The Danes have given us “hygge” as a not directly translate-able concept particular to their culture. The Cornish offer “hireth” to refer to an intangible feeling, a longing for the familiarity and comfort of a place.
year 2018
With a new version of The Cherry Orchard transposed to the time of the 1917 Russian revolution, director Phil Wilmott’s aim was to reflect “our current edgy relationship with Russia,” he tells us in his notes.
Kerrin P Sharpe’s poems consistently offers a new take on the world, observes Roger Caldwell; but at times they can also be agreeably baffling.
Women bosses who bully their ambitious young rivals are one aspect of female careerism that is under-explored. Bella Barlow and A.C. Smith at least start to redress the balance with a miniature musical played out underneath Waterloo’s railway arches as part of London’s vibrant Vault festival.
The East End of London was a crucible for radical ideas and activism, including the women’s suffrage movement, fired in part by the deprivation and inequality experienced by so many of its inhabitants.
When Christopher Marlowe wrote Doctor Faustus at the end of the 16th century, he was already drawing on German accounts of a medieval legend with eternal and universal reach. Two centuries later, the epic struggle of good and evil was translated back into German in Goethe’s towering tragedy.
This epic work dates from 2000 and 18 years later it still has moments that beguile. Körper means Bodies and the 13 international dancers nearly all wear white underpants as a uniform that unerotically emphasises flesh, bones and blood.
Peter Ualrig Kennedy appreciates the warmth and variety in Rose Cook’s recent collection.
Stuart Henson approves the Very Selected concept in general and Michael Laskey’s volume in particular
Emma Lee takes a cool look at the poetry of Hera Lindsay Bird
Isabel Dixon of Burn Bright Theatre has dramatised Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein two hundred years after its first publication, with two women as its protagonists, Elizabeth Frankenstein and the creature, played by Danielle Winter and Elizabeth Schenk.
Ruth Valentine recognizes the delicacy with which Isabel Bermudez introduces poetic strangeness into familiar subjects.
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, year 2018 0 • Tags: books, poetry, Ruth Valentine