Review: Failure Studies (Precarious Theatre, GM Fringe)

Sunday 12th September 2021
King’s Arms Theatre, Salford

The Greater Manchester Fringe continues throughout September, and I’m continuing to review a selection from the programme on this blog and on North Manchester FM. On Sunday 12th September, I was at the King’s Arms Theatre in Salford to see my next show from the festival programme: Failure Studies by Precarious Theatre. The radio version of this review will be broadcast on the Hannah’s Bookshelf GM Fringe Reviews Special on Tuesday 14th September, but here’s the blog version…

Failure Studies is a one-act play written by Marco Biasioli and produced by Precarious Theatre, a new company recently formed by Biasioli and Liam Grogan. This is actually the third play by Biasioli than I’ve seen (and reviewed). His debut script, Hanging, was produced by Tangled Theatre for the 2018 Greater Manchester Fringe, and his second play, Underwater, was performed by Gare du Nord at the 2019 festival. As with my previous review (Libby Hall’s Your Playground Voice is Gone), I can’t help but reflect on the similarities and differences between this year’s piece and previous examples of the playwright’s work.

However, I don’t intend to labour the comparisons too much here (though I might not be able to resist pointing out a couple), as it’s really not necessary to be familiar with Hanging and Underwater to understand Failure Studies and, while there are stylistic, structural and thematic echoes with the earlier two plays (and some cast crossover, as David Allen and Luke Richards appeared in Underwater as well as Failure Studies), Precarious Theatre’s production is really quite a different play to the previous works, and in many ways something of a development.

The audience enters the King’s Arms Theatre – charmingly and comfortably laid out cabaret, rather than theatre, style – to find the three performers already on stage. David Allen and Francesca Maria Izzo are sitting behind a desk, apparently asleep with their heads down, and Luke Richards is lying underneath the desk, also apparently sleeping. Around them, the stage space is littered with hundreds of pieces of papers.

The play begins with an alarm clock sounding and a recorded voice instructing Georgie (Richards) to wake up and prepare himself for the day. What follows is an extended sequence in which Richards shows off his physical comedy skills, miming an exhausting morning routine that takes in ablutions, meditation, yoga, a workout, breakfast preparations and coffee-making. It ends – bizarrely – with Georgie being told to ‘put on his costume’. We don’t see the costume (Richards continues to mime the actions), but from this point Georgie has become a chicken.

For all its cheeky side swipes at ‘wellness’ rituals – Georgie’s morning routine includes some light-hearted mockery of the hipsterism of almond milk oatmeal, performative yoga and trendy trainers that are too young for the wearer to pull off that is reminiscent of Richards’s performance as a vegan killer whale in 2019’s Underwater – this initial sequence is actually leading us into something much more absurd. And I use that word very specifically.

While Biasioli’s previous plays were undoubtedly odd, off-beat and occasionally opaque, the influence of the Theatre of the Absurd is much more clearly discernible in Failure Studies. In its dystopian strangeness (complete with the partial metamorphosis of a human into an animal), there are echoes of Ionesco in places. However, the dialogue between the three characters (and the undercurrent of menace and physical threat) feels much more reminiscent of Pinter. There is something more assured in the way Failure Studies develops its absurdity, meaning that this feels like a much more confident production that presents itself with conviction and vigour.

As with Biasioli’s previous two plays, Failure Studies is a single-act divided into a series of sequences performed on the same set and in the same costumes. After Georgie’s morning sequence, the lights drop, and when they come back up the stage is now an office. Marc (played by Allen) and Babe (Izzo) are sitting behind their shared desk at the editorial office of Failure Studies, a pseudo-academic journal that publishes articles on failure. Georgie – now a chicken – is their intern, and Marc periodically throws crumbs at him from a box on the desk. As Babe points out early on, the crumbs are poisoned, though the effect they have on Georgie varies wildly throughout the play.

What follows from this is an exploration of failure, futility and the unsettling pointlessness of human endeavour. In the Theatre of the Absurd tradition, the play’s message is nebulous and constantly shifting. At times, there is what appears to be a direct critique of capitalism – Georgie is the exploited intern being humiliated for sport by the sadistic and megalomaniacal Marc – but elsewhere the focus shifts to a cutting critique of individualism – Marc’s dissection of Georgie’s belief that he is ‘special’ and ‘talented’ is presented through a sort of parade of Barnum statements (‘You’re an artist,’ ‘You’re different’, ‘You’re only doing this job to help your creativity’) that reaches a bitter and hard-hitting crescendo.

Behind this, however, is another story. Occasional glances between Georgie and Babe suggest that their relationship might not be as it appears, and a repeated return to the ‘Ancient Greeks’ and a fear of the outside world is noticeable. A sense of dystopia is created through these hints, and also through the inexplicable claustrophobia of the set and characterization, and this comes to the fore in the play’s final sequences. What this dystopian context actually is, though, is uncertain, as the play resists comforting exposition and resolution.

The three actors offer strong performances throughout. Richards brings an exuberance and charm to his portrayal of the baffling and unknowable Georgie, switching in an instant from mute physicality to verbosity and then back again. Izzo is unsettling in a different way as Babe; while she appears to be a ‘voice of reason’ or a sort of futile moral compass, offering a corrective to Marc’s excesses, this is undermined just enough by Izzo’s blank detachment to make us question how much we trust in her compass. And Allen starts small but builds to a frenetic and frankly unnerving pitch by the end of the play that is really something to behold.

While much of the absurdity of Failure Studies is developed through set-piece dialogues and the occasional monologue, there is a lot of physical performance here too. I’ve mentioned Richards’s physical comedy performance at the beginning of the play, but credit also has to be given to the acting and direction for some intensely physical sequences towards the end of the play. While Pinter may have used elliptical dialogue and scene breaks to imply menace and violence, Biasioli’s play shows this in a break-neck, in-your-face way. One of the final sequences left me tired just watching it, and I had a genuine concern for Allen’s safety at one point! (It’s always disturbing when an actor says ‘Did we kill him?’, and you’re not completely sure whether they’re still in character! Fortunately, Allen took his bow with the others at the play’s close, so I think he was okay!)

Failure Studies was an enjoyably baffling play to watch. As a fan of Theatre of the Absurd, I appreciated both the opaque dialogue and the continued (but frustrated) suggestions that something more profound was lurking just out of reach, under the surface. It was also good to see this development of Biasioli’s writing. While I did enjoy Hanging and Underwater at previous festivals, Failure Studies is undoubtedly a more assured and confident piece, and one which carries its absurdity with conviction, menace and humour.

Failure Studies is on at the King’s Arms Theatre on Sunday 12th-Tuesday 14th September, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: Your Playground Voice is Gone (Libby Hall, GM Fringe)

Saturday 11th September 2021
Salford Arts Theatre

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe runs from 1st-30th September, and I’m reviewing a selection of the shows on this year’s programme for this blog and for North Manchester FM. My second show of this year’s festival was on Saturday 11th September, when I was at the Salford Arts Theatre to see Libby Hall’s play Your Playground Voice is Gone. The radio version of this review will be going out on the Hannah’s Bookshelf GM Fringe Reviews Special on North Manchester FM on Tuesday 14th September. But here’s the blog version…

Your Playground Voice is Gone is a one-act play, written by Libby Hall and directed by Roni Ellis, and performed by the Salford Arts Theatre Young Performers Company. At the last Greater Manchester Fringe Festival, I reviewed Hall’s play The Melting of a Single Snowflake, which was also performed by the Young Performers Company, so I was interested to see what this new piece would be like.

In some ways, Your Playground Voice is Gone bears some similarities to The Melting of a Single Snowflake. It’s an ensemble piece with a single set, which uses the dialogue and conversations between an eclectic group of young people to develop its plot. Like Hall’s earlier play, Your Playground Voice is Gone explores themes of youth, identity and change. However, for all the superficial similarities, Your Playground Voice is Gone offers a quite different story – with a different sort of conclusion – to The Melting of a Single Snowflake, and it is thought-provoking in the way it does this.

The play opens on its single set – a fly-tip in some woodlands that is clearly acting as a makeshift den. John (played by Matthew Cox) and Rachel (Molly Edwards) rush onto stage as though fleeing something, and then proceed to wipe something red from their hands and t-shirts. They’re soon joined by Holly (Leia Komorowska) who is wearing school uniform, carrying what appears to be homework, and studiously ignoring the still-panicky behaviour of her peers.

Although they are clearly around the same age, the contrast between the characters is strikingly apparent even before the dialogue begins. While Komorowska’s Holly holds herself with the confident poise of a serious young woman, John’s youthful fragility is almost tangible. Sitting at the front of the stage in a near-constant state of bewilderment, Cox’s performance conveys both naïvety and fear of the adult world. In between these two is Edwards’s Rachel, who veers dramatically between maturity – there’s a touching maternal quality to the ways she helps John to wipe his hands – and vulnerability – she often flinches away, holding herself more like a frightened child than a confident adolescent.

These contrasts are heightened by the arrival of the rest of the cast. We meet Darcy (played by Scarlett Doyle), a rambunctious and flippant would-be rounders star in a bandana and camouflage jacket, Kelsey (played by Sienna Kavanagh), a more ‘girly’ girl who is wearing a rather misjudged face of makeup, Loz (played by Josie Leigh), who seems determined to criticize and question everything her friends do, and Alfie (Riley McCaffery), who confidently explains why his playground voice has gone early on with a rather blunt anatomical boast (which his friends don’t believe).

Although there is some movement around the stage, Your Playground Voice is Gone is carried almost entirely through the dialogue between the seven characters. There’s a healthy dose of light-hearted bickering and mockery, but also some serious conversation about (amongst other things) the physical abuse John is enduring at the hands of his mother, and the various ambitions each of the group have for when they’re ‘grown up’. As in her earlier play, Hall reveals a good ear for dialogue and a talent for writing humour. A highlight for me was Alfie’s confident assertion that his father is a self-employed gardener, because he grows plants in his house and then sells them on to his customers.

While the conversation ranges around from Kelsey’s conviction that she won’t grow old because she uses Nivea, to Holly’s insistence that she takes her schoolwork much more seriously than any of her peers, to Darcy’s casual announcement that she’s been diagnosed with ADHD (a fact that elicits sympathy from John, despite him not knowing what the condition is or how it might affect her), there is a thread that runs through, which will ultimately lead us to some unsettling revelations.

Throughout their chatter, the young characters keep returning to a sense of confusion between the child and adult worlds. This isn’t so much a play about the transitional nature of adolescence – as The Melting of a Single Snowflake was – but rather one that explores the sharp disjunctions that one experiences during that time of life. Rather than navigating a change from youth to maturity, the characters here are working through confusion and contradictions.

And these confusions and contradictions come thick and fast. For instance, while Alfie sees his father’s exploits through a lens of childlike naivety, he is able to look at the relationship between Holly and her teacher with more adult eyes. Darcy, who is the most playful and childlike in her actions throughout, seems to be the most knowing and worldly wide (though she mostly uses this knowledge to tease her more naïve peers).

While the performances are engaging and funny, and the jokes all land well, the real strength of Your Playground Voice is Gone lies in the storytelling. The conversations between the young people aren’t simply a meditation on the fractured and contradictory nature of adolescence, but rather a slow (and sometimes imperceptible) revelation of the underlying plot – which has, in fact, happened off-stage before the play began.

Hall’s storytelling here is even more ambitious than in The Melting of a Single Snowflake, as the story being told is not the one we might have expected. Throwaway comments and jokes early on – including some seemingly glib lines from Alfie – eventually turn out to be the heart of the piece. This is not a story about growing up in the general sense, but rather a tale with a much darker heart. This is carried through a mostly static seven-way conversation, but it still packs a punch when it is revealed.

The play’s ending is one that will stick with you, and it actively encourages the audience to ponder on its implications after the curtain has come down. For younger viewers, there are some clear and unequivocal messages about safety and boundaries, but for older audience members (like myself) the message is more troubling. As with Hall’s earlier play, the lack of a strong and supportive adult presence in these young people’s lives is felt keenly – from John’s abusive mother to Alfie’s ‘gardener’ father, the adults on the periphery of this story are unreliable at best, harmful at worst. The question is thus raised: can we really judge young people for finding their own solutions to problems if they have no adults to turn to for help?

In addition to this, the play’s ending is somewhat open. Everything is revealed through the words of a group of young people who veer wildly between childhood and maturity, and so we can never be completely assured of how they are comprehending things. Even when some apparently clear and unequivocal exposition is given, it is undercut by Rachel’s unsophisticated insistence that £72.11 is probably enough money for seven people to live on indefinitely. The open ending ensures that the audience is left wondering what will happen after the curtain comes down, but it also leaves some uncomfortable questions about what happened before it came up.

Overall, this is a compelling piece of theatre. The Young Performers Company offer some assured performances, handling both the humour and the darkness with confidence. Hall’s writing is sophisticated and controlled, with the story developing at a pace that makes clever use of the constraints of form and setting. Although the play is a single 50-minute act, it feels like there is much more here, and that the story is much deeper and longer.

After reviewing both The Melting of a Single Snowflake and Your Playground Voice is Gone, I am impressed with the Salford Arts Theatre Young Performers Company, and I’m also convinced we’re going to be seeing much more from writer Libby Hall in the future.

Your Playground Voice is Gone was on at the Salford Arts Theatre, on 11th-12th September, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s GM Fringe, visit the festival website.

3 Minute Scares is back for its sixth sinister year!

North Manchester FM's Halloween creative writing competition is open for submissions for 2021.

North Manchester FM's Hannah Kate wants your scary stories for Halloween! She’s asking people throughout Greater Manchester to submit their 3-minute stories for her annual creative writing competition. Writers keen to be crowned Greater Manchester’s Spookiest Wordsmith can submit a recording of their mini-tale via Hannah’s website, with the best entries being broadcast on the Halloween edition of Hannah’s Bookshelf on Saturday 30th October.

We’re delighted to announce that this year’s 3 Minute Scares competition will be judged by horror legend Ramsey Campbell, with the writer of the best entry receiving a prize from Breakout Manchester, the live escape room game. Entries need to be 3 minutes long, meaning a word count of around 350-400 words. The judges will be looking for style and originality, as well as how scary the story is. The deadline for entries is Monday 11th October, at midnight.

Last year’s competition was won by Rose Cullen, who impressed the judges with her stylish and darkly humorous tale. Hannah Kate says: ‘Last year saw a bumper crop of entries for the competition, with a really strong shortlist. Rose's story impressed the judges by how well it handled the short form, but also with the delicious payoff it gave us at the end. The competition crown passed to a worthy winner, but I'm intrigued to see what this year’s entries will bring.’

All writers need to enter the competition is a computer with a microphone… and a good story. Entries can be recorded via Hannah’s website. More information and rules of the competition, including information for people unable to submit a recording, can also be found on the website.

Stories to be Read with the Lights On 6: The Landlady by Roald Dahl

This next story should need no introduction... it's 'The Landlady' by Roald Dahl! If you heard me talk about the book on my radio show, then you'll know that this short story is the clearest (and fondest) memory I have of reading the anthology in the 90s. Being too young to have watched the Tales of the Unexpected TV series when it was first broadcast, I wasn't familiar with Roald Dahl's stories for adults until I read 'The Landlady'.

I absolutely adored it back then, and I think it's still one of my favourite short stories of all times (though that's partly because I can remember how much I loved it the first time I read it). The clearest memory I have of reading the Hitchcock anthology when I somehow acquired it in the 90s is sitting in my bedroom at my parents' house, being confused and intrigued as to why Roald Dahl's name was in the table of contents. I've got no idea how many times I've read 'The Landlady' since then, of course. I wrote my undergrad dissertation on Dahl's adult fiction, and I even used 'The Landlady' when I was tutoring KS4 kids. I still reread it for this anthology reread post though. Obviously.

A couple of observations... It probably goes without saying that when I first read this story as a teenager, I pictured the landlady as an impossibly ancient old woman. It's a bit scary/depressing to realize I'm not far off her age myself now. And I suppose it says a lot about my reading habits as a young teen that I knew exactly why the tea tasted of bitter almonds! 'The Landlady' is a bit different to the usual Tales of the Unexpected-type stories (by Dahl, but also by others) in that Billy Weaver doesn't deserve his fate. This isn't a karmic comeuppance, but just horrifying bad luck. I just love the way it's all set up though. And the final line is perfect. It ends in just the right place.

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Stories to be Read with the Lights On 5: Granny by Ron Goulart

The next story in my Stories to be Read with the Lights On reread is 'Granny' by Ron Goulart. This one felt familiar from the first sentence, though I couldn't (initially) remember anything about what happens. I knew I'd read this one before but I couldn't put my finger on where it was going. And then BAM! It all just came flooding back, and I remembered the ending as clearly as if I'd read it yesterday! This is the sudden nostalgia rush I'm here for.

I don't know whether it's the nostalgia buzz, but I really enjoyed (re)reading Goulart's story. It's got a great set-up, and the Granny Goodwaller backstory is presented with impressive economy. The bit in the diner where McAlbin chats to Nan Hendry is fun too. Innocuous enough the first time round, but when you go back over it you see exactly what's happening. It's all about that ending though. I can clearly remember being totally shocked by the final paragraph and then dwelling for a while on the implications of the last line. I've got to admit, that ending came back to me so clearly when I was rereading the story that I'm almost wondering if I've reread Goulart's story more recently in another anthology. If not, then wow! apparently it really stuck with me.

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Stories to be Read with the Lights On 4: Mr Mappin Forecloses by Zena Collier

Continuing with the fourth story in my Stories to be Read with the Lights On reread... And at first glance... I didn't remember anything at all about this story! However, when we started to get to the meat of things, it definitely started to ring a bell. Mr Mappin's fantasies about murdering his boss started to feel a bit familiar.

Collier's story is very much in the Tales of the Unexpected mode. It's got the ordinary, frustrated man dreaming of something bigger (or more sinister), and the sting-in-the-tail ending you want from a story like this. What I liked about it though was that Mr Mappin's frustrations at being stuck as a mortgage clerk for 20 years have a proper nasty edge to them. I suppose this is partly to make sure we don't have too much sympathy for Mr Mappin. We have to know that he's got a mean streak to him (his thoughts on the secretaries Miss Ashley and Miss Burke definitely reveal this).

I can't work out whether the ending is a bit predictable or I was just remembering it from when I was a teenager. To be honest, I think I'm leaning towards saying it's a bit predictable. But for all its predictability, 'Mr Mappin Forecloses' is very well done. It's a nice example of the... genre? style? mode? that these type of stories employ.

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Review: Subdural Hematoma (Eleanor May Blackburn, GM Fringe)

Friday 3rd September 2021
Salford Arts Theatre

The 2021 Greater Manchester Fringe Festival began on Wednesday 1st September and runs until Thursday 30th September. After the tribulations of 2020, it’s great to see that this year’s programme is impressively varied. And as in previous years, I’m going to be reviewing a selection of the productions on offer throughout the month for this blog and for North Manchester FM.

On Friday 3rd September, I was at Salford Arts Theatre to review Subdural Hematoma, a one-woman show written and performed by Eleanor May Blackburn, and directed by Jack Victor Price. Before I start my review of the show, I’m just going to start by saying how lovely it was to be back at the Salford Arts Theatre again. Since I started reviewing theatre for North Manchester FM, I’ve been to quite a few shows at Salford Arts Theatre (Greater Manchester Fringe plays, but others as well) and – I know I probably shouldn’t have favourites – but it is one of my favourite Fringe venues. The last time I was at the theatre was the 2019 Fringe, so it was amazing to be able to go back again. Theatre and the performing arts generally have been so sorely hit by the uncertainty of Covid and lockdown, so I felt genuinely moved to be back at one of my favourite venues to experience a festival that I’m really very fond of. All credit to everyone at Salford Arts Theatre (and all the other venues) and to the festival organizers for putting on such a varied and interesting programme.

So… let’s talk about Subdural Hematoma, my first bit of Fringe theatre since July 2019… I’ll be playing the radio version of this review on my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special on Saturday 4th September, but here’s the blog version…

As I’ve said, Subdural Hematoma is a solo performance by Blackburn, running at around an hour. It’s also an autobiographical show, which explores Blackburn’s experience of suffering… you guessed it… a subdural hematoma following a traumatic brain injury. Grim stuff, you might think. But it really wasn’t.

Perhaps the word ‘suffering’ was inaccurate here. The show is about Blackburn’s experience of surviving a subdural hematoma. As such, the show is both grim (at times) and celebratory, as well as moving, humorous and engaging.

Blackburn sets the tone of the show by opening with some quite unsettling replications of the noises made by someone struggling for breath. She then removes her top to reveal the words ‘tracheostomy’ and ‘line’ penned on her torso (accompanied by circles identifying the points of surgical entry) and – and this is the part that really set the tone – does a faux sexy dance while announcing them.

The ensuing performance takes us through the weeks Blackburn spent in a coma following a head injury. Much of the narration is a poetic monologue, but this is intercut with sections from a diary (written almost as letters to the patient) kept by her mother during this time and narrated as voiceover, as well as recordings of two other people who suffered subdural hematoma and are reflecting on what happened to them. At times, Blackburn dons a blank white face mask and uses physical performance to evoke the experience of emerging from a coma (something, she explains quite forcefully, that does not happen the way it does in films).

If you heard my reviews from the 2019 Greater Manchester Fringe, then you may remember that the shows I was particularly impressed with at the last festival were all one-woman shows. So it was a pleasure to begin this year’s festival watching another competent and well-crafted solo piece by a young woman with a real knack for compelling storytelling. Blackburn’s performance was engaging and enjoyable throughout, but I was especially taken with the way the story itself was crafted and realized on stage (and this is to the credit of both writer-performer Blackburn, but also Price’s direction).

One of the most impressive things for me was the way that Blackburn was able to narrate an experience in which, though she was undoubtedly the central figure, she played little to no active part. Indeed, as she tells us on a couple of occasions, she cannot actually remember everything that happened to her. It’s an ambitious undertaking to tell a story that you both were and weren’t part of, but this is handled well in Subdural Hematoma.

On the one hand, Blackburn offers us her own direct narration – accompanied by occasional outbursts, some blunt honesty about bodily functions, and a scattering of jokes that are sometimes bleak and sometimes daft – about what she has since learned about what happened. She defines some medical terms, though she dismisses this knowledge with a flippant ‘Thanks Google’, and starkly lays out the initial prognosis given to her parents. On the other hand, the voiceover diary entries undermine this directness, turning the story into something that was happening to Blackburn, something that could only really be described by someone else.

The use of the face mask is effective in bridging the gap between these two different narratives. When she dons the mask, Blackburn embodies a sort of uncanny ‘in between’ state where she is enacting, but not verbalizing, an unnerving and sometimes incoherent bodily experience. She is still clearly the same performer – Blackburn is on stage, alone and visible, for the entire show – but the mask serves to deindividualize her. (There’s also a bit with some tinsel strands that I really liked – but I don’t think I’ll spoiler that for you!)

It has to be said, there are some pretty striking tonal shifts in Subdural Hematoma, but they aren’t uncomfortably jarring. I found the diary entries to be particularly moving – I did get a lump in my throat at one point – but the move from that to a pretend stand-up routine of bad coma jokes was smooth. The show makes no bones about its autobiographical content, and Blackburn’s honest performance engages us in a way that lets us see these tonal changes as part of a rollercoaster of genuine emotions, rather than an attempt to shock or unsettle the audience.

One of the things that struck me afterwards, when I reflected on the emotional content of Subdural Hematoma, was the striking lack of anger. Although there are places where Blackburn rails against some specific details of the physical experience of being comatose – and one point where she expresses a momentary sense of unfairness that she, as a young woman, was in a hospital ward with women who were both older and less ill than herself – this is not a show that wallows in the cruelty or injustice of the situation. The overarching sense we get is that the brain injury was something that happened – just that – and the focus is on survival and recovery.

Again, it’s Blackburn’s performance as much as the writing that carries this. When she comes close to addressing the unfairness of the situation, she interrupts herself (or is interrupted by a voiceover) about another small improvement in her condition – she’s moved her foot or used an oxygen mask rather than a ventilator, for instance. Blackburn captures the enormity of these apparently tiny physical changes with a gleeful and infectious enthusiasm that encourages the audience to cheer along with her success (indeed, she directly instructs us to cheer along at one point!).

For me, that was the strongest part of Subdural Hematoma – its balancing act between the almost inconceivable enormity of the near-death experience and the small intimacies of a dad reading Harry Potter to his injured child or a mum finding fairy lights for a hospital bed gives the show a charming authenticity and familiarity.

Overall, I really enjoyed Subdural Hematoma. Blackburn’s storytelling is assured and well-realized, and her performance throughout is compelling. I’m glad this was my first Fringe show of the year, as it reminded me why I like this festival so much and why I’m pleased it’s back for 2021!

Subdural Hematoma was on at Salford Arts Theatre on 3rd September, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe. For the full programme of Fringe shows on this year, please visit the festival website.

My Year in Books 2021: August

Time for my monthly round-up of the books I've read for fun recently. Once again, it's not a long post - most of the things I read in August were for review (though many of them were fun as well, of course). So there are just three mini-reviews in this post.

In case you're interested, here are my posts from the rest of the year: January, February, March, April, May, June, July

Beast by Matt Wesolowski (2019)

I’ve been saving this as a treat. I first stumbled on Wesolowski’s Six Stories series when I got Book 5 (Deity) from Abominable Books. I loved it so much, I immediately bought Books 1-4. After I’d read Six Stories, Hydra and Changeling, I suddenly panicked as Wesolowski apparently hadn’t even started writing Book 6. I didn’t want to leave myself with a massive wait (I really do love the series that much!), so I decided to keep Beast for as long as I could. This month we went on holiday for the first time since December 2019, and it seemed like the perfect time for a book I was looking forward to. You’ll be glad to know that it didn’t disappoint. The Six Stories books all follow the same format: podcaster Scott King explores a mystery (not usually a cold case, but rather a case where the solution has left lingering questions) through six episodes of his show. Each episode (each chapter) offers a different perspective, with the answer only becoming apparent at the end. Beast is about the death of a YouTube influencer, Lizzie Barton, during a cold snap in a small north-east town. Three men were tried and convicted for the crime, but their motive has never been explained. Was it jealousy? Or was it something to do with the town’s legend about a vampire who was killed in the same tower where Lizzie’s body was found? Absolutely loved this one (and I can’t wait for Book 6)!

Death in White Pyjamas by John Bude (1944)

Another one I’ve been saving... I like reading British Library Crime Classics when I’m on holiday, so I’ve saved this one since my mother-in-law bought it for me. It’s a double-bill of John Bude novels, but I read Death in White Pyjamas first. In many ways, it’s pretty classic Golden Age detective fiction. A group of people gather in a country house, and someone gets bumped off (and, of course, all the other guests have a motive for seeing the victim off). What gives this one its charm is that a lot of time is spent describing the world in which the suspects and victim live, with the murder only coming a good way into the story. The assembled guests are all members of a London theatre company, who are staying at the country home of their millionaire investor. There’s intrigue, blackmail, theft and threats, but there’s also a lot of backstage chatter and theatrical gossip. I’ve read some of John Bude’s other novels, most of which have a strong sense of place that I really enjoy. Rather than focusing on a specific location, this one is more evocative of its theatre backdrop, which turns out to be equally enjoyable. It’s perhaps a bit more light and airy than other Golden Age novels (though the murder method turns out to be surprisingly unsettling), and Martin Edwards’s introduction explains that this was a deliberate choice by Bude. I found it nicely immersive, and there were some rather neat clues as well.

The Children's Secret by Nina Monroe (2021)

And now… another free eBook from Secret Readers, despite my insistence last month that I was going to stop reading free eBooks. Perhaps that was a bit hasty, as The Children’s Secret wasn’t too bad. There were some bits of it I really enjoyed, and Monroe’s writing is very good. The story is set in Middlebrook, a small town in New Hampshire near the Canadian border. It begins with Kaitlin preparing a party to bring local families together before the start of the new school year. Her son Bryar has been having difficulty socializing, and Kaitlin believes a party with the neighbours will help him. It all goes horribly wrong when the children sneak off to the stables. Someone gets hold of a gun belonging to Kaitlin’s husband Ben, and one of the children ends up seriously injured. What happened in the stables? Well, that’s the children’s secret. They aren’t telling, and growing suspicions set the adults against one another. What I liked about this book was the ease with which Monroe introduces a large cast of characters, but without it being bewildering. I also liked the way the relationships between the children emerge and evolve as the story goes on. What didn’t I like? The ending is remarkably heavy-handed and a bit too idealistic for me. Some of the points (specifically about gun control), which had been handled with nuance and sensitivity, are glossed over in the end. So, great characters, bad ending. I’d still probably recommend it though.

Stories to be Read with the Lights On 3: Shadows on the Road by Robert Colby

Onto the third story in my Stories to be Read with the Lights On reread then... I didn't get as much of a wave of nostalgia with this one as with the previous one, but I definitely remember reading it when I was younger. I also had to stop and check 'Strangers on the Road' wasn't originally a Twilight Zone episode (or inspired by a Twilight Zone episode), because the opening set-up feels a bit Twilight Zone-y. But on reflection, I don't think I've ever seen an adaptation of the story. If I'm missing something here, let me know!

Colby's story begins with two bad lads heading out across the desert towards Mexico, carrying the loot they've got from a recent robbery. There's something about the way the desert is described. Makes you think that they might not make it to the border as planned... Just in time, they see a sign for a motel that looks too good to be true. And what could be more Alfred Hitchcock than an apparently fortuitous motel appearing when you're on the lam?

This story's quite charming (mostly due to atmosphere and description), but I think it is one that has dated a bit. I imagine it probably had a bit more punch to it when it first came out. I don't want to give any spoilers, but the 'reveal' revolves around a technology that's ubiquitous now but probably had more shock value in 1971. Still, it's got that Tales of the Unexpected 'bad guys get a fitting comeuppance' vibe to the ending, and the suspense (the uncertainty & apprehension) lies in not knowing exactly how/when they'll get that comeuppance.

I remember thinking Colby's story was pretty cool but not mind-blowing when I was a teenager. I think it's pretty cool but not mind-blowing now. I wonder if that's going to be a running theme with this book?

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Stories to be Read with the Lights On 2: Witness in the Dark by Fredric Brown

I'm continuing with my reread of Stories to be Read with Lights On today. As I said in the previous post, I don't think I'm going to be doing a story-a-day reread, but just story-by-story as and when I can. I did have a bit of a wobble when I read the first story and didn't remember anything about it, in case it turned out my fondness for this book was based on a false memory of reading the book as a teenager. Fortunately, that feeling was dispelled with the second story!

I had a massive wave of nostalgia reading 'Witness in the Dark'. I could even picture where I was the first time I read it (particularly the 'all cats be grey' lines), so that was a bit more reassuring.

'Witness in the Dark' is much more of a crime story than a horror story ('Death Out of Season' probably leans slightly the other way). So I think it's worth remembering that Stories to be Read with the Lights On isn't actually meant to be a horror collection. The introduction (supposedly by Hitchcock himself, but I doubt he personally wrote it) says the selected stories are 'startling, horrifying perhaps', but the overarching genre is 'suspense'. Suspense is defined here (as per the dictionary) as 'uncertainty accompanied by apprehension'. But I think for publishing purposes, it's very much being used as the 'Alfred Hitchcock Brand'. That kinda makes sense as a genre to me. According to the acknowledgements, quite a few of the stories in this collection were previously published in either Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine or Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, which very much fits with this idea of an 'Alfred Hitchcock Brand' story.

Brown's story is about a murder committed in the bedroom of a man who has temporarily lost his sight (he is the 'witness in the dark'), and it's got a nice layer of uncertainty and apprehension to that set-up. I think what I liked about it when I was a teen (being a fan of classic detective fiction) is that, for all its atmosphere of suspense, there's still a mystery here and there are clues along the way to allow the reader to (potentially) solve it. Does it hold up now? Yes - I think so. It's a bit dated in terms of its style and aesthetic, but given it was first published in the 50s, it would've seemed retro when the collection came out in the 70s too.

I'm just glad I remembered this one, to be honest!

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Stories to be Read with the Lights On 1: Death Out of Season by Mary Barrett

On my mystery (birthday) themed episode of Hannah's Bookshelf on North Manchester FM earlier this month, I talked about an 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents...' book called Stories to be Read With the Lights On. I mentioned that I got my copy of the book at some point in the 1990s from a jumble sale or charity shop (not sure which) & that I have good memories of reading some of the stories in my teens.

I was curious about what it would be like to go back to it again as an adult. Would it be nostalgic? Would the stories appeal to adult-me as much as they did to teenage-me? I boldly suggested on the show that I would do a full re-read of the book to find out, and so that's what I'm going to do. I was originally going to do a story-a-day reread, but this week has already thrown me off schedule. So it'll be story-by-story, but some days there might be more than one (and some days less!).

The first story in the book is 'Death Out of Season' by Mary Barrett. Let's go...

And a bit of a curveball at the start... I don't remember a single thing about this story! Hmmm... I thought it might all come rushing back to me when I started reading it, but I now I'm just worried that maybe I didn't read this book when I was a teenager after all! Still, even though I don't remember reading it before, I enjoyed Barrett's story. It's got that Tales of the Unexpected feel to it, and an ending that's satisfying although not wholly unpredictable.

Miss Witherspoon is an eccentric and reclusive older lady who spends most of her time tending her garden and making what her glamorous neighbour dismissively calls her 'little May baskets'. What I like about this story is that it's a bit like Se7en, but with an old lady in the John Doe role. In some ways, Miss Witherspoon is a much more unsettling villain as well.

And although I don't remember anything about the specifics of Barrett's story, it's very much in the tone and style I remembered the book having. Not sure why this one didn't stick in my memory, but I enjoyed (re)reading it!

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My Year in Books 2021: July

Time for my monthly round-up of the books I've read for pleasure recently, and once again it's a short post. My to-read pile is getting dangerously tall, so hopefully I'll be able to catch-up a bit and have more to share next month.

In case you're interested, here are my posts from the rest of the year: January, February, March, April, May, June

And here are the books I read in July...

Bone Harvest by James Brogden (2020)

The first book on this month’s list was very nearly the final book on last month’s. It’s another from my Abominable Books pile, and it’s another bit of surprise folk horror. I don’t know why, but I had it in my head that this was another American novel (this is what comes of my resistance to reading blurbs before I start reading!). In fact, Bone Harvest is set in the UK, mostly around the English-Welsh border and then in Staffordshire. And I’ll say right off – I loved this one, despite not being the world’s biggest folk horror fan. The story begins with an unnamed man deserting in the trenches of WWI (he continues to be technically unnamed throughout the book, though he adopts the name Everett from some stolen dog tags). As the deserter moves amongst the carnage of the war, he meets with the ‘No Men’ and is introduced to the religion of Moccus, a pre-Christian deity whose followers consume their god’s flesh in a cyclical ritual. When he returns to the UK, the deserter seeks out those followers and becomes an acolyte of Moccus. The first half (roughly) of the novel was really striking and totally unsettling, and I was fascinated by the deserter as a character. However, the book really comes into its own in the second half as we move into the present day and to a wonderful setting for folk horror: allotments. This one is a real page-turner with a rich story and excellent characterization.

Sealand: The True Story of the World's Most Stubborn Micronation by Dylan Taylor-Lehman (2020)

I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole earlier this year. When Prince Phillip was first taken to hospital, I noticed a number of strange Twitter accounts sending him their (rather formal) regards. Each account looked like an ‘official’ account of an embassy or other state functionary, complete with crests or other state insignia, but all of them had names that were nothing like any country I’d ever seen before. Intrigued, I looked one of the names up and discovered it was the name of a micronation: a small ‘country’, founded by an individual, with claims of sovereign identity despite existing within the boundaries of another country’s territory. I started reading about the history and theory behind micronations – from the serious attempts at secession (sometimes for tax purposes) to the more frivolous home-based projects – and I couldn’t help but notice the name ‘Sealand’ kept popping up. And with good reason, it turns out. Sealand is one of the longest-standing, but also (arguably) the most successful micronation. Founded in 1967 on a disused naval fort off the coast at Southend, Sealand is a ‘principality’ ruled by an eccentric ‘royal family’ who have seen off numerous attempts to usurp them over the years. Taylor-Lehman’s book takes us through the hilarious, terrifying and occasionally downright unbelievable story of the Bates family and their concrete micronation. I can’t do justice to how bonkers the story is – and I’d definitely recommend reading the book to learn more. It’s even stranger than you might think.

The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History by Edward Brooke-Hitching (2020)

I read a review of The Madman’s Library in the Manchester Review of Books earlier this year, and I knew it would be right up my street. Interestingly, I’d bought a copy of one of the author’s other books – The Phantom Atlas – as a birthday present for my brother, but I didn’t realize it was by the same author until I was part way through The Madman’s Library. We’re going to do a swap, so I might write about The Phantom Atlas in the future. For now… The Madman’s Library is a beautifully illustrated coffee-table-type book about curiosities from the world of literature. Some of these are well-known – the Voynich manuscript gets some attention, as does the Codex Gigas (aka the Devil’s Bible) – but there’s an absolute wealth of other, more obscure stories here that are a delight to dip into. Some books are just bizarre or baffling, but others reveal a lot about the history of literature, writing and bookbinding. Most of the books discussed are unique (in one way or another) artifacts, so this isn’t a timeline of the development of the book. It’s arranged thematically rather than chronologically so you can dip in and out of different types of strangeness (one grisly chapter looks at ‘Books of Flesh and Blood’, for instance, and another ‘Cryptic Books’). I personally enjoyed ‘Literary Hoaxes’, many of which were new to me. This one is a strong recommendation for people interested in the weirder side of the history of the book.

Review: The Global Playground (Theatre-Rites, Manchester International Festival)

Sunday 4th July 2021
Manchester International Festival
Great Northern Warehouse

On Sunday 4th July, I was at Great Northern Warehouse to watch The Global Playground by Theatre-Rites, one of the shows at this year’s Manchester International Festival. This was a big event for me, as not only was it the beginning of this year’s festival, but it was also my first piece of live theatre since February 2020. I’ve been reviewing productions for this blog and for North Manchester FM throughout lockdown, but these have all been digital shows. Sunday marked my first time in a theatre space since before the first lockdown began (and I want to give credit to the staff at Great Northern Warehouse and the Manchester International Festival volunteers for the brilliant work they’ve done to make the space seem welcoming, comfortable and safe).

My radio review of The Global Playground will be going out on North Manchester FM this week, and on Hannah’s Bookshelf later this month, but here’s the blog version...

Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

The Global Playground is a family-family production by acclaimed children’s theatre company Theatre-Rites. The show is premiering at Manchester International Festival and, alongside the live shows, there will also be a film version of the show available online.

The phrase ‘family-friendly production’ might not be one that you associate with Manchester International Festival. The festival prides itself on featuring challenging, ground-breaking and provocative art from internationally acclaimed writers, producers and performers. Perhaps you might find it hard to imagine that the description ‘challenging, ground-breaking and provocative’ could apply to a show aimed at eight-year-olds and up. And yet, that is exactly the kind of work that Theatre-Rites have been producing for the past quarter of a century (this year marks the company’s twenty-fifth birthday).

The Global Playground is a dance performance, featuring a little bit of live musical performance, a little bit of filmed footage, and a little bit of puppetry. It’s performed in the round, with the stage transformed into a film studio. Sean (played by Sean Garratt – each of the performers uses their own name in the show) is trying to make a dance film and is waiting for his performers to arrive. We get a little glimpse of puppetry at the beginning, as Sean introduces us to his lightly anthropomorphized camera, to which he speaks throughout.

But it’s not long before the human performers start to arrive on stage, each signalling their arrival with a dance performance. First is Annie (Annie Edwards), then Jahmarley (Jahmarley Bachelor), and then Kennedy (Kennedy Junior Muntanga) and Charmene (Charmene Pang). As the dancers arrive, tensions start to emerge. Sean is stressed about getting his film made – the film’s composer (Ayanna Witter) hasn’t been able to come, and has sent an alternative musician in her place (Merlin Jones). He is so distracted when Annie arrives that she almost walks off the set when he ignores her. And Kennedy was supposed to be performing a duet with another dancer – Thulani (Thulani Chauke) – who hasn’t been able to make it.

While this last detail fits well with the stress and tension of the opening section of the show – where Sean moves around the stage, attempting to set up his camera, shouting at his production assistant, and worrying about whether the project will come together – it was actually added to the show when real-life intervened. South African dancer Thulani was unable to travel to Manchester to perform in the show, and so his duet performance with Kennedy is achieved through the use of projected film mimicking a video call. Although this is a necessary response to real-life circumstances, it was integrated really well into the performance, with the ‘video call’ conceit (complete with glitches and buffering echoed through the sharp jerky movements of a frustrated Kennedy on stage) drawing attention to some of the themes that will subtly emerge through the production as a whole.

The opening dance performances – coupled with Sean’s gently comedic performance as the slightly highly-strung filmmaker with a job to do – feel a little fragmented, as though the cast are somewhat hesitant in bringing their individual performances together. That’s not to say the opening isn’t joyful and exuberant, with high-energy solo performances merging into pairings and ensemble moves. However, the vague feeling of hesitancy about the ensemble performances are building the audience up for the overarching theme of what we’re watching.

Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

For the adults in the audience, this fragmented feeling might lead to a bit of uncertainty. But I wonder if the children understood better what was going on. Theatre-Rites are leading proponents of challenging theatre for children – they believe in approaching theatre for younger audiences with the same seriousness and depth as productions for adults. Nevertheless, there was clearly no desire to baffle or bemuse their younger audience members. While the choreography (by Gregory Maqoma) and performances were striking, and designed to push at the limits of youthful attention spans, the story here will have been familiar ground for the kids. Sean wants to make a film, but he and his friends keep squabbling about things – they’ll only be able to achieve what they want to achieve when they put their disagreements behind them and work together.

And, indeed, that is what The Global Playground is about. This aspect of the story really comes to the fore when Sean is sent a surprise package: his ‘American funders’ have decided that the film needs a puppet, and so they’ve sent him a puppet. Garratt’s puppetry skills were put to good use with the arrival of the fluffy, bright orange addition to the cast (including performing a song, which is certainly worthy of respect!). However, what really struck me when the puppet came out of the box was the wave of recognition from the kids in the theatre. It was like they knew immediately what this orange thing meant, and there was a really heart-warming immediacy in their reaction to it. It says a lot about Garratt’s abilities, but also about puppetry more widely, that the children in the audience related to it straightaway. (I’m not going to lie… this adult did a bit as well!)

Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

The Global Playground is a show about the connections we make with one another, and how we can achieve our ambitions when we collaborate with others – including people of different backgrounds – and when we focus on a shared goal. This aspect of the story comes together in an exhilarating celebratory performance towards the end, which allows percussionist Merlin Jones to really drive the mood and energy alongside the dancers.

In addition to this, this is a show about the ways in which the circumstances of the modern world (the very modern world – the spectre of lockdown haunts the edges of this production in subtle and complex ways) can both augment and frustrate our desire to make connections with others. Ingrid Hu’s design – with Sue Buckmaster’s direction – make the film stage into an interactive space, where the tools of filmmaking (tripods, lights, reflectors) are repurposed and integrated into the dancers’ performances, as props, costumes and stage sets. Like Sean’s anthropomorphized camera, even the most blankly material object becomes humanized as the dancers reimagine them.

There is a dark side to this, as the show takes on a more ominous tone. Dry ice that was sprayed onto stage by Annie in a fit of gleeful mischief becomes a fog; lightboxes that had been tossed around in fun become hiding places, and the camera re-emerges as a surveillant monster, red eyes seeking out the cowering dancers. While Annie, Jahmarley, Kennedy and Charmene survive this – of course – a sense of doubt lingers even in the final celebration of a job well done, when we watch Sean’s film and find that his camera has been actively editing the footage he’s recorded. The film we see is moving and triumphant… but it’s not actually what we’ve experienced in real-life.

And it’s in this that The Global Playground is at its most thought-provoking. I don’t know whether the children in the audience will have made the direct connection between the ambiguous character of the camera, the subtle questioning of digital vs real-life connections, and their (for most) recent experiences of online learning and family-time-via-Zoom, but it is to Theatre-Rites’ credit that they offered this subtext to their audience, to inspire and provoke the imaginations of both young and… well… not so young.

Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

Of course, as the show’s title suggests, The Global Playground is very much about fun and play as well. The energetic and joyful performances by the dancers, as well as a gently comedic turn from Garratt, make this show a lot of fun to watch. Particularly in the second half of the show, it’s very easy to get swept up in the movement and sounds – with Maqoma’s choreography switching seamlessly between styles and tempos – and in the impressive integration of props and set-dressing by the performers.

This is very much a ‘family friendly’ show – but not the one you might expect. It’s intelligent, stylized and laden with subtext, but, in my opinion, Theatre-Rites have pulled off the impressive feat of making this enjoyable for a mixed-age audience, without ever talking down to the younger members or giving sly winks to the adults over their heads.

Overall, I enjoyed The Global Playground. It’s a surprising and unexpected production that is at once exuberant and thought-provoking. The show is suitable for over-8s, but I’m not sure there’s really a maximum age!

The Global Playground is on at Great Northern Warehouse until Sunday 18th July, as part of Manchester International Festival. It will also be presented digitally, as a film version. For more information, and for tickets, please visit the Manchester International Festival website.

My Year in Books 2021: June

Time for my monthly round-up of the books I read for pleasure last month. Only three books on this list this time. I am about two-thirds of the way through a book I'm really enjoying, but I didn't quite finish it in time to include it in this month's post. I guess it'll have to wait until July. For now, here are my mini-reviews of the books I actually finished in June.

In case you're interested, here are my reviews from previous months: January, February, March, April, May

Madam by Phoebe Wynne (2021)

A while ago, I signed up for something called Secret Readers from Hachette. It seemed to be a project where readers were given access to read an eBook (either pre- or post-publication) so that they could give some feedback afterwards. It was advertised as ‘get a free eBook’, but it was obviously more about gathering reviews and responses to recent titles. Either way, I didn’t hear anything back for them for a while, and then when I did I couldn’t work out how to access/read the ‘free eBook’. Out of the blue, I got an email from them this month offering me a choice of three titles, so I thought I might give it another go. I chose Madam, and I read it on the rather frustrating browser version of the proprietary e-reader (but I’m not reviewing that, so I’ll let that go). Madam is set in the early 1990s. A young Classics teacher called Rose is offered a job at a prestigious girls’ boarding school. When she gets there, it quickly becomes apparent that there’s something quite quite wrong at Caldonbrae Hall. While there are shades of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and also of Carol Goodman’s The Lake of Dead Languages (which I read that last year), the plot also bears some similarities with Never Let Me Go. However, while Madam has its charms, the revelations are a bit implausible here, and I’m not a fan of vague shadowy organizations with inexplicable omnipotence. Not a strong recommendation.

The Apartment by K.L. Slater (2020)

And now another book that I read because I was offered a free eBook (okay, not strictly ‘free’, but included with my Prime membership). The Apartment looked to be fairly standard domestic noir stuff: Freya Miller and her young daughter are looking for somewhere to live, when a chance encounter in a coffee shop brings her an offer of an unbelievably cheap apartment for rent. Is this offer too good to be true? Of course it is. Will that encounter turn out to have been less of a chance? Of course it will. I started this one thinking I might quite like it, but I’m afraid it wore thin rather quickly. Freya makes a lot of very silly decisions – even by the standards of the genres – and her daughter is the least convincing five-year-old ever. A couple of the other tenants in the strange apartment block are curiously engaging, but it’s just quite hard to buy into the protagonist’s predicament. I had an uneasy feeling from the start of this one that the big reveal was going to be implausible – and that turned out to be the case. Again, even by the standards of the subgenre, I struggled to believe in what was revealed. It’s a bit of a shame, because the set-up is pretty intriguing, and there were some aspects of the creepy apartment building that did capture my interest. Overall, though, this one was a bit of a disappointment. I should probably avoid free eBooks for a while.

The House of a Hundred Whispers by Graham Masterton (2020)

Leaving aside the free eBooks, I turned back to my sometimes-neglected Abominable Books pile. The House of a Hundred Whispers was one of the recent featured books (I think it might have been in last month’s parcel). From the blurb, it looked like a haunted house story set on Dartmoor. And I guess it is a haunted house story set on Dartmoor… but it’s also something else (and it’s not your average haunting either). The book begins with the death of Herbert Russell, former governor of Dartmoor Prison. His estranged children arrive at Allhallows Hall, Russell’s rambling Tudor mansion, to attend the reading of his will. The will holds some surprises for the family, but there are more shocks to come when Herbert’s grandson Timmy disappears, and the family starts to realize that there’s something not right at Allhallows Hall. As I say, this isn’t your average haunted house. I liked the reveal of what is haunting the house, and the deeper story of how and why it’s happening is well-done. But what I really enjoyed was the sense of place, story and history that imbue Masterton’s version of Dartmoor. My only real criticism here is that the characters and their motivations sometimes strain credibility a little – I couldn’t always believe their reactions to the building horror. Some of the characters (particularly the police who are searching for Timmy) are a bit quick to swallow the Russells’ tales of supernatural occurrences at the house! Overall, though, I enjoyed this one.

My Year in Books 2021: May

Time for my monthly mini-reviews round-up post, and I'm afraid it's another short one. This month has flown by, and I just don't seem to have had much time for reading (outside the books that I read for review and research, but I never include those in these posts). Interestingly, there is a little bit of a theme (certainly with the last two books on this list). I found myself using the same words ('muted', 'melancholy') to describe books published over the past year by writers whose previous work wouldn't usually be described in that way. I'm wondering whether that's an indication of a 'lockdown effect' on their writing, or a 'lockdown effect' on the way I'm responding as a reader. Or maybe it's just a coincidence!

In case you're interested, here are the posts from the rest of the year: January, February, March, April. And here are my reviews for May...

Maggie's Grave by David Sodergren (2020)

Still trying to catch up with the towering pile I’ve got from my Abominable Books subscription! I can’t remember which month I got Maggie’s Grave, but it seemed like high time I read it. This one was very much a game of two halves for me: one aspect I loved, and another not so much. So… the bit I loved… Maggie’s Grave is set in Auchenmullan, a small Scottish town that’s well-nigh deserted since the last employers closed up shop and people started moving out. The town is cursed, partly by the circumstances of the post-industrial modern world and partly by something else (which I’ll come to shortly). I really enjoyed the way Sodergren evokes the dying town of Auchenmullan. There’s something beautifully unsettling about the empty streets with just a single occupied house, and the beleaguered bowling alley that’s the town’s last remaining business. However, while I would happily have read a slow-burn weird-fiction horror set in Auchenmullan, that’s not what Maggie’s Grave is. It’s a much more in-your-face gory tale about a witch who was executed in the town and comes back periodically to take revenge. The death of Maggie Wall is described in detail in the opening chapter, so there’s no mystery here, and the rest of the story is mostly a series of cinematic bloody set-pieces as the (somewhat underdeveloped) main characters try to evade the supernatural enemy (and some human ones as well). Maggie’s Grave has its appeal, but it’s not quite to my tastes.

The Night Gate by Peter May (2021)

This next book was a bit of surprise – and by that I mean I genuinely wasn’t expecting it to be written. If you’ve read my previous blogs, you’ll know that Peter May’s Enzo Macleod books are my comfort-reading series. I’ve read all them several times, and I reread the whole series (again) during lockdown. In my previous blogs, I’ve talked about Cast Iron as the finale to the series – because I believed it was. And I was right… until this year. Plot twist: May wrote and published another (final?) Enzo novel during lockdown, which brings Enzo’s story up to the present day. We rejoin Enzo years after the dramatic conclusion of Cast Iron. Not only is he older, he’s remarried, retired and living in Cahors during a pandemic. And yet he still manages to get drawn into a cold case involving the discovery of the remains of a German WWII airman in a small French village. It’s not long before the case gets a bit warmer, though, as a present-day murder occurs shortly afterwards. There’s a more melancholy tone to The Night Gate than the previous books in the series – and not just because of the COVID backdrop. Growing old doesn’t really suit Enzo, and growing up hasn’t been easy for his daughters and sons-in-law either. Overall, it’s a far more muted end to the series than Cast Iron was. At times, the story of the (well-crafted) WWII-era mystery dominates a bit as well, so this isn’t solely Enzo’s story.

If It Bleeds by Stephen King (2020)

Next, I went back to catching up my Abominable Books pile. This one was my mystery second-hand book last month, so it came wrapped in brown paper, string and a wax seal. Very exciting! This is a collection of four novellas from King that was published last year. The title novella is a story in King’s crime series (which began with Mr Mercedes) and a sequel to The Outsider. It’s the first story to feature Holly Gibney, a minor character in previous books, as the protagonist. As it really is a sequel, I found it a little hard to follow at times as I haven’t read The Outsider. In fact, I haven’t read any of King’s crime novels, so I was occasionally confused by mentions of other characters and plots. I did enjoy the central premise though, so maybe it’s on me for reading out of sequence. The other stories here were good solid King fare – though perhaps a little muted compared to some of his other work. Mr Harrigan’s Phone is a typically Stephen King take on the idea of someone being buried with their mobile phone; Rat treads familiar ground with its story about a writer locking himself away to finish his work and… not doing so well. My favourite of the four was definitely The Life of Chuck, a three-part story told in reverse. It’s a more melancholic and beautiful take on humanity than you might be expecting, and it’s certainly the most thought-provoking of the four.