Scottish poet Gordon Meade releases his tenth collection of poetry with an approach towards awareness. He forms lines to accompany the stills taken by Canadian photographer Jo-Anne McArthur. The photos are a peek into another point of view, and Meade puts a face—and a name—to the images, breathing life into a moment captured in time. Read More
https://youtu.be/lWc6_aCTqI0 As the lockdown continues, the National Theatre is screening another gem from its history, as part of its National Theatre at Home fundraising campaign. This time, the play being shown is Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Simon Godwin. With Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo in the titular roles and in a modernised setting, Read More
https://youtu.be/dI88grIRAnY February 2011 saw the premiere at The Royal National Theatre in London of Frankenstein, written by Nick Dear and directed by Danny Boyle. The play proved a masterful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, capturing both the horror and above all the tragedy at the heart of the story. Since then, recordings of this Read More
Guide the small boat of my body back to my self. Tell me which path brings me home. (‘Mercy’) Róisín Kelly’s first full collection (her chapbook, Rapture, was published in 2016, by Southword Editions) explores that very potent Irish Roman Catholicism with its personal and political resonances, and weighs it up against the island’s older, Read More
Mirror Love I stare at the stolid girl in the mirror. Her long, dark, hair hangs awkwardly over a warm face with blue eyes. Exactly like her mother’s. As the years go by, she looks more like her mother and less like the little girl who walked around hand-in-hand with her daddy, dancing with her Read More
Nineveh is an astounding debut collection full of originality and adding to the vast and rich culture of Jewish poetry. It uses the stylistic device of hyperbole to disclose some of our self-destructive habits in the age of media. The author borrows, rethinks and comments on many of the literary greats before; Yehuda Halevi, Paul Read More
Corn Feverfew III, 1960 You have to search to find this painting. In a gallery full of large pieces and overbearing color, it takes a backseat. Its message is dulled, pushed down, overpowered by others. The greens are smeared with brown and gray, highlights few and far between, yet the more you look, the deeper Read More
The grand spectacle of a sweeping external stone stair adorns the outside of the McManus galleries. Its aging sandstone watches over me as I move towards it, only to be guided to the side entrance. At first, the McManus appears as another conventional art gallery, but now something more seems to be lurking inside. Modern Read More
Displaced Drifting through a little hall of renaissance pieces, the frames of gold, green and grey only hold me briefly. There, on the left-hand side of the gallery from the entrance. Untitled, 1975. Four or five brush strokes create a curtain-thick concrete wall of translucent paint. Over it, a spill. Deeper black, latching on with Read More
Luke Brown’s latest novel Theft begins with a tension that won’t let up. Paul’s mother has just died. His sister has gone missing. He’s done something terrible. And it’s also the run-up to the EU referendum. We are hurtling headlong towards some awful reveal. Knowing the Brexit result offers little reassurance. Except this novel is Read More