King Lear at the Almeida

Lear: Magnificent

Michael Attenborough's production of King Lear at the Almeida takes place in something part-church, part-castle, but more complex than that: doors open and shut, revealing hidden recesses and secretive figures, suggesting an endless cycle of plotting and scheming.

The figures stride or scuttle about, dressed in robes and combat boots, moving through those endless layers of sight and blindness, truth and lies, towards ultimate chaos. What this version really brought out is the crucial role of Edgar. A lot of people, when reading Lear, are seduced by Edmund; here Edgar's quiet goodness and strength shone out. Richard Goulding first played him as a floppy-haired, good-natured lecher; his transformation into poor Tom was truly startling, his eventual role as avenger, caged in armour like some glistening insect, entirely powerful. The way he ended the play was masterful, too, adding a little pause, as if he was about to say something else, but was too overwhelmed to continue. There is no end to suffering.

The text was tightened up, and clever use was made of music and darkness to heighten dramatic tension. Jonathan Pryce's portrayal of Lear was subtle and intelligent: he twinkled like a kindly grandfather, capered about with his fool, lapsed into  sudden rages, making his descent into roaring madness entirely convincing. When he came, dressed in white, on stage in front of the body of his daughter Cordelia, it was as if the world had stopped.

Edmund (Kieran Bew) was a humorous, sexy villain, laughing at himself and everyone else, playing the two wicked sisters against each other. Cordelia (Phoebe Fox) was initially skittish and adolescent; she played the martial Queen of France well.

Lear is, to my mind, Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, full of madness, darkness and the awareness that everything is falling apart. There is no Fortinbras to take over, nothing to restore order, only Edgar's faint suggestion that the younger generation will not see the like. On that small stage, locked into the confines of that shifting world, we saw the blackness of the universe, and the small candles that light it.

Richard Milward's Kimberly's Capital Punishment: A flickering neon light

I've reviewed Richard Milward's third novel, Kimberly's Capital Punishment, for The Telegraph. You can read it here.

A while ago I did his second for The Observer, available here.

First Story at St Augustine's

I’ve started properly as writer in residence at St Augustine’s, Kilburn. We talked today about abstract and concrete nouns, and how a poem links the two together. We played the surrealist game, which threw up some wonderful definitions:

Revenge is a soft fruit that grows and has skin.
Love makes a big boom.
Humiliation is an L-shaped weapon.
Death is a device to tell the time which ticks loudly.
Guilt is made of sugar.
Jealousy is a large carnivorous dinosaur, or an apex predator.

Here was my attempt at Death:

Death is a device who ticks.
He sits on the mantlepiece,
Kicking his heels. His buttons are
Shiny. ‘I must look smart,’
He snorts, then shoots off up the chimney,
Shifting bones off his sleigh.
Yesterday I saw him on the
Tube. He yanked a man’s hand.
His eyes burned brightly; he looked almost
Holy. You can’t shut the door on him.
He’ll crawl through the cracks.
Root in your drawers,
Steal your toys.
When he’s finished, he’ll shrug, and
Snake off, whistling, to some other
Poor fool, clacking his teeth, and smiling.

Denzell Gardens Literary Festival

To bosky Cheshire, for the second Denzell Gardens Literary Festival, which takes place in the grounds of a Hogwartian country house. It's the sort of event that makes you feel that all is right with the world - face-painting, cupcakes, button-making and Pimms (the last of the year, I fear.) I was on after Adam Perrott, whose antics involving foam, balloons and safety glasses had the children in a rollicking good mood; he is the author of a book for 5-8s called The Odds, which features a family of Meddlers that enjoy causing trouble. I won't spoil the surprise; but let's say that it was explosive.

I read passages from The Other Book and The Liberators, introducing a more sinister element. It feels a little strange reading from The Other Book as it was so long ago (well, four years) - it's amazing how much you change and grow in relation to your own writing. It was very enjoyable, even when a very small child wandered onto the stage and stood just by my chair, gazing up at me. I almost asked him if he wanted to read.

The other events included Tom Williams, who gave a talk about his excellent biography of Raymond Chandler; I didn't know that Chandler was an alcoholic, and seemingly such an unhappy man. Signe Johansen was in conversation about her new book, which tells us all how to bake Scandi-style - and she provided some meltingly delicious cinnamon buns. It's not just herrings and rollmops (I'm not sure what they are) you see.

Adam O'Riordan, the poet, who shares two things with me - one, we were both at Oxford together; the second is that we've both been called "Byronic" in print, (with more appropriateness in his case, perhaps, I feel) – gave a gently powerful reading of some poems from his collection In the Flesh. His first novel is due to come out soon.

In between events, a young singer called Jim Caesar-Goddard performed his own songs. Imbued with a kind of scuzzy melancholy, and with wit and intelligence, he held the room entranced; watch this space, I've no doubt he'll be going far.

There were more talks, more Pimms, more tea; the whole thing was rounded off by the best fish and chips I've had in a long time - although I didn't sample the mushy peas. There was a definite North / South divide when it came to the mushy peas.

An enormous thank you to the organiser, Clare Stuart, for putting on such a good show. I've never seen such excellent bunting. Long may Denzell Gardens live.

Why J K Rowling's The Casual Vacancy isn't surprising

I've written a short piece for The Telegraph about J K Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. Check it out here.

A Homeric simile

At some point in my life I want to do (amongst many other things) an in depth study of Homer's similes. I've been dipping (re-dipping?) into the epic recently; the other day I was mightily struck (as if by a spear) by this example:

“But the son of Atreus kept plying his attack along the rest of the Trojan line, with spear and sword and huge stones, as long as the blood still gushed warm from his wound. But when the wound started to dry and the flow ceased, then sharp pains began to overcome his strength of spirit. As when a woman in labour is taken with the sharp stab of piercing pain sent by the Eileithyiai, daughters of Hera, who bring the bitter pangs of childbirth, so sharp pains began to overcome the son of Atreus’ strength.”

This is Agamemnon, King of the Achaeans, having been stabbed by Koön in the middle of battle; it’s a superimposition of the domestic onto the warlike, a reminder that the mightiest fighter is woman-born and also that women endure perhaps greater pain than that on the field; Agamemnon is the father of his people, so it seems apt that he is compared to a mother in the bloody throes of birth, as death is all around him and blood feeds the ground for a different reason. Homer is so good at showing us inversions of what's going on; always reminding us of other worlds, other lives, and of the endless cycle of generation and death.

(The translation is Martin Hammond’s fine 1987 version, published in a nifty Penguin paperback which I own that is sadly lacking a few pages from Book VI.) 

Summer Reading Challenge at Cranleigh Library

 A gorgeous September Saturday, and an afternoon at Cranleigh Library handing out medals and certificates to the children who'd completed the summer reading challenge. It was a charming afternoon, and really wonderful to see so many enter and enjoy the challenge.