fiction
Arena: The Dreams of William Golding, BBC TwoSunday, 18 March 2012
If you’re one of those readers who likes to believe that a novelist’s work and the life he leads have little or nothing to do with one another, then I trust you were watching last night’s Arena: The Dreams of William Golding.After an upbringing of... Read more... |
theASHtray: Janáček, Carnage, and Seth MacFarlane v George ClooneySaturday, 11 February 2012
Mea culpa. I take it all back. Christoph Waltz can act, and like a dream. You know, that dream you have where Tarantino's favourite pantomime Nazi demonstrates his apparently incurable fixation on apple-based desserts, and then Kate Winslet yakks... Read more... |
Birdsong Arrives on BBC OneMonday, 16 January 2012
Since the publication of Sebastian Faulks's World War One-era bestseller Birdsong in 1993, actors and film-makers have been falling over each other to bring a version to the screen. Such names as Joe Wright, Sam Mendes, Ralph Fiennes, Andrew Davies... Read more... |
Opinion: do we really need more classic novels adapted?Monday, 09 January 2012
Wanted: classic novel, preferably 19th-century but 18th will do, or early 20th. Anything reeking of period before television acceptable, though preferably not too working class. English if poss. Barnaby Rudge need not apply.Is there a crisis in the... Read more... |
Jamila Gavin: Writing Coram BoySaturday, 17 December 2011
Someone told me that the highways and byways of England were littered with the bones of little children. It was a shocking statement and of course I asked, “What do you mean?” I was told that abandoned children were a common feature of the past, but... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Kerala: Making Hay in God's Own CountrySunday, 04 December 2011
Thiruvananthapuram, capital city of the state of Kerala in the far south-west of India, is as crowded with people as its name is with syllables. By mid-November, most of the monsoon rains have passed and the city is bathed in a stiflingly sticky wet... Read more... |
A Hankering after Ghosts, Dickens and the Supernatural, British LibraryWednesday, 30 November 2011
Well, if you haven’t yet realised that 2012 is Dickens Central, there’s no hope for you. The 200th anniversary of Dickens’s birth is still two months away, but Claire Tomalin’s biography has scampered out of the starting gate already, as has Robert... Read more... |
Interview: Novelist Gillian SlovoMonday, 28 November 2011
“To my friend Craig.” As all writers must, Gillian Slovo will put her signature to copies of her 2008 novel, Black Orchids, for queues of readers. No other writer will have performed this promotional ritual, only subsequently to discover, as Slovo... Read more... |
Alice in Wonderland: Through the Visual Arts, Tate LiverpoolFriday, 04 November 2011
What a curious curate’s egg Tate Liverpool has pulled out of its hat with Alice in Wonderland. And what a complete rag-bag of minor, uninteresting artists. It starts with a disparate mix of recent works by a few better-knowns – neatly beginning at... Read more... |
Extract: 'Til Death Us Do Part' - Dickens's first biographerSaturday, 22 October 2011
Over their lifelong friendship Dickens sometimes mocked Forster and quarrelled furiously with him, but he was the only man to whom he confided his most private experiences and feelings, and he never ceased to trust him and rely on him. It was not a... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Choreographer Christopher WheeldonSaturday, 15 October 2011
Those of us un-Zeitgeisty enough to miss the Royal Ballet’s first new full-length ballet in 20 years during its first run can now catch up. Opus Arte’s DVD release of the televised Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland tells a different story from the... Read more... |
What I'm Reading: Conductor Andrew LittonThursday, 15 September 2011
Newly knighted with the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit for his services to the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, American conductor and pianist Andrew Litton is a musician who believes in the nurturing of long-term orchestral relationships: eight years... Read more... |
