Four women and five men from Aberdeen University’s A Cappella Society Aberpella tell us they thought they were being terribly witty in choosing the title “50 Tones of Grey” as a reference to the shades of the sky and stone of their university city.
year 2017
Ian McEwen’s unorthodox verse forms also employ some traditional poetic skills
Peter Ualrig Kennedy is excited by Elizabeth Cook’s impressive collection of referential poems, each one new, fresh and alluring.
Dunkirk has emerged as 2017’s summer blockbuster movie. The director Christopher Nolan has been widely praised for his ability to immerse film-goers in the terrifying experience of soldiers, sailors and airmen involved in the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) by land, sea and air between 26th May and 4th June, 1940.
Many years after first reading the classic 1930s novel, Sarah Lawson decided to open the book again and write down her second impressions: Emma Lee considers that this re-appraisal was well worthwhile.
After studying literature and painting, Robert B. Sherman, the elder half of one of the world’s most prolific song-writing duos, set about writing the great American novel, while his younger brother Richard, who had studied music, was working on the great American symphony.
Thomas Ovans admires a poetic memoir by Naomi Foyle which celebrates the life of the Belfast writer and activist Mairtin Crawford
Mining the Motherlode: Brian Docherty finds Jacqueline Saphra to be an entertaining narrator whether or not she is an unreliable one.
The undoubted cleverness in Chrissy Williams’ collection is never merely play but also has purpose, observes D A Prince
On the whole, the curators have given the works the space they need and brought a coherent approach to displaying them in relation to each other, which provides the viewer with a largely satisfying experience.
In a capitalist society, we’re nearly all hired hands, but the extent of the exploitation is more or less pernicious. Melvyn Bragg’s gritty, Northern, sweeping tale ultimately finds the best option for the ordinary man is to accept a pittance to work above ground rather than to toil in a futile World War I trench or in a narrow coal seam beneath the sea.
It is overwhelming to enter this striking twelfth century London church which provides the delightful setting for this touring production. We are inside the Norman and Gothic architecture of English history. This is a strong visual for Shakespeare’s propaganda play which scholars acknowledge as the rewriting of Richard Plantagenet’s life to please Shakespeare’s Tudor patrons.
By Julia Pascal • architecture, history, plays, playwrights, theatre, year 2017 • Tags: history, Julia Pascal, plays, Shakespeare, theatre