By the time I come down amongst the trees around the house, the last reflected daylight in the west has faded to uniform grey beyond their branches, and the stream which feeds the big pond is loud over the stones. Still air, dimming and thickening. The light has gone completely where the boughs of the Read More
Tramway is a well-chosen venue for this year’s Turner Prize exhibition, Tell Me Something New. The contrast between the concrete inserts of the tram tracks and the clean minimalistic display gives an everyday feel which complements the work’s social significance. However although the setting enhances the artwork, I find the layout a little confusing. This Read More
At 148 minutes Spectre is the longest running Bond film to date. In a franchise with over fifty years of car chases, bikini clad Bond girls, chauvinistic spies and vodka martinis our expectations are high. With this in mind, director Sam Mendes also has the arduous task of positioning Spectre as a sequel to the Read More
In her debut novel, Beauty Tips for Girls, Margaret Montgomery satirises the beauty industry and the social pressures put on women in modern Western culture with wry humour. Montgomery illuminates some of the absurdities of popular culture through an interesting narrative style compiled of letters, newspaper and magazine excerpts, as well as the personal narratives Read More
Pulling off The Great Gatsby on stage while Baz Luhrmann’s dazzling adaptation is still in memory is a sizable task. Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novella, this is a story of a young man who finds himself dropped in an idyllic corner of Long Island where wealthy socialites and movie stars come to frolic Read More
Through drawings, paintings and animations, Hideyuki Katsumata invites you into a fantasy world that is not only his largest exhibition to date, but also his first in the UK. Coming from a background of fashion design and creating artworks for musical clients via record sleeves and animations for music videos for artists such as Little Dragon Read More
“The Fireman’s Wife”, a short story by Richard Bausch, is, to my mind, one of the best short stories written in English. It’s up there for me along with Joyce’s “The Dead”, Mansfield’s “At the Bay” Carver’s “Blackbird Pie” and all the stories I value that, in a few pages, have brought a whole world, Read More
White Lies, a debut novel, contends with the darker side of family life, focusing on deceit in particular, while also delving into the difficulties of mental illness in a plot that oscillates from the predictable to occasionally surprising. Peter is a dementia sufferer that has recently been relocated into a care facility where he spends Read More
This is an edited transcript of an interview conducted by David Graham, MLitt Writing Practice and Study student at 2014 Dundee Literary Festival for DURA. The editing was undertaken by Jérôme Cooper; the full interview can be accessed by clicking on the image above. David Graham: Well, I’m delighted to welcome on behalf of DURA Read More
Where am I? – Oh I just stepped out, No need to make a fuss, or shout. No need to comb the nearest wood Or roam about the neighbourhood. Felix Dennis lived a remarkable life, making his fortune from magazines covering advances in the technology sector, before devoting his final fifteen years to poetry. I Read More