Boredom and boners in The Red Barn

I don’t think it ruins the occasion to advertise the fact that Debicki strips to the waist at one crucial point, summoning memories of Nicole Kidman in David Hare’s version of Schnitzler’s La Ronde, The Blue Room, a generation ago. I suspect this adaptation possesses a…

5 times I tried to write about Cock and Bull

1:

23 basic af things I did in 2016

1. Went to see a musical in a conference centre with 3500 other people.

On train stations

When Jeremy Deller was commissioned to make a living memorial to the Battle of the Somme, he didn’t stage it in a graveyard or a town square. Not a church or a hospital or a pub. He didn’t take it to veterans’ clubs, nor even to the actual killing fields, already permanently memorialised for…

Been to Edinburgh

5 nights. First time in 5 years. I can’t really tell if it’s changed. Because I’ve changed.

Last time I was booked in to between 7 and 9 shows a day even before I arrived. Then every night I went back to my room to write about the things I’d seen that day. Reading it…

All the Quarantine shows I’ve seen and everything I can remember from them (for now)

1. A Soldier’s Song

It was in Moor Street Station in Birmingham. A little shed. Two bored volunteers. One of them massively enthusiastic and animated as soon as he…

On Yerma

Have spent a couple of days arguing on Facebook about something I hoped I’d never even think about again, let alone argue: Yerma. There’s a…

The Children, by Lucy Kirkwood

In fading light 
on a shingle desert 
at the serrated edge 
of the dying world

there is a cottage without any power.

Anselm Kiefer

Walhalla

I hadn’t even heard of Anselm Kiefer until everyone started raving about his RAA retrospective in 2014, but walking through that exhibition felt like having my insides shredded with light. It dawned on me, still halfway round, what a strange phenomenon it must…