The Audience and its audience
My mind wanders easily in the theatre. I think it’s the fakery of the whole thing, the spare sets, the imagined actors waiting n the wings, mouthing their lines, the sound of footsteps on wood when it’s supposed to be gravel… everything, really. And then I start to drift off. Mainly I’m wondering what I’ll […]
Magical and fabulous: There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake
God, I hate so-called “magic realism”. In books, at any rate. I don’t get along with Gabriel Garcia Marques, or Isabel Allende, or any of that lot. (For some reason, I don’t mind it in films. I’m thinking of The Green Mile, which I like a lot, but there are plenty of others. I’m not sure why […]
Lost in translation: A Man Called Ove
There’s a lot to like in Fredrik Backman’s novel about a cantankerous widower in contemporary small-town Sweden. It’s a neat story with an unusual protagonist and it will no doubt be made into a lovely film with someone like Stellan Skarsgård in the title role. But my God, the translation! Henning Koch, who did it, […]
