Adriatic Cruise

12 June 2025

I think our cruise around the Adriatic on the Cunard ship Queen Victoria was one of our best holidays. We visited ten different places and really enjoyed them all. Before joining the ship we had a couple of nights in Rome, visiting the the Colosseum and the Forum, and walking from Campo de'Fiori to the Spanish Steps by way of the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain and much more. Our first port of call on the cruise was Argostoli on Cephalonia in Greece where we saw ceratta ceratta sea turtles swimming in the lagoon, followed by a visit to Corfu. Next stop was Kotor in Montenegro, known as the southernmost fjord in Europe (though it is actually a ria - a submerged river canyon) which did look like Norway juxtaposed with a pretty medieval walled town very similar to Dubrovnik in Croatia, which was our next stop. We had previously visited Dubrovnik several times during our lovely holiday in Slano, Croatia, in 2017, so this time we headed straight to the Old Town Port to catch the ferry to Lokrum Island- a beautiful forested nature reserve, surrounded by deep blue sea. Trieste, Italy, is a pretty city which boasts the largest sea-facing square in Europe (Piazza Unità d'Italia). Zadar in Croatia is situated on a peninsula, with water on three sides, and reminded us of Cadiz and Valletta. Split in Croatia has a unique old town - a domino divided into two squares: the ruins of the the Roman retirement palace for the Emperor Diocletian (who was originally from Dalmatia) which is built on a strict grid system; and the later medieval old town which is a maze of irregular diagonal passageways. When we stopped in Valletta, Malta, (where we had been on our previous cruise in March) we took the opportunity to visit Mdina - a beautifully preserved medieval walled hill town that reminded us of the hill towns in Tuscany we visited last year. Our last port was Sorrento, Italy, built on the side of a steep gorge, high above the sea, from where we looked down on our cruise ship, and over to Mount Vesuvius. It was a lovely cruise with fascinating destinations and perfect weather.

'The Bean Trees' by Barbara Kingsolver

11 June 2025

Having enjoyed 'Demon Copperhead' (reviewed here in March 2024), I have now read Barbara Kingsolver's 1988 novel 'The Bean Trees'. While 'Demon Copperhead' is clearly a retelling of 'David Copperfield', this much earlier novel demonstrates Barbara Kingsolver has always written Dickensian stories - with an extended cast of quirky, loveable characters. Her focus is on the realities of working class America - people struggling to find somewhere to live and something to eat whilst still managing to show kindness to strangers. The background story of an underground railway supporting asylum seekers from Guatemala feels sadly contemporary. Barbara Kingsolver writes brilliantly in the voices and dialects of ordinary people, and every page seems to contain poetic, quotable phrases. 

'Commonwealth' by Ann Patchett

11 June 2025

I am continuing to work my way through the novels of Ann Patchett and really enjoyed her 2016 book 'Commonwealth'. Like 'Run' (reviewed here in June 2024), 'Tom Lake' (reviewed here in October 2024) and 'The Dutch House' (reviewed here in January 2025), 'Commonwealth' is a cleverly constructed family saga, which jumps forward and backwards in time to build the story of a blended family of six siblings and step-siblings who spend their childhood summers together in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It's a beautifully written examination of the complexities of what happens within families, and whose stories they are to tell. From the first page you feel you are in safe hands with Ann Patchett. 

'The Uninvited Guests' by Sadie Jones

11 June 2025

'The Uninvited Guests' is an enthralling and entertaining novel by Sadie Jones. Set in a formerly grand country house in 1912, it starts as a gently quirky comedy of manners as the family and their servants prepare the house for a birthday party. But the book quickly becomes more complicated and interesting with the arrival of unexpected guests. The story switches between puzzling, comic, sinister, surreal and farcical. It reminded me of elements of Edward Albee's 'A Delicate Balance', Arnold Ridley's 'The Ghost Train' and J B Priestly's 'An Inspector Calls', with a hint of P G Wodehouse. A gripping and enjoyable read. 

'Mr Wilder and Me' by Jonathan Coe

22 May 2025

Having enjoyed Jonathan Coe’s latest novel 'The Proof of My Innocence' (reviewed here in December 2024) I realised there was a gap in my Jonathan Coe collection. I had somehow missed his 2020 book ‘Mr Wilder and Me’, which I have now read as an unabridged audio book (narrated by Kristin Atherton). In a break from Coe’s novels set against the backdrop of recent British politics, this gentle elegiac story recounts a teenager in 1976 meeting the legendary veteran film director Billy Wilder. As he approaches the end of his career Wilder - famous for his classic comedies - is trying to make a more serious, personal movie that is not really working. Coe takes the opportunity not just to indulge his own cinephile enthusiasms but also to reflect on the experience of those who lived through the horrors of the Second World War and the difficult relationship Jewish filmmakers who left Europe for Hollywood then had with their home continent. But it is tempting to see Coe himself in this novel - famous for his satirical comedies and now trying to write a more serious, personal book which doesn’t entirely work. Nevertheless I love Jonathan Coe’s distinctive voice and carefully constructed narrative and it was good to fill this omission in my knowledge of his works.

'The Brightening Air' by Conor McPherson

14 May 2025

On Saturday we were at the Old Vic theatre in London to see ‘The Brightening Air’ - a new play written and directed by Conor McPherson, author of ‘The Weir’. Set in a remote farmhouse in County Sligo in 1981, ‘The Brightening Air’ is a dark comic tale of family relationships, focussing on three grown-up siblings and the inheritance of their family home. The influence of Chekov is plain from the start and the Irish setting reminded me of the production of 'Vanya', adapted by Simon Stephens starring Andrew Scott, that we saw last year (reviewed here in February 2024). ‘The Brightening Air’ - which takes its title from a poem by W.B. Yeats - also clearly belongs in the tradition of Irish drama from J.M. Synge to Martin McDonagh (with some particular similarities to Synge’s ‘The Well of The Saints’). The Old Vic production has a great cast, including Chris O’Dowd and Brian Gleeson as the warring brothers and Rosie Sheehy (who we last saw as Puck in the RSC production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, reviewed here in March 2024) stealing the show as their autistic sister Billie. There are some wonderful comic lines and brilliant set-piece scenes. It was very enjoyable and I might have been missing something about the allusions to Irish folklore and magic but I wasn’t sure it all added up to a completely coherent plot. 

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

7 May 2025

Last Saturday's Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert featured Prokofiev's 'Symphony No 7', which I first played in 1988 as a member of the Manchester Youth Orchestra. Despite having not played the symphony in the intervening years I was amazed, when we started rehearsing it in March 2025, how well I remembered it. There was a rigour to the youth orchestra approach that means I can still remember subdividing the beats to determine the precise lengths of particular notes. Prokofiev's final symphony feels like a companion piece to his first. 'Symphony No 1 (The Classical Symphony)' was completed in 1917 in the style of Haydn and Mozart, and 'Symphony No. 7' (completed in 1952, having been commissioned by the Children’s Division of State Radio and described as a ‘Children’s Symphony’) has a similar clean simplicity. Prokofiev writes beautiful, catchy tunes and the seventh symphony has plenty, with its obvious joyfulness and passion sitting alongside darker poignant moments. He is also a clever orchestrator and, while our NSO performance included many brilliant solos from across the orchestra, this is a symphony in which the stars are the tuba (Nick Tollervey), the piano (Georgina Neil) and the harp (Chris Clarke), all of whom were outstanding. 

Shortly after I joined the NSO in 2000, at one Wednesday rehearsal I was amazed to walk into the room to see Rachel Chapman, who I had played with in the Manchester Youth Orchestra. I didn't know that she had recently moved to Milton Keynes and she didn't realise I was living in Bedfordshire. We were delighted to be reunited and have played together in NSO for nearly 25 years. Saturday was Rachel's final NSO concert as she is moving to the Lake District, and it was lovely to finish our years of playing together with a piece we had both played in the youth orchestra so many years ago. At the end of the symphony, when conductor John Gibbons, asked the trumpets to take a bow, Terry and Stephen deliberately remained seated to allow Rachel to take the applause alone. She has been a really important long serving member of the brass section and was a brilliant Chair of the orchestra. She will be much missed but we hope to see her again as an occasional guest player.

We started Saturday's concert with the'Overture' by the female Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. Written in 1943 in German‑occupied Warsaw this is an understandably serious piece of music, with an insistent rhythmic underpinning that suggests a determined resistance, and hints of a brighter future on the horizon. It was a timely reminder of the dark days of the war, in the week when we are marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day.

The first half of our concert also featured Dvorak's 'Violin Concerto' which I didn't know before we started rehearsing it. Dvorak's 'Cello Concerto' (which we last played with NSO in November 2018) is a gorgeous piece, incredibly popular and often performed, and I was looking forward to something similar. Initially I was quite disappointed: the Violin Concerto just doesn't sound like Dvorak as we know him from his symphonies or the Cello Concerto. But when I began to see the similarities between this concerto and Beethoven or Brahms - and started to think of Dvorak building on these composers as Prokofiev did on Haydn and Mozart - the concerto really grew on me. It also helped to have an amazing soloist to show us the excitement in the piece. Sharon Zhou gave a thrilling performance which always sounded like she was playing with a smile.

At a time of so much angst, horror and uncertainty in the world, John Gibbons was determined we should end our concert on an upbeat note. 'Overture: Brighton Beach' by the contemporary British composer Paul Lewis is a ridiculously jolly seaside postcard that evokes the south coast resort in all its guises. In the middle section the wind, brass and percussion form a military band playing ‘Sussex by the Sea' on the pier. This leaves the string players unusually under occupied and it was lovely to see many of them enjoying their day on the beach with knotted hankies on heads, reading newspapers and wearing water wings. It was lots of fun and the piece was clearly a big hit with our audience in Christchurch, Northampton.

'Back to the Future: The Musical' by Bob Gale, Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard

1 May 2025

I was 17 years old when ‘Back to the Future’ came out in 1985 and it has always been one of my favourite films. Robert Zemeckis’ comic time-travel caper, starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, may not be the most sophisticated piece of fim-making but the ridiculous plot is neatly crafted and the period detail and music make it great fun. On Saturday we were at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End to see ‘Back To The Future: The Musical’. The stage version of the movie features a book by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, adapted from their original screenplay, and new music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard alongside elements of Silvestri’s film score and other songs used in the film. It’s a lovely recreation of the film, complete with the DeLorean car. Caden Brauch and Cory English are great as Marty McFly and Doc Brown, but Orlando Gibbs nearly steals the show as George McFly - a brilliant physical performance, recreating George’s shy gawkiness from the film but with more dancing. The romantic denouement at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance was genuinely moving, feeling almost Shakespearean. And the special effects at the show’s climax with the DeLorean racing towards 88 mph were stunning - a thrilling theatrical moment. I know a large proportion of my appreciation of the show was down to nostalgia but I loved it.

'Sister Midnight' by Karan Kandhari

23 April 2025

On Saturday we were at the Curzon cinema at Milton Keynes Gallery to see ‘Sister Midnight’ - the debut feature film by British-Indian film-maker Karan Kandhari. This Hindi-language film, set in India, is beautiful, intriguing, funny, gruesome, confusing and incredibly weird! I think I enjoyed it, but it’s hard to be sure: I certainly haven’t stopped thinking about it. The film shows the early stages of married life in Mumbai following an arranged marriage between a couple from a village, who had only briefly met as children. (As they struggle to get on as husband and wife, Uma complains “You used to be so sensitive!” to which Gopal replies “I was eight!”) Kandhari presents a series of short, mostly wordless, beautifully constructed tableau scenes that demonstrate Uma’s hopeless, helpless days left alone in their one-room shack on a busy road while Gopal is at work. Bollywood star Radhika Apte is brilliant as Uma, conveying a rich palate of emotions largely through her eyes. There isn’t much of a narrative arc, but part-way through the film takes an odd turn towards black-comic horror. It’s hard to know what is supposed to be real and what might be Uma’s hallucinations, and it’s hard to see where the film is going. But Radhika Apte is a captivating actor and ‘Sister Midnight’ is an oddly enjoyable but very strange experience.

'Celestial Navigation' by Anne Tyler

17 April 2025

I am continuing to explore the early works of Anne Tyler, one of the great contemporary American novelists. Having read her 1980 novel ‘Morgan’s Passing’ (reviewed here in February 2022) I have now discovered ‘Celestial Navigation’ - Anne Tyler’s 5th novel, originally published in 1974. ‘Celestial Navigation’ has a quintessential Anne Tyler setting, focussing on domestic family life in Baltimore, but like ‘Morgan’s Passing’ it feels more experimental than her later, more famous, novels. It has a likeable eccentric main character, an interesting narrative structure and spans many years. Each chapter feels like a jump-cut as we leap forward in time and switch to the perspective of a different character, leaving the reader to fill in the jigsaw puzzle of what has happened since the previous chapter. Anne Tyler creates a cast of quirky oddballs living together in a house of lodgers, all of whom are amusing, exasperating and deeply sympathetic. It’s a light comic novel with real pathos and jeopardy - ultimately quite a sad story, but beautifully written and very engaging.

'A Tidy Ending' by Joanna Cannon

11 April 2025

The novelist Joanna Cannon seems to have a particular interest in the naive narrator. In ‘The Trouble with Goats and Sheep’ (reviewed here in January 2022) many of the novel’s chapters are narrated in the first person by 10-year-old Grace, and in 'Three Things About Elsie' (reviewed here in November 2023) the first person narrator is Florence, a woman in her 80s with failing memory, living in a retirement home. Joanna Cannon’s 2022 novel ‘A Tidy Ending’ similarly keeps the reader guessing about how much its protagonist really understands what is going on around her. It’s no mean feat to write a twisty thriller about a serial killer in the same gently quirky ‘cosy crime’ style as her previous novels without making it distasteful. ‘A Tidy Ending’ is intriguing, puzzling, creepy and cleverly plotted. 

Cruise from Malta

10 April 2025

We had a very enjoyable Mediterranean cruise last week on the P&O ship Azura, visiting Valletta in Malta, Athens in Greece and Heraklion and Chania in Crete. We particularly enjoyed our first visit to Valletta - a beautiful old town set on a plateau on a narrow peninsula with water on three sides. It's very pretty with some very grand buildings, all in a distinctive sand coloured stone, built in a grid system. In Athens we visited the Temple of Olympian Zeus next to Hadrian's Gate. This temple was larger than the Parthenon but only 15 of its 100 columns are still standing. There are good views from the site across to the Acropolis. We also visited the National Archaeological Museum which has an extensive collection of artifacts from ancient Greece, many dating from 3,000 years BC. From Heraklion we went to the Palace of Knossos - a fascinating archaeological site with some of the buildings reconstructed (in cement) by Sir Arthur Evans when he excavated the site in 1900. These reconstructions are gradually being replaced but they do give an idea of the scale of some of the buildings. Chania is a pretty town with a picturesque harbour but we didn't see it at its best, having arrived during a torrential thunderstorm. We had a lovely, relaxing cruise with good food, company and dancing.

Milton Keynes Sinfonia concert

26 March 2025

In March 2020 I stepped in at the last moment to deputise for one of the horn players in Milton Keynes Sinfonia who was ill, giving me the unexpected pleasure of playing Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No 5’ at the Chrysalis Theatre in Milton Keynes in one of the last live concerts before we entered lockdown. Last Saturday I was in a similar position, as a late replacement for an ill horn player, returning to the Chrysalis Theatre to play Beethoven's ‘Symphony No. 6’ (The Pastoral) with Milton Keynes Sinfonia. I've known the clarinetist Christine Kelk for many years, and I was aware that she had been chair of the Milton Keynes Sinfonia for a long time, but I was amazed to discover that she's now celebrating 50 years with the orchestra. Saturday's concert was a tribute with a programme, chosen entirely by Christine, which featured two of her favourite pieces of all time. Alongside the Beethoven Pastoral Symphony, the concert included Mozart's ‘Clarinet Concerto’ with the brilliant young clarinet player Poppy Beddow. We started with Rossini's famous overture ‘The Thieving Magpie’, but it was the Beethoven I enjoyed the most, in a strong performance crafted by conductor David Knight, with great clarinet playing by Tim Mackley. It was clearly a very popular programme with the packed audience: a really enjoyable concert.

'Lives Less Ordinary: Working-Class Britain Re-seen' conceived and curated by Samantha Manton

20 March 2025

Two Temple Place is a beautifully eccentric neo Tudor/Gothic building on the Victoria Embankment in London. Commissioned by and built for William Waldorf Astor in the 1890s, Two Temple Place is now owned by The Bulldog Trust and hosts a year-round programme of community and cultural activity. Its wood panelled rooms and stained glass windows make it a slightly incongruous setting for the current exhibition 'Lives Less Ordinary: Working-Class Britain Re-seen'. This fascinating collection of works by artists from working-class backgrounds, conceived and curated by Samantha Manton, explores the overlooked richness and diversity of working-class life and creative expression from the 1950s to the present day. As I started to walk around the exhibition the tone of celebration of the joy, fun and passions of ordinary everyday life reminded me both of the Pitmen Painters of Ashington (celebrated in Lee Hall’s play ‘The Pitmen Painters’, reviewed here in October 2009 and November 2019) and of Hetain Patel's ‘Come As You Really Are’ exhibition in Croydon (reviewed here in September 2024). So it was wonderful then to come across pieces by some of the Pitmen Painters and by Hetain Patel, later in the exhibition. It was good to see the very recognisable paintings of Beryl Cook, but it is the many images of ordinary, often unnamed, people that dominate Lives Less Ordinary. The majority of the exhibition consists of photographs - beautiful, stark depictions of everyday life from the 1950s, 80s and 90s. Most focus on the people and their interests and enthusiasms, rather than on the difficulties of their lives. And the other recurring theme that jumped out was the places depicted - including Middlesbrough, Stoke on Trent, Liverpool, Northumberland, Glasgow, Handsworth, Rochdale, Bolton etc. I was struck by a quote from the painter George Shaw, whose practice revolves around the Tile Hill Estate in the Midlands: “If you can't find yourself in your own backyard you're not going to find yourself in the Serengeti, are you? So for me, it was taking those cliches of epiphany and the sublime and putting them in a place where great thoughts aren't rumoured to happen.” It was also great to see a display about the Desi Pubs project developed by the Creative People and Places consortium Creative Black Country which I featured in my 2016 report ‘The role of voluntary arts activity and everyday participation in Creative People and Places’. The exhibition's aim is "recognising the extraordinary in the ordinary". It's on until 20 April and is free. More details here.
 

‘What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory’ by Brian Eno and Bette A.

14 March 2025

I had seen some of the publicity about ‘What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory’, the new book by Brian Eno and Bette Adriaanse, but it was when a friend at one of our partner organisations emailed me to say “it is essentially a manifesto for everyday creativity … I am buying a dozen copies and passing them around everyone involved!” that I thought I must get around to reading it. It is a short, beautifully produced book, with witty illustrations by Bette Adriaanse, and its message is both simple and incredibly thought provoking. Much of Eno and Adriaanse’s theory seems to focus on everyday creativity (though they don’t use that term). They suggest ‘art’ means “all kinds of things where somebody does more than is absolutely necessary for the sake of the feeling they get by doing it” and that “making art seems to be a universal human activity”. I also liked their comparisons with science: they say “Science makes models of things so we can understand how they work. Art makes models of things so we can understand how we work.” and “Just as we need science to tell us how the changing world is, we need art to help find out how we feel about it.” ‘What Art Does’ is a cleverly simple answer to a seemingly impossible question.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

4 March 2025

To prepare for each of our Northampton Symphony Orchestra concerts I usually practise at home by playing along with recordings. Often, while I am trying to get grips with a piece I haven't played before, I find that the available recordings are all too fast to keep up with. Even when I have learned my part it can be difficult to match the pace of a professional orchestra. But usually NSO conductor John Gibbons finds a speed that allows us to give a good account of the composer's intentions, without pushing the orchestra beyond its limits. In our concert at the Spinney Theatre in Northampton last Saturday, however, I think our piano soloist Anthony Hewitt actually played much of Ravel's 'Piano Concerto in G major' faster than any of the recordings I had been using. It was an incredibly exciting performance which the orchestra just about managed to keep up with. The concerto is an amazing piece, which NSO last played in 2008 with Lucy Parham (reviewed here in November 2008). It’s fiendishly difficult, with complex rhythms and bluesy melodies that sound very like Gershwin. The slow movement is a beautiful gentle waltz, which opens with almost three minutes of unaccompanied solo piano and then features a gorgeous extended cor anglais solo, exquisitely played in our performance by Harriet Brown.

All three works in Saturday's concert, while very different in style, were linked by elements of dance and syncopated rhythms. 'The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra' by John Adams is a companion piece to his 1986 opera 'Nixon in China'. Playing John Adams' minimalist style is a very particular challenge for an orchestra, requiring incredible concentration and counting not to lose your place in the repetitive patterns of notes. It came together really well in the performance which I think was the best the orchestra had played the piece.

We concluded the concert with Rachmaninoff's brilliant late orchestral work 'Symphonic Dances'. Everyone I have spoken to who knows the 'Symphonic Dances' seems to love the piece. I hadn't played it before but it has been really enjoyable getting to know it over the past eight weeks. Rachmaninoff incorporates echoes of the music of Stravinsky, Tchaikowsky and Copland as well as referencing many of his own other works. The lush romantic harmonies I associate with the Rachmaninoff symphonies and piano concertos are present, but here marshalled into a driving rhythmic framework. And his melodies are achingly beautiful, particularly the second movement's wistful Viennese waltz and the breathtaking alto saxophone solo in the first movement, beautifully played by Graham Tear. The finale, with its jigsaw puzzle of syncopated cross-rhythms built to a stunning climax which was a fitting end to a thrilling concert.

'Killing Thatcher' by Rory Carroll

28 February 2025

Robin: I’ve just finished reading ‘Killing Thatcher’, Rory Carroll’s fascinating account of the 1984 Brighton bombing of the Conservative Party Conference. This meticulously researched book examines the paths that led to Brighton for both the IRA bomber Patrick Magee and the Prime Minister. He works hard to explain the motivations both for the bombing and for Margaret Thatcher’s approach to Northern Ireland - including a brilliant six-page summary of the origins of The Troubles. The chapter recounting in detail the early hours of 12 October 1984 at the Grand Hotel in Brighton is horrific and gripping. And the tale of the subsequent manhunt is like a thrilling police procedural novel. Rory Carroll also ponders the consequences of the sliding doors moment that came so close to killing a British Prime Minister and how this would have significantly changed history in Britain and Ireland and across the world.

Spiers & Boden

25 February 2025

When we saw the brilliant folk big band Bellowhead at the Riverside Theatre in Aylesbury last November (reviewed here in November 2024) I described it as "possibly the best gig I have ever been to". So it was great to get the chance this week to see Bellowhead founders Spiers & Boden again at The Stables in Wavendon. I last saw John Spiers (melodeon) and Jon Boden (fiddle) playing as a duo at The Stables in 2022 (reviewed here in July 2022) when they were promoting their 2021 album 'Fallow Ground'. This week's performance felt very much a reprise of that tour, still mainly featuring the songs and tunes from 'Fallow Ground'. But you can't really complain about traditional folk musicians not doing new material and it was another brilliant concert. Spiers & Boden are great ambassadors for English folk music, entertainingly explaining what an orphan Morris-dance tune is, why the same tune gains completely different titles as it is passed on from one community to another, and why a lengthy narrative ballad from the 13th century survives with only a fraction of its original verses. They are also outstanding musicians and it is always a pleasure to see them live.

'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare

25 February 2025

I still have fond memories of the period when Rupert Goold was the Artistic Director of the Royal and Derngate theatres in Northampton (now more than 20 years ago). His productions were always inventive and ambitious and it has been fascinating to watch his career since, including a spectacularly over the top staging of 'The Merchant of Venice' in the newly refurbished Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2011 (reviewed here in June 2011). Now, as he prepares to take over as Artistic Director of the Old Vic in London next year, Rupert Goold has returned to Stratford to direct a stunning new RSC production of 'Hamlet' which we saw last Saturday. He has chosen to set the play entirely on a ship, creating an even more claustrophobic feel to Elsinore with the cast trapped together by the ocean. Es Devlin's magnificent set turns the Royal Shakespeare Theatre stage into the deck of a ship, with the bow pointing directly out into the stalls, surrounded by large tanks of water, and Akhila Krishnan's video design showing the ship's wake at the rear of the set. Luke Thallon is a brilliant, restless, twitchy Hamlet, giving the famous speeches a realistic feel as he appears to be thinking out loud. He is supported by a strong cast including Jared Harris as Claudius, Nancy Carroll as Gertrude, Elliot Levey as Polonius and Anton Lesser as the Ghost and the Player King. But they all risk being upstaged by the set. As the drama becomes more intense the ship starts to move, with the whole vast stage tilting. The final scene, with the swordfight between Hamlet and Laertes taking place as the steeply angled deck starts to plunge into the waves, is genuinely thrilling - an amazing theatrical experience. 

'A Real Pain' by Jesse Eisenberg

18 February 2025

On Friday we were at the Curzon cinema at Milton Keynes Gallery to see ‘A Real Pain’. Written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, ‘A Real Pain’ follows two Jewish cousins from New York (played by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) on a trip to Poland to visit places associated with their late grandmother. It’s a beautiful, subtle, moving film: the cousins’ odd-couple relationship is funny but the humour is gentle. The film explores the believable complexities of grief and pain - and the impossibility of judging hierarchies of pain. The visit to a former concentration camp is incredibly powerful, more so for its use of silence. ‘A Real Pain’ is a thoughtful film that doesn’t outstay its welcome and wonderfully resists the temptation to try to solve the challenges it presents. 

'Table for Two' by Amor Towles

14 February 2025

When we watched the 2024 Hay Festival interview with the American author Amor Towles a few weeks ago (reviewed here in February 2025) he gave a fascinating analysis of the craft of writing short stories and the different approach this requires compared to writing a novel. Amor Towles is the author of two of my favourite novels of recent years - 'A Gentleman in Moscow' (reviewed here in September 2021) and 'The Lincoln Highway' (reviewed here in February 2022) but I realised I hadn’t got around to reading his 2024 collection of short stories ‘Table for Two’. So I immediately embarked on ‘Table for Two’ (as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Edoardo Ballerini and J. Smith Cameron). It’s a series of very entertaining short stories, mostly set in New York in the late 1990s, followed by a longer novella. The stories have the feel of old-fashioned fables and Towles writes with wit, precision and gentility. Having not read a collection of short stories for many years I found it interesting that, not only do they demand a different technique from the writer, short stories also require a different approach from the reader. In these carefully crafted miniature narratives every word counts and you need to pay close attention from the start. Each story closes with a revealing twist or a satisfying denouement but it’s sometimes hard to anticipate the length and scope of the tale and I found myself concentrating to avoid being taken by surprise by a sudden ending. The stories in ‘Table for Two’ are not connected but it was very enjoyable to rediscover a character from Amor Towles’ first novel ‘Rules of Civility’ whose story picks up directly from her departure from the novel.

Hay Anytime

7 February 2025

We have been regular attenders of the Edinburgh International Book Festival since 1995, usually taking in a few sessions each August while we are in Edinburgh for the Fringe. But we tend to find that the majority of the authors featured in the festival programme are unfamiliar to us. Although we've never been to the Hay Festival, we are enthusiastic users of its extensive online archive which is so big it seems to include all our favourite writers. We first discovered the Hay Player during lockdown when we watched the recording of Natalie Haynes' bravura summary of the whole of the Trojan War in just over an hour, 'Troy Story' (reviewed here in July 2020). Hay Anytime contains thousands of audio and film recordings from the past 20 years of the Hay Festival and costs £20 for an annual subscription. We've recently watched talks and interviews from the past couple of Hay Festivals about some of our favourite recent books - including Jasper Fforde talking about 'Red Side Story' (reviewed here in April 2024), Mick Herron reflecting on his 'Slough House' series of comic spy novels (reviewed here between November 2023 and June 2024) and William Dalrymple discussing 'The Anarchy' (reviewed here in June 2023). And in his May 2024 Hay Festival interview, the American author Amor Towles (author of 'A Gentleman in Moscow', reviewed here in September 2021 and 'The Lincoln Highway', reviewed here in February 2022) gives one of the clearest, most interesting explanations of the process of writing fiction that I've heard. There are so many gems in the Hay Anytime archive you are sure to find something for you. Highly recommended.

Battersea Power Station

31 January 2025

On Saturday we made a first visit to the recently restored Battersea Power Station in London. This iconic Art Deco building designed by J. Theo Halliday and Giles Gilbert Scott has been beautifully refurbished to create a complex of shops, restaurants and a cinema on the banks of the Thames. Compared to the Bankside Power Station that became the Tate Modern Gallery with its huge turbine hall, Battersea is on a different scale with its dual turbine halls and immense chimneys. It feels like a secular version of a Norman Cathedral - but bigger! We were there to see The Light Festival 2025 - a free interactive art trail of eight light installations by artists inside the Power Station and in the area outside it. We also took the journey up Lift 109, a large circular elevator that rises through one of the Power Station's giant chimneys to emerge above the top of the chimney (like 'Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator') with 360 degree views across the Thames and most of London. It was a bright sunny day and the views from 109 metres above the river were spectacular. But it's the building itself that's the star, a redbrick Art Deco behemoth dwarfing everything around it. Well worth a visit.

'Starlings' by Dekel

23 January 2025

I'm really enjoying 'Starlings' - a lovely album from the singer songwriter Dekel which spans a variety of styles including folk, swing and klezmer. The songs are light, gentle and uplifting, accompanied by acoustic instruments including guitar, accordion, 'cello and clarinet. It's a thoughtful, joyful collection which reminded me (because of its Eastern European/Balkan influences) of the albums by Beirut (reviewed here in November 2006 and October 2007) and the Warsaw Village Band (reviewed here in September 2008). You can listen to Starlings here.

'Here One Moment' by Liane Moriarty

16 January 2025

Over the last couple of years I have enjoyed discovering the novels of the Australian author, Liane Moriarty, including 'Apples May Fall' (reviewed here in September 2022), 'The Husband's Secret' (reviewed here in September 2023) and 'The Hypnotist's Love Story'. Her latest novel, 'Here One Moment', published in August of last year, is an easy and enjoyable read with interesting structure and a surprisingly life-affirming perspective on mortality. 'Here One Moment' brings together a diverse group of characters on a flight from Tasmania to Sydney. When a woman on the flight announces when and how each of the other passengers is going to die this shocking news is the catalyst for a series of short stories, each focusing on the individual reactions of the characters to their impending deaths. This feels like the start of a supernatural ghost story, but Liane Moriarty cleverly shifts the focus to the human experience, offering a charming and surprisingly optimistic take on a serious subject.

'Dr Strangelove' adapted by Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley

15 January 2025

Stanley Kubrick's classic bleak cold war satire 'Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' came out in 1963, eighteen months after the Cuban Missile Crisis. It painted a chillingly believable scenario in which the carefully poised balance of the nuclear deterrent could be tipped into mutually assured destruction by the actions of one unhinged individual. On Saturday we were at the Noel Coward Theatre in London's West End to see the new stage adaptation of 'Dr Strangelove' by Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley. The film is famous for Peter Sellers' portrayal of multiple characters and the stage version features Steve Coogan playing four parts (the three played by Sellers but also Major Kong - memorably played by Slim Pickens in the film). It was fun to see the film recreated on stage and there were some great comic performances from the (almost  entirely male) cast, but as a two hour play it really needed a bit more plot. Steve Coogan is very funny in all four roles and it was great to see him on stage but apart from the enjoyable game of watching how he is going to manage to switch from one character to another in the same scene the show felt a bit slight. I did however enjoy the recreation of the famous scenes from the film through Hildegard Bechtler's magnificent set, particularly the US President's War Room with its 'big board'.

'The Dutch House' by Ann Patchett

8 January 2025

It's a very enjoyable feeling settling into a novel by Ann Patchett: you're never quite sure where she is going to take you,, but you know from the start that you're in safe hands. Having enjoyed four of her books over the past couple of years (including, most recently 'Tom Lake', reviewed here in October 2024) I have just finished reading her 2019 novel 'The Dutch House'. This is a clever family saga about a childhood in a beautiful but intimidating house, interrupted by the arrival of a new stepmother. It's beautifully written and carefully constructed through a first person narration that flits backwards and forwards in time to gradually fill in the family story.

'Twelfth Night' by William Shakespeare

6 January 2025

On Friday we were at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see 'Twelfth Night'. It was a very enjoyable show, directed by Prasanna Puwanaraja, featuring Samuel West as Malvolio. The set, by James Cotterill, included a huge pipe organ, the pipes standing in for the box tree. Gwyneth Keyworth was a determined and purposeful Viola, Freema Agyeman a strong Olivia and Demetri Goritsas as an American accented Sir Andrew Aguecheek demonstrated comically balletic movement worthy of the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. Michael Grady-Hall's Feste was a clown with the voice of an angel and his Wind and the Rain concluded the play with a delicate poignancy.

'Oedipus' by Robert Icke (after Sophocles)

6 January 2025

Last Monday we were at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West end to see the excellent new version of 'Oedipus' written and directed by Robert Icke (after Sophocles). Mark Strong and Lesley Manville were outstanding as Oedipus and Jocasta and the modern setting - the family awaiting the result of an election that would put Oedipus in power - worked very effectively. His promise to quell rumours that he hadn't been born in the country by publishing his birth certificate (echoing the Obama birther controversy) was a clever way to make this the moment that his mother had to tell him the truth about his origins.

'Death and the Penguin' by Andrey Kurkov

6 January 2025

I remember reading about the Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov's satirical black comic novel 'Death and the Penguin' many years ago but I've only just got around to reading it. Originally published in 1996 (with the English translation appearing in 2001) it's a quirky, bleak, political satire of life in post Soviet Ukraine. The protagonist, writer Viktor Zolotaryov, feels a bit like Winston Smith in '1984', living a bland existence, not entirely sure what is going on and in constant fear of the authorities. Invited to write obituaries for a newspaper, he becomes naively embroiled in a ring of corruption and murder. But, while stuck in a strange limbo, he randomly collects an array of friends, including some genuinely charming relationships which reminded me of Amor Towles' 'A Gentleman in Moscow' (reviewed here in September 2021). 'Death and the Penguin' is an odd tale, funnier for carefully rooting its oddest aspects in a meticulously accurate reality.