Author Archives: John

It’s been nearly 47 years since I did Jane Austen’s Mans­field Park for A-Level and I’ve always felt I hadn’t been fair in my memory of it, see­ing how much I like Emma, Pride and Pre­ju­dice, Per­sua­sion etc.  I re-read … Con­tinue read­ing →

North­ern Broad­sides pro­duc­tions are usu­ally good, some­times excel­lent, and occa­sion­ally out­stand­ing.  Love’s Labours Lost rose to “good” after a slow start, which was as much Will Shakespeare’s fault as the company’s.  It’s  a pretty static first half, and the bit … Con­tinue read­ing →

A sweet French film of the sort they do so well  star­ring  the delight­fully (still)  gam­ine Audrey Tau­tou and the bulky but amus­ing Fran­cois Dami­ens  who fall in love most implaus­ibly. There is a pan­to­mime vil­lain too and Paris, as … Con­tinue read­ing →

Actu­ally, this isn’t about North Korea at all, except to the extent that a re-reading of George Orwell’s “1984” makes me think of that coun­try, about which we knew noth­ing at all when I first read it (1966) and not … Con­tinue read­ing →

For all that Edward Thomas’ poems were was widely cited as an influ­ence by Auden, Hughes, Lar­kin and C Day Lewis, and were men­tioned by no less a crit­ical heavy­weight than F R Leavis, his endur­ing poetic memorial is “Adlestrop”, … Con­tinue read­ing →