theatre Artistic Director Rufus Norris appeared on screen, wearing a black tie, to announce that the show would go ahead, following a minute’s silence and the playing of the national anthem. It felt like a hand-brake turn to then launch into Simon Godwin’s screwball comedy production of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, set in an Art Deco hotel in 1930s Italy. Simon Godwin is one of my favourite theatre directors (see, for example, my review of his National Theatre production of George Bernard Shaw's 'Man and Superman' in May 2015). His ‘Much Ado’ started as very broad comedy, with Katherine Parkinson’s Beatrice and John Heffernan’s Benedick milking every line for laughs. But as the play turned darker the pathos was all the more affecting for its contrast with the earlier pantomime clowning and both the leads were very moving as well as funny. This ensemble performance also included impressive and very believable performances from Eben Figueiredo as Claudio, David Judge as Don John and Phoebe Horn as Margaret. And David Flynn’s blend of dimness, slapstick and a hint of being slightly more knowing than he first appeared made his Dogberry more genuinely funny than usual.
Labels: Drama, Film, Theatre
Edinburgh Festivals 2022
2 September 2022
It was great to be back at the Edinburgh Festivals last week, for the first time since 2018. It did feel a little less busy than our last pre-pandemic festival, and the streets were strewn with rubbish because of strike action affecting bin collection. Nevertheless, in most aspects it did seem like things were getting back towards normal. We managed to see 27 shows during our week in Edinburgh - almost all of a surprisingly high standard. We saw two brilliant orchestral concerts at the Usher Hall as part of the Edinburgh International Festival: the Czech Philharmonic, conducted by Semyon Bychkov, gave a stunning performance of Mahler’s ‘Symphony No 7’; and the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, were incredibly engaging and entertaining in Florence Price’s ‘Symphony No 1’. This symphony, premiered in 1932, was the first work by a Black woman composer to be performed by a major US orchestra and it’s a lovely piece which deserves to be more widely performed. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival we saw the actor Alan Cumming talking about his recent memoir ‘Baggage’. Our pick of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival included fringe veteran comedian Simmon Munnery - on particularly good form this year - and our belated discovery of the wonderfully funny and likeable musical duo Jonny & The Baptists (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdR8e08ng9M). We enjoyed two excellent quintessential fringe one-person biographical plays: Alison Skilbeck’s ‘Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London’ and Tayo Aluko’s ‘Call Mr. Robeson’. Seeing the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh production of ‘The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart’ by David Greig and Wils Wilson in the amazing setting of the University of Edinburgh Playfair Library felt like proper ‘event theatre’ and was great fun. Emily Bruni was brilliant in Matt Wilkinson’s one-woman play ‘Psychodrama’ at the Traverse Theatre. And we rounded off our week in Edinburgh with another outstanding solo performance - Samuel Barnett in ‘Feeling Afraid as If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen’, written by Marcelo Dos Santos and directed by Matthew Xia, at the Roundabout at Summerhall. As always Edinburgh in August felt like a cultural top-up which should keep us going for the next year.
Labels: Books, Comedy, Concerts, Drama, Festivals, Music, Theatre
