'Caller Unknown' by Gillian McAllister

28 October 2026

A new thriller by Gillian McAllister is always a treat. Having enjoyed 'Famous Last Words (reviewed here in January 2026), I was eager to get hold of her new novel 'Caller Unknown', and it didn't disappoint. She describes 'Caller Unknown' as her first 'suspense novel': I have found all of her books incredibly scary and suspenseful, but whereas the setup in her previous stories has always been a slow burn, this one launches you straight into the trauma from page 1. Gillian McAllister is at her best when contrasting everyday relatable family dynamics with a world of crime and violence. 'Caller Unknown' is perhaps the ultimate example of the battle between trying to do the right thing and protecting your loved-ones. It's a story that feels like you need to read it from behind the sofa, or peeking between your fingers, but simultaneously one that you cannot stop reading to find out what happens. It's also a good example of a thriller that only works as a book: without giving too much away, one vital twist depends on the assumptions you make about what you are reading and wouldn't work in the same way in a film or TV version.

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

27 October 2026

As I've mentioned here many times before, the composer Malcolm Arnold played trumpet in the Northampton Symphony Orchestra as a schoolboy in Northampton. So the orchestra has always had a close connection with Arnold. Over the last 21 years, since the founding of the annual Malcolm Arnold Festival, we have often performed as part of the festival. But it's been three years between our last NSO contribution to the Malcolm Arnold Festival (reviewed here in October 2023) and our concert last Saturday at St Matthew's Church in Northampton as part of the 2026 Festival. 

Our concert on Saturday featured a mix of pieces by Malcolm Arnold and Dmitri Shostakovich. The two composers first met in May 1957 during the Prague Spring Festival, where Arnold was attending as a guest of the Union of Czechoslovak Composers and representing the British Musicians' Union. They met a number of times over the years in their roles representing their respective national composer organisations, with their final meeting taking place in Prague in 1966. The Russian composer left a lasting impression on Malcolm Arnold, heavily influencing his later work. 

We opened the concert with the 'Philharmonic Concerto' by Malcolm Arnold - a powerful work from 1976 with aggressive outer movements sandwiching a delicate slow movement that featured impressive solos by Hilary Glanville (viola), Richard Smith (violin) and John Whittall (trombone). I also loved the thunderous end to the piece by Keith Crompton on timpani.

We then played the 'Symphony No 9' by Shostakovitch - a shorter, lighter piece than his other symphonies, reminiscent of the 'Classical Symphony' by Prokofiev. It requires less sheer power and volume from the orchestra than most Shostakovich symphonies but features fiendishly difficult rhythms, needing a lightness of touch and much concentration. Our performance went really well, with wonderful solos throughout the orchestra, including Graham Tear (flute), Sarah Mourant (oboe), Naomi Muller (clarinet: an amazing solo at the start of the second movement, becoming a lovely clarinet duet with Rob Reid), Georgina Neil (piccolo: including an impossibly long held note to finish the second movement) and Terry Mayo (trumpet). But the most incredible moment in the concert was the long unaccompanied bassoon solo spanning the end of the fourth and the start of the fifth movements, perfectly played by Sian Bunker. I was sitting directly behind Sian and realised halfway through her solo that I was actually holding my breath. I think all of us around her were frozen while we willed her on - nervous on Sian's behalf while she exuded a calm confidence and played beautifully.

The second half of the concert opened with the 'Rhapsody: The Sound Barrier' by Arnold, featuring his music from the 1952 David Lean film. We followed this with the 'Oboe Concerto' by Ruth Gipps - who was a contemporary of Malcolm Arnold at the Royal College of Music: a beautiful performance by Emmett Byrne. I enjoyed accompanying the concerto: it's a really nice piece that deserves to be better known. The final Malcolm Arnold piece in the programme was the rarely heard 'Little Suite No 3 (The Manx Suite)', written in 1990.

We finished the concert with Shostakovich's glorious 'Festive Overture' - a stunning end to a great concert, carefully directed by our excellent conductor John Gibbons. There was lovely playing throughout the orchestra but this concert really belonged to our brilliant woodwind section.

Rachel Broadbent

23 October 2026

On Friday afternoon we were at Ampthill Methodist Church to see the oboist Rachel Broadbent, accompanied by Krystal Tunnicliffe, as part of the Ampthill Recitals series. Rachel, who lives locally, is a busy freelance orchestral player, soloist, chamber musician, oboe teacher and chamber music coach who also composes music for the oboe. She gave a brilliant performance (to an audience including some of her pupils), despite struggling with a bad cold and the storm approaching outside. She played oboe sonatas by Loeillet and Saint-Seans, a Brahms song, 'To the Nightingale', arranged for Cor Anglais and piano, one of her own compositions for solo oboe, 'Maid of Mud', and an arrangement of Elgar's 'Salut d'amore' for oboe d'amore and piano. Rachel finished with the 'Cavatine' for oboe and piano by Coste and 'Danza Gaya' by Madeleine Dring. It was a lovely recital, showing off Rachel's beautiful tone.

'An Old Woman's Reflections' by Peig Sayers

22 October 2026

The Blasket Islands are three miles off Ireland's Dingle Peninsula. Until their evacuation just after the Second World War, the lives of the 150 or so Blasket Islanders had remained unchanged for centuries. A rich oral tradition of storytelling, poetry and folktales kept alive the legends and history of the islands. In the 1960s Oxford University Press published seven Blasket Island books, containing memoirs and reminiscences, evoking a way of life which has now vanished. I am grateful to Tom Doyle for giving me a copy of one of those seven books: 'An Old Woman's Reflections: The Life of a Blasket Island Storyteller' by Peig Sayers (first published in 1962). Peig Sayers (1873 - 1958), known as 'the Queen of Gaelic storytellers', was born on the mainland but made her home on the Great Blasket when she married an islandman. The book contains a series of her reminiscences, written down by her son (and translated and edited in 1939). It's a fascinating insight into the Gaelic oral tradition and a revealing historical snapshot of rural island life in this particular remote corner of Ireland during the first three decades of the 20th century. It is clear from Peig's stories that the day-to-day life of the islanders probably hadn't changed much for centuries, but occasionally you can see glimpses of the modern world intruding. A man comes to the village from Mexico and, remarkably, turns out to be a Gaelic speaker. Peig is given a ride in a motor car. News reaches Great Blasket of the 1916 revolution in Dublin. But most of Peig's stories are of disputes, love triangles, fights and boats lost at sea. 'An Old Woman's Reflections' is authentic primary source history, told in the words of someone who was there. These tales don't always have a conventional narrative arc but they tell you so much more about the everyday lives of the people in that place at that time.

'Macbeth' by William Shakespeare

21 October 2026

Over the past few years we've seen four productions by the excellent OVO Theatre Company in Saint Albans, all performed in the open-air Roman theatre of Verulamium. ('The Merry Wives of Windsor', reviewed here in September 2020; 'The Importance of Being Earnest', reviewed here in July 2022; 'Much Ado About Nothing', reviewed here in July 2023; and 'Sense and Sensibility', reviewed here in 2024.) On Tuesday we saw an indoor OVO production for the first time. The Barn is a beautiful 17th-century Grade II listed threshing barn in Verulamium Park in Saint Albans, which has been temporarily converted into an atmospheric 120-seat live performance space by OVO. The doors opened for the first time last week, launching an autumn season of site-specific productions during the 'work-in-progress phase', ahead of the full permanent conversion of The Barn in 2027. We were one of the first audiences to see the inside of this magnificent building. We were there to see a production of 'Macbeth' directed by OVO Theatre founder and artistic director Adam Nichols. This was a powerful, muscular performance, made more impactful by the audience, on three sides of the circular wooden stage, being so close to the action. The actors felt exaggeratedly large in this intimate space, and the violence, guilt, and grief of the play felt more visceral. Ludovig Hughes was great as Macbeth, embodying his physical and mental transformation through the play - but all of the large cast were impressive. The audience seating in the temporary auditorium didn't provide great sightlines and we were unable to see much of the action when characters were sitting or lying on the stage. But it was great to be present at the inauguration of this new theatrical space in St Albans and I'll looking forward to seeing what the full transformation of the building will bring next year.

'Table 17' by Douglas Lyons

18 October 2026

On Saturday we were back at the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn to see 'Table 17' - a play by Douglas Lyons that has been a big hit in New York and Los Angeles. It's a great piece of fringe theatre for three actors that requires no set other than a dining table and chairs. Former fiancees Jada and Dallas are meeting for dinner at their favourite restaurant, two years after splitting up. We see them each preparing for their reunion and then, through flashbacks, learn how they originally met, fell in love and the reasons for their split. An announcement at the beginning of Zhailon Levingston's excellent production for Kiln Theatre encourages the audience to engage with the play "like a panto". Despite my reservations, this worked really well, with members of the audience expressing out loud their surprise, shock and anger at each plot revelation, the actors very effectively improvising in response to comments from the audience (always scrupulously in character) and the audience almost becoming another character in the drama. Amy Jane Cook's set makes great use of a revolving horseshoe-shaped banquette to evoke the restaurant and a host of other settings. And the acting is superb: Marisha Wallace as Jada, Jamael Westman as Dallas and Michael Rishawn as everyone else show us characters who are flawed but sympathetic and charming. 'Table 17' is a very clever, hip, smart play which went down a storm in the sold-out theatre.

'Not the End of the World' by Hannah Ritchie

18 October 2026

Most people are now aware of the global climate emergency and the multiple challenges facing our planet, but news headlines repeatedly seem to suggest it is too late, too difficult or too costly to do anything to avoid impending catastrophe. Too much of the goodwill and willingness of the public to help is not converted into action because people feel the situation is hopeless. If that sounds familiar I would encourage you to read Hannah Ritchie's 2024 book 'Not the End of the World'. Subtitled 'How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet', Ritchie's book examines seven major environmental problems facing us and, through careful statistical analysis, demonstrates that for every one of them we're now either at the turning point to a lower impact, or have already passed it. While she is clear that we still face significant challenges - and the planet and its inhabitants are still suffering in many ways as a result of environmental changes - the message of the book is that the solutions are known and we need to focus on those positive actions that will have greatest consequences. Hannah Ritchie is senior researcher in the Programme for Global Development at the University of Oxford and deputy editor of the 'Our World in Data' website. She is charmingly frank about the challenges we face as individuals to do "the right thing" environmentally and provides a no-nonsense approach to which personal actions could actually help to make a significant difference (eg stop eating beef but don't worry about using the occasional plastic straw) - backing this up with the relevant data in each case. She is also good at demolishing the many myths based on misleading news headlines, while admitting to her own occasional mistakes in broadcast interviews. The best way to be really clear about how we can improve the environment is to focus on thorough examination of the data (in books like this) rather than attention-grabbing headlines. 'Not the End of the World' is a fascinating, uplifting read that makes you want to do more to help, and convinces you we can actually make a difference. 

'The Rainbow' by Yasunari Kawabata

13 October 2026

I am very grateful to Geoff Crossick for giving me a copy of another classic Japanese novel, 'The Rainbow' by Yasunari Kawabata, originally published in 1951 and translated into English by Haydn Trowell in 2023. This is a very different book to 'The Woman in the Dunes' by Kōbō Abe (also reviewed here in October 2026). Compared to that 1960s surreal existential novel 'The Rainbow', written a decade earlier, feels like a more conventional narrative. But it's an equally fascinating insight into Japanese history and culture. 'The Rainbow' was written and set in a Japan coming to terms with the aftermath of World War II and has the eerie feeling of a country that is on the cusp between two very different worlds. This is the story of a middle-aged professional man - an architect - who is the father of three daughters by three different mothers. In some ways this is a gentle, ambling tale of the two oldest daughters wanting and not wanting to meet their younger stepsister for the first time. While the novel is straightforwardly realistic, without any elements of magic realism or dreamlike narrative, there is still a strange ennui to the plot. The characters spend a lot of the book visiting villas and palaces built for members of the Japanese nobility who had been stripped of their wealth and privileges after the war. With the public now able to see inside these grand houses for the first time it feels like the Japanese people are tourists walking through their country's history. The novel's plot manages to be both a slow, gentle examination of family relationships in which nothing much seems to be happening, and simultaneously a bizarre series of melodramatic events including infidelity, unplanned pregnancy and suicide. When I first started listening to 'world music' and attending the annual WOMAD Festival, in the early 2000s, I was driven by a frustration with what felt like the increasing banality and predictability of mainstream pop music. I loved discovering music, from around the world, that didn't follow the familiar patterns I was used to and still had the potential to surprise me. I've enjoyed reading Japanese novels for similar reasons, precisely because I find it hard to see where the plot is going. It's also fascinating to learn more about Japanese culture and traditions through fiction. 'The Rainbow' is full of traditional tea ceremonies and the size of rooms in houses is routinely measured by the number of tatami mats that would fit on the floor. ("In the six-mat pavilion, there was a four-and-a-half-mat room used for the tea ceremony ...") 'The Rainbow' is quite a melancholic, reflective story showing a country coming to terms with itself through the microcosm of a single family.

Claire Marsden

13 October 2026

Claire Marsden is a French horn player, currently studying at the Royal Academy of Music. She was Joint Principal Horn of the National Youth Orchestra from 2023 to 2025 and she reached the final 5 brass players in BBC Young Musician 2024. Claire also happens to be a resident of Ampthill in Bedfordshire and last Friday I was at Ampthill Methodist Church to see her perform with the pianist Sam O'Neal as part of the Ampthill Recitals series. It was great to have the chance to see this brilliant young horn player so close to home, and to see her playing a new Woodhead horn, made for her in Ampthill by Luke Woodhead. She played the whole of the 'Horn Concerto No 1' by Richard Strauss and the first movement of Beethoven's 'Horn Sonata' - both of which I have played myself (though not in public!). She also introduced me to pieces for the horn by Eugene Bozza, Paul Dukas and Sigurd Verge - all of which were very enjoyable and technically impressive. Claire spoke well to the audience (and seemed to relax more into her playing after speaking). It was wonderful to see her in concert at this early stage in her career.