A tapestry of stories: old, new, & everything in between Bastille presents “&” (Ampersand) | Candlelight Sessions at Manchester Cathedral | October 16th, 2024Reviewed by Alexandria Mowrey A large group of Bastille fans and I queued up in the rain outside of Manchester Cathedral. The evening marked the final stop on Bastille front man, Dan […]
Archive by Author
Camille Ralphs, After You Were, I Am, reviewed by Andrew McCulloch
‘In the beginning was the Word’: Camille Ralphs casts a spell. Camille Ralphs | After You Were, I Am | Faber & Faber: £12.99Reviewed by Andrew McCulloch The epigraph of Camille Ralphs’ debut collection is from the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. Discovered in Egypt in 1946, this consists of 114 logia attributed to Jesus, some […]
C.D. Rose, Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea, reviewed by Livi Michael
Reflections on presence and absence form the emotional core of this moving collection C.D. Rose | Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea | Melville House Publishing: £17.99 Reviewed by Livi Michael At the end of the fourth story in this collection, the main character reflects on ‘echoes and repetitions and endless form most beautiful’, which […]
Monday’s Child & Treske Quartet | The International Anthony Burgess Foundation | Reviewed by Thomas D. Lee
A New Music Double Bill presents innovative and spellbinding contemporary classical music Monday’s Child & Treske Quartet | The International Anthony Burgess Foundation | 15th October 2024Reviewed by Thomas Lee The familiar, cozy redbrick confines of the Anthony Burgess Foundation on a cold evening of October. The thrum of chatter, laughter, polite conversation. Somebody mentions […]
Michael Palin | Winding Wheel Theatre, Chesterfield | Reviewed by Joseph Hunter
Genial, funny, and historic memories from the best-loved Python Michael Palin | Winding Wheel Theatre, Chesterfield | 13th October 2024There and Back: Diaries 1999-2009 (Weidenfield & Nicolson, 2024): £30 In 1988 I turned two years old, and Michael Palin travelled around the world in 80 days. I first watched the series several years later with […]
A.C. Bevan | Poundlandia | Reviewed by Andrew McCulloch
‘Selling England by the Pound’: A.C. Bevan finds a way to halt the slide A.C. Bevan | Poundlandia| Mica Press: £10Reviewed by Andrew McCulloch A.C. Bevan has found the perfect title for his well-plotted and immensely readable first collection – a critical, compassionate look at a cut-price world of unconvincing simulations and cheap substitutes, epic […]
Carl Phillips, Scattered Snows, To The North, reviewed by Ian Pople
Carl Phillips | Scattered Snows, To The North | Carcanet: £11.99Reviewed by Ian Pople Relatively hot on the heels of Carl Phillips’ Pulitzer Prize-winning volume, And Then the War, comes his new volume, Scattered Snows, To The North. Phillips’ new collection has just been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize in the UK. The volume’s […]
Steph Huang: ‘There is nothing old under the sun’, esea contemporary, reviewed by Joseph Hunter
Fine, industrial-looking sculptures that burn with a cold beauty Steph Huang | There is nothing old under the sun | esea contemporaryReviewed by Joseph Hunter To betray any sense of geographical inferiority is, for a resident of the north of the UK, taboo. Even if you reject the neoliberal, Tory-constructed notion of the Northern Powerhouse, […]
Alan Moore | The Great When: A Long London Novel | Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh
Fantastical, genre-defying psychedelia delivered in exuberant prose Alan Moore | The Great When: A Long London Novel | Bloomsbury: £14Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh What is genre? For Alan Moore, ‘widely regarded as the best and most influential writer in the history of comics’ if dust-jacket biographies are to be believed, the answer to this question […]
The Substance (dir. Coralie Fargeat) | HOME | Reviewed by Clare Patterson
French New Extremity and Feminist Satire collide in blood-soaked body horror The Substance (dir. Coralie Fargeat) | HOME | Reviewed by Clare Patterson I’m delighted that Coralie Fargeat’s film The Substance is being distributed by MUBI. The chic streaming service, production company and film distributor emerged in the last ten years with slow, thoughtful pictures […]
Apocalyptica plays Metallica Vol.2 | Albert Hall | Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles
Strings ablaze in Apocalyptica’s European Tour, ushering new life into the heavy metal anthems of Metallica. APOCALYPTICA plays Metallica Vol. 2 Tour | Albert Hall, Manchester | 29th September 2024Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles On a wet night in Manchester, I found myself in the gothic grandeur of the Albert Hall (a converted Grade 2 […]
Hanna Nordenhök, Caesaria, reviewed by Daniel Pope
The beautiful and grotesque Gothic tale of a young girl’s subjectivity under the medicalizing male gaze Hanna Nordenhök (trans. Saskia Vogel) | Caesaria | Héloïse Press: £10.95Reviewed by Daniel Pope In 19th-century Sweden, Caesaria, the first child born successfully from a c-section performed by Doctor Eldh, is kept in a mansion in the countryside as […]
Romeo and Juliet | Shakespeare North Playhouse | Reviewed by Joseph Hunter
This Diverse Cast Gives Shakespeare’s Love-Tragedy a Vibrant, Funny Retelling Romeo and Juliet | Shakespeare North Playhouse | September 16th – October 5thReviewed by Joseph Hunter A group of extras gather in a waiting room, to be summoned by an impersonal, dystopian PA system when it’s time for them to deliver a single line to […]
Los Campesinos! | New Century Hall | Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh
Los Campesinos! demonstrate their cross-generational, sing-able indie appeal Los Campesinos! supported by ME REX | New Century Hall, Manchester | 22nd September 2024Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh Millennials and Gen Z don’t get on, apparently. Or so I’m told, to co-opt a lyric from Los Campesinos!, who played their first show in Manchester for seven years […]
Natalia Ginzburg, Family and Borghesia, reviewed by Livi Michael
Natalia Ginzburg | Family and Borghesia | New York Review of Books: £11.99Reviewed by Livi Michael In Family, the first of the two novellas in this volume, the two protagonists are not named for several pages. We are, however, offered lot of information about them, delivered in short, factual declarations. Much has been made of […]
Nicholas Pullen, The Black Hunger, reviewed by Thomas D. Lee
Pullen’s queer gothic horror story weaves carefully between the lines of history Nicholas Pullen | The Black Hunger | Orbit: £9.99Reviewed by Thomas D. Lee Earlier this year I was privileged enough to be sent a digital proof of Nicholas Pullen’s phenomenal debut The Black Hunger, a dark delight of a book in which the […]
Much Ado About Nothing | Shakespeare’s Globe | Reviewed by Paul Knowles and Sam Cassells
Comic barbs fly between Benedick and Beatrice in Shakespeare’s Globe’s contemporary version of Much Ado About Nothing, which handles the fine line between comedy and tragedy with aplomb. Much Ado About Nothing | Shakespeare’s Globe | Reviewed by Paul Knowles and Sam Cassells On a blazing day, in mid-August, we found ourselves in the hallowed […]
Kevin Barry, The Heart in Winter, Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles and Sam Cassells
Doomed Love, Broken Promises, and the Fatalistic Irish in Barry’s Gritty Western. Kevin Barry | The Heart in Winter | Canongate: £16.99Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles and Sam Cassells From the moment a drunken opium-riddled Tom Rourke stumbles out of a bar in Butte, Montana in 1891 — In The Heart in Winter’s opening pages […]
Joe Devlin: A collection of modified bookmarks, The Portico Library, reviewed by Joseph Hunter
The novel is always dying, never dead. Prophets of doom are readily available. Will Self would have you believe that the ‘analogue brain’ is going extinct. People just don’t read anymore, we hear. Even students who are paying for a reading-and writing-based education don’t read the texts they’re set to read. (Perhaps that last bit […]
The Manchester Review will return soon
Dear All, We are excited to announce that the Manchester Review is back up and running after a long term hiatus, caused by unforeseen circumstances. The review has added two new editors, Joseph Hunter and Paul Knowles, and will be aiming to work through the backlog and produce a new edition in the next […]
Kathryn Tann, Seaglass, reviewed by Joseph Hunter
Kathryn Tann | Seaglass | Calon: £16.99Reviewed by Joseph Hunter Seaglass, the debut essay collection by Kathryn Tan, is best described as part memoir, part nature writing – and there is a great deal of beauty in Tann’s explorations of the crossover between these two things. The collection clearly owes something to the ongoing rise or […]
Uche Okonkwo, A Kind of Madness, reviewed by Usma Malik
Uche Okonkwo, A Kind of Madness, Tin House: $16.95 Reviewed by Usma Malik Uche Okonkwo, an award-winning short story writer, is a former Bernard O’Keefe Scholar and recipient of: a Steinbeck Fellowship, the George Bennett Fellowship (Phillips Exeter Academy), and an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant. Set in contemporary Nigeria, Okonkwo’s debut short story collection A […]
Editorial
After a long, pandemic-induced hiatus, we are very glad to bring you this new issue of The Manchester Review. If the pandemic brought us to a standstill, the machinery of editing and preparing a new issue has suffered from the new pressures of 2022, as additional tasks and work piled in to the week-by-week maintenance […]
Jemma Borg | Wilder | reviewed by Jack McKenna
Jemma Borg | Wilder | Pavillion Poetry: £9.99 In Wilder, Jemma Borg tackles existential pressures with a series of subtle and flexible eco-poetic experiments that display a range of impressive results. The opening poem is devoted to the sharp, spiny ‘Marsh thistle’. In asking ‘What part of a human soul is this thistle?’, the collection […]
Paul Henry | As If To Sing | reviewed by Jack McKenna
Paul Henry | As If To Sing | Seren Books: £9.99 Sorrowful songs flow from Paul Henry’s newest collection, As If To Sing. These are careful, melodious poems that learn to listen for the watery current that carries love and loss together in our everyday lives. The opening sonnet, ‘Tributary’, follows the speaker returning to where […]
David Constantine | Rivers of the Unspoilt World | reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles
David Constantine | Rivers of The Unspoilt World | Comma Press: £8.99 Salford author David Constantine, the award winning poet (Queen’s Medal for Poetry 2020), short story writer, translator, and editor, returns with his haunting new collection, ‘Rivers of the Unspoilt World. Constantine’s sixth collection of short stories has a laser sharp focus on the importance […]
Reshma Ruia | Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness | reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles
Reshma Ruia | Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness | Dahlia Publishing: £10.00 Reshma Ruia’s, Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness is a quiet, contemplative short story collection that asks what happens to immigrants’ dreams in the age of globalisation. What is striking about Ruia’s debut short story collection is that all her characters are in a […]
Sally Rooney | Beautiful World, Where Are You | reviewed by Edward Heathman
Sally Rooney | Beautiful World, Where Are You? | Faber & Faber: £16.99 Sally Rooney, Ireland’s most recent literary sensation, certainly knows how to draw readers in with her latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You? Centring around the friendships between the two main characters and their partners, it offers a familiar portrait of millennials as they […]
Sarah Westcott, Bloom, reviewed by Ken Evans
Sarah Westcott, Bloom, Pavilion Press, University of Liverpool: (£9.99) In her second collection – what the poet refers to as the ‘sister’ to her first, called Slant Light – Westcott sets out her intention from the first line of the opening poem: ‘Have you looked, Have you looked deeply – the feeling, the feeling is […]
Nina Simone’s Gum by Warren Ellis: Interviewed by Sarah Walters and reviewed by Alienor Bombarde
Nina Simone’s Gum, by Warren Ellis Interview by Sarah Walters Organised by David Coates, at Manchester’s Blackwells. Following the publication of his memoir Nina Simone’s Chewing Gumthe Australian musician and member of the rock groups Dirty Three and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Warren Ellis, visited Manchester’s Blackwells. There, he discussed his inspiration, and memories with Sarah […]
Editorial
August hauls deep green dreaming into the woods. Even the bracken is so high and thick I am up to my neck. I feel its lure – who doesn’t desire to trust in what’s sprung, the emerald caves, to lean in and be lost. So writes Carola Luther in one of the new poems we […]
London Gothic, by Nicholas Royle ( Confingo Press, £12.99), reviewed by Richard Clegg
London Gothic by Nicholas Royle ( Confingo Press, £12.99) As well as a novelist and film aficionado, Nicolas Royle is one of the foremost practitioners of the short story form. As editor and publisher of his own Nightjar publications, he has been a doughty champion of other writers, often well off the beaten track. The […]
Carrie Etter, The Shooting Gallery (Verve), reviewed by Ken Evans
In The Shooting Gallery, Carrie Etter uses a favourite form, the prose poem, to interrogate and illuminate the fatal attraction in a country with more guns than people. However, her way in is not outrage or despair, but to look through an artist’s eye, in a sequence of twelve ekphrastic poems, featuring images suggested by […]
Robert Selby, The Coming-Down Time (Shoestring Press, £10.00) | reviewed by Paul McLoughlin
A WORLD OF NOT MINDING Robert Selby’s poems are, as the blurb tells us, ‘love songs of England’: they set out to record and praise what’s good and will not allow themselves to get distracted. And what’s good is be found in its people. Even the war can come across as a matter of camaraderie […]
Ed Seaward | Fair | reviewed by Phoebe Walker
Ed Seaward | Fair | The Porcupine’s Quill Fair, the first published novel from Canadian author Ed Seaward, offers the reader a warped pilgrimage into the underbelly of Los Angeles, trailing in the footsteps of lost soul, Eyan, as he flies low under the uneasy influences of pint-pot street tyrant Paul, and a wandering, dishevelled […]