David Troupes, The Simple Men (Two Ravens Press) £7.99 Anne Fitzgerald, Beyond the Sea (Salmon Poetry) £10.00 The Simple Men. ‘The Simple Man […]’, a sequence interspersed throughout, forms a backbone. One does not feel it to be heaved up from the Everyman, or Wordsworth’s ballads. Do we still ‘choose incidents and situations from common […]
All My Sons, The Royal Exchange, reviewed by Simon Haworth
All My Sons, Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Runs till 26 October 2013, Tickets from £10-36 Talawasa Theatre Company’s version of All My Sons, directed by Michael Buffong, is very much in classical style. Arthur Miller’s script is treated with great respect. All those perennial Miller themes – fate and the human urge to control his […]
New collections from John Whale and Tara Bergin, reviewed by John North
John Whale, Frieze (Carcanet Press) £9.95 Tara Bergin, This is Yarrow (Carcanet Press) £9.95 I don’t know what to say about poetry any more. Lives and deaths. ‘Fallen warriors, a conquistador, a cat […]’ in John Whale’s superb Frieze. Yes, I’d noticed that cat. I loved it. I don’t know why. “Not my thing”. I […]
LS Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life Tate Britain, London, reviewed by Ian Pople
When my companion suggested that we go to the Lowry exhibition at Tate Britain, my reaction was lukewarm at best. Surrounded by Lowry as we are in Manchester, one feels as though Lowry’s ‘matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs’ are too well known as it is. And the exhibition has also divided the critics; […]
Dore Kiesselbach, Salt Pier, (Pittsburgh UP) $15.95 reviewed by James Reith.
With a title that simultaneously evokes the seaside, industry and a condiment, Salt Pier isn’t a volume trying to launch fireworks on its title page; something which its beige and seemingly rusting cover doesn’t help to dispel. A quick search of the title on Google, however, almost solely returns a popular diving spot on the […]
New Pamphlets from Rosalind Hudis and Susan Grindley
Rosalind Hudis Terra Ignota (Rack Press) £5.00 Susan Grindley New Reader (Rack Press) £5.00 It is a cliché of contemporary criticism to say that art treats the liminal, that which sits on the edge. Often the liminal is treated as just that; a thing which simply sits at the edge, representing a kind of boundary, […]
Love Supreme Jazz Festival: July 5 – 7, Glynde Place, Sussex, reviewed by Ian Pople
Well… Jazz with a lot of RnB/Soul thrown in. Especially on the Main Stage on the first ‘real’ day, Saturday, where performances started with the wonderful a capella Naturally 7 and, via Michael Kiwanuka, finished with The Bryan Ferry Orchestra! So calling it a ‘Jazz’ Festival was stretching it a bit, and other punters seemed […]
Caleb Klaces, Bottled Air (Eyewear Publishing) £12.99, reviewed by Janet Rogerson
At the core of this collection there is a preoccupation with the elements, of air, water and fire as both unreliable and constant. The scattered arrangement of the first poem ‘Parachute’ belies its opening line, ‘… So now we are in charge’. There is a breathless quality to this poem which works extremely well. Formal […]
Macbeth, Manchester International Festival
Kenneth Branagh’s Macbeth is performed in a deconsecrated church in the back end of Ancoats, between empty office blocks, multi-storey car parks and the Toys’r’us superstore. The audience, of around 220, was called out in batches from the ticket office to the venue. Looking down from the 8 banked boxes, the audience can initially make […]
The Hat-Stand Union, Caroline Bird, (Carcanet, 2013, £9.95), reviewed by Janet Rogerson
The poems in this collection are clever and funny, but I’m often suspicious of clever and funny: Funny how? I’ve been programmed to ask, and the word ‘clever’ is all too often just criticism in disguise. A lot of poems are funny and clever but there has to be more, and happily there is. This […]
Django Unchained (2012), dir. Quentin Tarantino, reviewed by Janet Rogerson
Two years before the American Civil War, Django (Jamie Foxx), a freed slave turned bounty hunter makes his way to Mississippi to free his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), a slave at the Candieland plantation owned by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). We have come to expect a highly stylised, postmodern extravaganza whenever Tarantino directs, and we […]
The Impossible (2012), dir. Juan Antonio Bayona, reviewed by Janet Rogerson
The Impossible tells the story of a middle-class British family holidaying in Thailand at Christmastime. Unluckily for them (and many others) their trip coincides with the 26th December 2004 tsunami. The build-up is short: they are a typical family, three boys, one a disgruntled adolescent, played impressively by Tom Holland, (who is destined to learn […]
Hallgrimur Helgason, reviewed by James Watts
Upon seeing the phrase “A Hitman’s Guide to Housecleaning” on my ticket, I instantly re-read it out of confusion. Would this event instruct me how to simply clean a house, or did clean have more sinister connotations? In all honesty, neither possibility interested me. A little research filled me with delight when I discovered that […]
Guy Ware and Adam Marek, reviewed by Robynne Orley-Simmons
Manchester Literature Festival Event: Adam Marek & Guy Ware, Sunday 21st October, 3:00pm, International Anthony Burgess Foundation I arrive early at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation. I grab a coffee at the entrance cafe and head through to the small brick-walled adjoining room, taking a seat on one of the red velvet chairs in the […]
The Manchester Letters, reviewed by Sean Doherty
Words with Friends The Manchester Letters Saturday 20th October 2012 International Anthony Burgess Foundation An interesting project, The Manchester Letters consists of a series of correspondences between UK writer and University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing alumnus Jenn Ashworth and the Turkish novelist (now based in Barcelona) Nermin Yildirim. Meeting for only the second […]
Manchester Letters: Jenn Ashworth & Nermin Yildirim, reviewed by Jessica Holloway
It’s the morning of Manchester Letters and having never been to an event within the Manchester Literature Festival before, I am wracked with curiosity. What will the event be like? What types of people go to these sorts of events? Will it be obvious that I haven’t been to these sorts of events before? The […]
Wang Anyi, reviewed by Cicely Abdy Collins
As I enter the International Anthony Burgess Foundation I realise I’m early for Wang Anyi’s talk on the subject of her novel, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow. The room is empty but Anyi soon enters and begins talking with the organisers from Manchester Literature Festival as well as members of Confucius Institute, an organisation that […]
Manchester Letters: Jenn Ashworth & Nermin Yildirim, reviewed by Charlotte Rowland
Letters, landscapes and the truth behind truth: shifting the solitude of writing Manchester Letters: Jenn Ashworth & Nermin Yildirim Saturday 20th October Manchester Literature Festival 2012 By Charlotte Rowland It might look like letters and landscapes have nothing in common besides their alliterative beginnings. One’s intimate; one’s endless and vast. If one’s paper and letters, […]
Tramlines, reviewed by Stephanie Thorpe
Review of Tramlines, Manchester Literature Festival International Anthony Burgess Foundation. 20th October 2012. Stephanie Thorpe 519 words I was not sure what to expect from an event named ‘Tramlines.’ I had looked into the event on the Manchester Literature festival website. I had visions of traipsing around Manchester’s tramlines being told stories as we go. […]
Sex and the Cities, reviewed by Katie Blagden
“Sex and the Cities” Reviewed by Katie Blagden Friday 19th October International Anthony Burgess Institute 697 words When first given the ticket to review ‘Sex and the Cities’ my heart sank. I had horrible premonitions of having to listen to four ageing socialites talking about their latest sexual adventures in New York City. Thankfully, Sarah […]
The Blog North Awards, reviewed by Dana Fowles
The Blog North Awards: a pleasant surprise Wednesday 17th October was officially the worst day of my life. I managed to lose my keys, bus pass, student card and some important notes. Then, I got home and my favourite picture fell off the wall and smashed into a million tiny pieces. I cried. . . […]