The Caretaker
(by Harold Pinter) Pinter-esque power games, full of menace, pauses, hopelessness and procrastination; we’re all still waiting for the weather to break in order to collect those papers from Sidcup! (Jonathon Pryce played Davies aka Jenkins in Adelaide in March 2012; P ‘liked’, L did not). We both commend the film version with Donald Pleasance, Alan Bates and Robert Shaw.)
Continue Reading →Paris: A Guide to the City’s Creative Heart
(by Janelle McCulloch) A sumptuous celebration and guidebook in one, this is the refreshing literary equivalent of taking Dom Pérignon with Coupe Hélène. Janelle McCulloch isn’t just a style guru; she is an informed omnivore of culture (see her magnificent website, A Library of Design). In this book she presents the world’s favourite city in an easy, informed way, helping newbies negotiate and appreciate the profusion of arrondisements and letting old hands savour the incomparable glamour and high style of the City of Lights. No point in buying only one copy as a gift because you’ll never give it away….
Continue Reading →Mephisto
(Klaus Mann) Haughty toad sucks up to artsy-nazis to progress in the theatre; his Faustian bargain gets him more than expected. It’s not hard to see why the estate of Gustaf Gründgens, the actor whose role as Mephistopheles bewitched that drama-lover Goering, sought to have the book banned by a German constitutional Court (in the old days they would simply have lobbed it on the bonfire).
Continue Reading →Major Barbara
(George Bernard Shaw) A scream: armaments manufacturer Andrew Undershaft wants a successor; his bible-walloping daughter concludes it is better to take money from the devil for good use than leave it with him. Very rude about the Salvation Army and worth re-consideration in these times of ‘clean charity’ (not to mention boycott, divestment and sanctions).
Continue Reading →The Life of Johnson
(James Boswell) Incomparable biography (or stalker’s notes) of the great Tory grump Dr Samuel Johnson, packed with wit and wisdom. My favourite vignette: Johnson speaks of one of Boswell’s Scottish acquaintances who affects a savage, Rousseau-like disdain for civilised order: “if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.”
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