Missing Julie - by Kaite O'Reilly - Theatr Clwyd 17th Sep 2021 (Preview)

Theatr Clwyd - 2020 Regional Theatre of the Year. It’s easy to see why. During the darkest days of the pandemic, the theatre not only got involved with the local community, but it continued to strive to help creatives in the industry. An opportunity to stream several free online readings whilst the theatre curtain remained drawn was also grabbed.

On 5/11/2020, a reading of Kate O’Reilly’s brand-new play Missing Julie was aired. Over a coffee in the theatre, the foundations of relocating Strindberg’s classic Miss Julie to post-war Wales had begun to take shape. Performed by Sophie Melville (The Missing, The Pact); Tim Pritchett (Casualty, Black Mirror); and Victoria John (Miranda, Little Britain) I enjoyed the reading and looked forward to a time when the play would grace the stage of Theatr Clwyd.

Set in a Welsh stately home in 1921, just after the First World War, Missing Julie is described as a modern adaptation of Strindberg’s Miss Julie. Whilst the story has moved to a century ago, it still feels like a contemporary piece, but it allows the dynamic between the characters to be strengthened and throughout it still remains faithful to the original storyline. After the war was a period of grief and mourning, but for some it was also a period of change, of hope, of possibilities. Many men returned home with missing limbs and this play explores their lives and the interactions they had after returning home.

The play is performed in Theatr Clwyd’s “Emlyn Williams Theatr” an intimate space which allowed Georgia Lowe’s simplistic but effective traverse staged set design. Just like when I watched Miss Julie in Keswick a few years ago, https://www.imblatheringnow.com/2017/09/miss-julie-theatre-by-lake-keswick.html the audience watches the action from either side of a long kitchen table. Whilst Keswick’s set was a homely kitchen, this set is spartan matt black, with Perspex walls housing flood lights at either end. Large bells hang ominously from each corner of the set, and a large pan is set at the end of the table, bubbling above a burning flame.

Out of the cast who did the online reading, only Tim Pritchett as John remains. Heledd Gwynn takes on the titular role and her performance is mesmerising from the moment the lights go up on stage. Athletic and balletic, she contorts her body in all manner of shapes as John watches on, stating to Christine that the lady of the house has obviously lost her mind. Julie however is not a madwoman, but a heady mixture of contradictions. It is unsettling watching her as she sways from her desperate yearning to be with John, a man deemed to be beneath her, and her reliance on the shackles that bind her to her current lifestyle of the wealthy classes.

Rather than being abandoned by her fiancé, this Miss Julie’s world has been turned upside down as she has lost her man in the carnage of the trenches. She is one of the surplus women, destined to become a spinster. Her father’s servant John has lost a leg, we assume in the war, but it transpires that it was caused by a shooting accident in his youth. It’s not just John who is bearing scars of the past, Christine the cook is also dealing with her own loss; the grief she feels for her dead husband is palpable.

‘What do you know about magnificence?’

John is tired of being working-class, taking his orders from people who are no better than him. He aspires to better things, but this is a simple world of going to chapel, knowing your place and where having aspirations should be met with caution. John may appear to have certain limitations, but he will not let the loss of a limb stop him from pursuing a life away from servitude. He is Julie’s opposite in several ways. John and Julie continually bait and stalk each other throughout the play, but both give focused and assured performances maintaining a sizzling level of tension throughout. We know how the original story pans out, but maybe this time Julie will fathom out what she really wants.

Images as per Twitter Stream

Overseeing all the action is Christine, played by Catrin Aaron. All three actors remain on the stage throughout the play, and as she sleepwalks around the perimeter of the stage, the atmosphere becomes more claustrophobic. The old ways are being swept away and for her this is a heavy burden to bear. Her sudden outburst is heartfelt, and suddenly you realise that from the moment the play begins, to when she says to John “what do you know about magnificence?” she is the one who has the most tragic life of them all.

Whilst this isn’t radically different to the original play, it was thoroughly enjoyable to watch and to look through the eyes of a world that was on the cusp of change. Often disabled characters in classic plays are to be pitied or ridiculed, but Kaite O’Reilly has created an opportunity to give a voice to those who are overlooked or treated with contempt, and she has given them an inner strength. Setting it in a period where many men came back from the war supporting life changing injuries opened a conversation about how people with disabilities are treated, both then and now.

Missing Julie by Kaite O'Reilly

Theatr Clwyd - Emlyn Williams Theatre from 21 September until 9 October.

Running time 75 mins

Julie: Heledd Gwynn

Christine: Catrin Aaron

John: Tim Pritchett

Grayson’s Art Club – Manchester Art Gallery (August 2021)

For people of a certain vintage, they’d come home from school, be handed a glass of Kia-Ora and sit and watch Take Hart with the aroma of fish fingers, chips and beans wafting in the air. For the uninitiated, Take Hart was a BBC children’s TV programme about art, presented by a chap call Tony Hart, who had a Plasticine animated side-kick called Morph. Unlike progressive UK Governments, Tony could see the benefit of encouraging children to be creative. He would demonstrate small-scale projects you could easily try to recreate or adapt, and large-scale projects on the studio floor, or a beach which you’d just watch in amazement. There was a special part of the show “The Gallery” in which young viewers could send in their own artwork and if they were lucky, Tony would select their work and it would be shown on the TV.

The reason for my trip down memory lane is that during lockdown, Grayson Perry, one of Britain’s leading artists, took this idea one step further. No longer just the domain of young children, Grayson and his wife opened the doors of the artworld for everyone; no matter their age, or their ability, everyone was welcome at Art Club. The Channel 4 show was only 6 episodes long, but it quickly brought the British nation together during the first lockdown.

“We want to encourage everyone to express their creativity through art. Art is good for you, whoever you are.”

Each week, Grayson and Philippa would set a creative theme and people would submit their artwork to them. Alongside the artwork submitted by the public, celebratory guests contributed their artwork, and of course Philippa and Grayson shared their creativity with us too.

Nearly ten thousand people submitted their work to Grayson and Philippa, and art chosen by them, and their celebratory guests, was shared on national television and more latterly in an exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. Grayson was adamant that the exhibition would not be shown in London. In his own words, he loves London, it’s the centre of the British art world, but Art Club wasn’t for the art world, it was for the whole country.

Lockdown Two thwarted Grayson’s plans for opening the exhibition, however, it did allow us a second series of Art Club and offered six new themes for the nation to unleash their creativity. Family, nature, food, dreams, work and travel were the hot topics of series two and once again the country united to explore and share its artwork once more with Grayson, Philippa and Kevin the cat. The divided UK was again united, showing that making art unites us and comforts us in our times of need. Whether it’s going back to childhood with some Lego or grabbing a pencil and paper and scribbling away our unconscious thoughts or fears, art is the therapy that heled many people come to terms with being forced to stay at home.

Now the lockdowns have ended, Manchester Art Gallery is open, and the public can reminisce about those early, dark days of lockdown. The exhibition is an incredible reminder of what we, as a nation went through. It chronicles how we got through the changing mood of the pandemic, from one of fear, to one of anger, to one of unity and tolerance.  

Below are my personal favourites from the exhibition catagories:

Portraits

Grayson Perry 2020 by Nathan Wyburn

When I visit a gallery, I’m not immediately drawn to the portrait section. (Strange when you consider that for the last few years, I returned to drawing by doing portraits of my favourite actor Tom Burke.) I was pleasantly surprised by how many of the portraits spoke to me and there were a few pieces that really caught my attention, but I loved the simplicity of Nathan’s work; how by raiding a few condiments from the kitchen cupboard, he could produce a portrait of Grayson using soya sauce and noodles!

Animals 

Lockdown Birds 2020 by Paul Green

My favourite artist is Georges Stubbs; the way he captures the details of his animals, especially the horses he is famed for is sublime. I was captivated by several animal paintings in this exhibit, but it was these garden birds made of wire that stole this section. The attention to detail in these tiny sculptures brought home the joy these daily garden visitors gave me and watching them have the freedom to go wherever they wanted whilst I was being told I had to stay at home!

Fantasy

ComputerWorld 2020 by Alex Robinson

There was something so endearing about Alex’s fantasy Fimo clay models. They took me back to a time when it was acceptable to lose yourself in a world of make believe. Each character is unique, but all exhibit Alex’s personal style. Best of all, they made me smile, and what could be better than disappearing from the harshness of reality, to take time out and allow yourself to take in the joyfulness of these little characters. 

View From My Window 

Bearded Tit 2020 by Jim Muir (Vic Reeves)

I didn’t feel much connection with this category. I didn’t spend much time looking out of the window during lockdown, but if I did, it was watching the birds on the feeders. It’s like watching a soap opera being played out, the different birds playing their roles to aplomb. I really loved how Jim had stripped our feathered friends back to their most simplistic form and used bold primary colours – a bit of brightness and cheer in the dark days that stretched ahead of us.

Home

At home with my cats 2020 by Ania Newland

Ania’s painting stood out for me as it had an echo of a Mr Man book to it. I don’t make that comment flippantly or disrespectfully – it is the bright colours outlined in black that made the thought pop into my head. And what could be a more homely thought than being a child tucked up in bed having Mr Men books read to them? There was also a hint of longing to be the person sitting on the sofa surrounded by cats. When lockdown began, the only animals I had keeping me sane were the yard cats at work. Things are different now, and heaven forbid, if there’s another lockdown, I have a cat to share my sofa with!

Britain

Thursday 8pm 2020 by Jacqueline Taylor

This image was a stark reminder of lockdown. I think we’ve easily forgotten how bad the early days were, when you could only leave your house to go on a walk (on your own.) The car sat on the driveway unless you were going to work or the supermarket. There was a feeling of being trapped, your home suddenly became your prison; children stuck inside trying to find a way through the school day when formal schooling was no longer an option. And then, without warning, neighbourhoods were showing signs of solidarity – windows were being bestowed with children’s paintings of rainbows. This wasn’t a new concept, it had started in Italy, one of the first European countries to be hit hard by Covid. In Italy the art was accompanied by the phrase ‘Andrà Tutto Bene’, or All Will Be Well. The rainbow was a simple way for children to show their appreciation for the NHS – and on a Thursday evening at 8pm, residents up and down the country joined together and clapped for their overstretched NHS. If there is one piece of art in the whole exhibition which has a historical context to it, it’s this one. In ten years’ time, if we look at it again, those memories of lockdown will come flooding back.

Grayson’s Art Club exhibition feature art from series one is currently open at Manchester Art Gallery until 31st October 2021.

Grayson’s Art Club exhibition featuring art from series two is due to open at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery 4th December 2021 - 8th May 2022.

 

  PS. When you're leaving the exhibition - look closely in one of the cabinets in the tea exhibition...that Jane Austen pot doesn't just look like a Grayson Perry pot...it is a Grayson Perry pot!

A Splinter of Ice – Theatr Clwyd

📅 Sat 12^th June – Fri 25th June

Running time 2hrs 10 mins (inc interval) 

Betrayal. “I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” – E.M.Forster

Moscow, February 1987, two of the greatest 20^th Century novelists Graham Greene and the Soviet spy Kim Philby are reunited. Philby had been Greene’s supervisor and friend at MI6 30 years earlier, but at the time of the meeting Philby had long been exposed as a communist double agent and was living in Moscow with his final wife, Rufa – a Russian memoirist.

I had seen several advertisements on social media for The Original Theatre Company’s online recording of the production, and I was on the verge of buying a ticket when I spotted that the play was touring and coming to Theatr Clwyd. Whilst online plays have been a salvation throughout the pandemic, there is nothing to beat the feeling of sitting in a theatre watching a live production.

Graham Greene served in MI6 in the 1940s, which is where he met and became friends with Kim Philby, a double agent, who in 1963 was revealed as the “third man” in the Cambridge Spy Ring.  Ben Brown’s play imagines how the reunion between Greene and Philby would have played out and whether Philby not only betrayed his country, but whether he betrayed his friend as well. It also scratches under the surface of one of Greene’s most famous stories, The Third Man, which was released as both a film starring Orson Welles and a novella with which Greene could use as the basis for his film script. Questions arise during the evening as to how much of Philby’s secret life Greene was aware of, and whether he was the basis of the character Harry Lime.

The set is a simple affair, a Soviet-era drawing room in retro shades of yellow and brown, so the play relies on the strength and vigour of the conversations between the two men played by Olivier Award-winning Oliver Ford Davies (Game of Thrones, Star Wars) and Stephen Boxer (The Crown).

This is an extraordinary political drama exploring a long and unlikely friendship, woven of both loyalty and deceit; but throughout the play, we never really get to know either man well enough to condemn or acquit them for their actions. Brown’s dialogue is intelligent and often humorous, and both parts are played well enough, but there is a lack of depth and intensity between the two protagonists. It was hard to imagine either party had anything left in common with the other to want to “catch up on old times.” Greene made his name trivialising spying with his novels, Philby spent most of his life living in Russia feeling the aftereffects of his espionage after he was exposed.

The play commences with a lot of small talk over glasses of vodka, and we learn a lot about Philby’s life in Russia. He still enjoys reading The Times, his family ensures he has Scotch sent over, and there is the sense that whilst he has kissed Britain goodbye, there is still a thread tugging at him that he cannot let go of. We learn about Philby’s actions working at MI6 and the human cost his work as a spy took, but we never really get past the surface as to why he betrayed his country. Greene tries to subtly extract information from Philby but never really shows any intent, instead, Philby moves the focus onto whether he was the inspiration for Harry Lime in The Third Man, a belief that Greene is quick to quash.

There is a lot of background information supplied in the process of conversation about the events that happened in the 30 years before this meeting, but there is nothing substantial for the audience to be shocked or surprised at. “My book was published and you kindly wrote the foreword,” says Philby to Greene.

Why? Why did Philby write a book? What explosive content did it contain? Why was Greene asked to write the forward, and why did he agree? I suppose I’d better pick up a copy of “My Silent War” to find out! I presume there had to be something more substantial than just because they were friends and once worked together. And what was the real reason for Greene suddenly turning up? It was too convenient that he was in town for a star-studded peace conference and thought he would just drop by. Throughout the play, Philby seems on edge as he is questioned by his old friend; is this because the friend cannot be trusted and is still the enemy?

The most enthralling part of the play is when Greene challenges Philby about agents sent behind enemy lines to what would be certain death; and how being a spy questions a person’s loyalty to their friends and family, and with that, their morality. Philby confesses to betraying his own father and about the innocent lives which were lost because of his espionage (although he claimed many were ex-Nazi anyway and somehow deserved their fate), but he also claimed he was never a double agent. He seemed at peace with his decisions, but as the play drew to a close, Philby’s wife, who for most of the first act is just seen taking Greene’s coat before ushering him to the drawing room and then scurrying off to the kitchen, fills in yet more of Philby’s backstory. It seems that Philby lives a solitary life in Moscow, his inability to speak Russian means he cannot partake in a full social life, and his former career as a spy means that people don’t wish to know him. He is reliant on Rufa for everything. Philby states he has no regrets about his past, but as the final sombre scenes play out, he cuts a dejected and lonely figure on the stage.

The premise of the play is an exciting one, the audience has been invited to watch a fascinating moment in history when two great men meet, but they are let down by a script that neither takes us deep to the heart of either man or one that attempts to understand their motivations; especially the motivations of Philby who moved from a communist allegiance as a student and moved onto passing secrets to the Soviets, culminating in the certain deaths of many agents. Graham Greene famously stated that there was a “splinter of ice in the heart of a writer” – meaning that whilst the writer can empathise with a person’s suffering, there is observation and notetaking being done in the background ready to be shared in a later book. Maybe that is why this play doesn’t have the answers we crave, or perhaps it’s just that both individuals took their secrets to the grave.

(Viewed Thursday 24th June)

A Splinter of Ice UK Tour 2021

Starring Oliver Ford Davies (Game of Thrones, Star Wars) as Graham Greene, Stephen Boxer (The Crown) as Kim Philby and Karen Ascoe as Rufa Philby.

8 - 12 June - MALVERN Festival Theatre - www.malvern-theatres.co.uk 

15 - 19 June - GUILDFORD Yvonne Arnaud Theatre - www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk 

21 - 26 June - MOLD Theatr Clwyd - www.theatrclwyd.com 

28 June - 3 July - BATH Theatre Royal - www.theatreroyal.org.uk 

6 - 10 July - YORK, Theatre Royal York - www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk 

13 - 17 July - EDINBURGH King’s Theatre - www.capitaltheatres.com 

19 - 24 July - CAMBRIDGE, Cambridge Arts - www.cambridgeartstheatre.com 

 

ONLINE

Starring Oliver Ford Davies (Game of Thrones, Star Wars) as Graham Greene, Stephen Boxer (The Crown) as Kim Philby and Sara Crowe (Four Weddings and a Funeral) as Rufa Philby.

Tickets:

Standard - £20

Supporter Package - £22.50 - Includes digital programme 

Premium Package - £100 - Includes signed script by a creative team member of your choice, digital programme and supporter credit on the final films.

Watch anytime, as many times as you like until 31 July 2021. Available worldwide.

For The Grace Of You Go I by Alan Harris – Theatr Clwyd

📅 Sat 12^th June – Fri 25th June

Running time 1hr 15 mins 

Jim’s life is going nowhere. He spends his days topping pizzas with pepperoni. He thinks he has found the answer to his problems whilst watching the film “I Hired a Contract Killer.”All he has to do is get someone to kill him. What on earth could go wrong with that?

This is my second post-Covid show at Theatr Clwyd and on first sight the stage is an assault on the eyeballs, all acid green, bubble gum pink and sunshine yellow. But don’t let the Crayola crayon set fool you, Welsh writer Alan Harris has delivered a darkly comic play with a poignant message running through it.

The tale is a three-hander, focusing on Jim, excellently played by the haunting Rhodri Meilir (Hidden/My family) who, following the death of his mother, has been suffering from the mental health condition, depersonalisation disorder. 

As part of a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) pilot scheme, Jim has been selected to work on the production line of an artisan pizza company. His job is to ensure that he puts the requisite pieces of pepperoni on a pizza, in the manner of a handcrafted pizza, not as though a robot had done it. Despite his best efforts, Jim never quite manages to hit his productivity quota, causing his manager Irina (Remy Beasley – Stella/The Salisbury Poisonings) to intervene which gives the audience an insight into the pressures she is being put under by her boss. Rather than Irina’s pep-talk buoying Jim on, he instead arranges the meat on his pizzas into messages, desperate cries for help in meat form. 

Jim meets Mark (Darren Jeffries – Hollyoaks) at a film club for people suffering with their mental health. Unbeknown to Jim, Mark is married to his boss Irina. Following a viewing of Aki Kaurismäki’s film “I Hired a Contract Killer” Jim asks Mark to kill him – it’s the only way he believes he can find peace from the banality of everyday life. 

The narrative of the film begins to weave into their lives, and this is echoed by partly staging the show via video. As the film is shown on several screens peppered across the stage, Jim mirrors the words and movement of the film. There’s an almost balletic quality in his movements which are mesmerising. Here is a man completely on the edge of society, failed by the state which should be there to protect him and provide him with some dignity, but instead is exploiting him in a work scheme which he is set to fail at from the very beginning.

The play was originally due to premiere at Theatr Clwyd in 2020, and it was great to finally be able to sit inside a theatre and watch real people on a real stage. During lockdown, Theatr Clwyd staged an online reading of another play by Alan Harris – Love, Lies and Taxidermy; an offbeat tale of the son of a Polish taxidermist going on a first date with the daughter of a failing ice-cream salesman in a Tesco in Merthyr Tydfil. Both plays showed Harris’s compassion for his characters, and whilst I was in awe of the staging, the acting and the sensitivity in the writing, I couldn’t help but find myself thinking it was lacking in something I couldn’t put my finger on.

It was an ambitious production taking on the subject of mental health in a dark but comedic way, showing how society thinks that with a catchy self-care slogan people’s conditions will miraculously fade away. However, as a piece of metatheatre, where the audience is both laughing and feeling empathy to a character, I think the farcical or more ludicrous elements of the show were lost because they faded into the characters’ normal lives and so elements of the play became a little confused.

All in all, I thought it was an enjoyable drama and I hope that when theatres get back on their feet, that this play is given the opportunity to tour as it’s well worth watching. For those who have been unable to watch, the script is available from Nick Hern Books and other good retailers.

(Viewed Saturday 19th June 2021)

UPDATE

If you missed watching this fabulous production, you can watch online until Wednesday 14th July. If you're a Theatr Clwyd member you can watch for free. Head to the website for full details.

https://www.theatrclwyd.com/event/for-the-grace-of-you-go-i-online?utm_campaign=12496371_For%20The%20Grace%20Of%20You%20Go%20I%20-%20ONLINE%20%28general%29&utm_medium=E-mail&utm_source=Theatr%20Clwyd%20E-mail&dm_i=1FDJ,7FU9F,807YTR,U8AO6,1

Blindness – Theatr Clwyd (Adaptation by Simon Stephen)

Apparently, I’ve been languishing. Organisational psychologist Adam Grant, PhD, wrote in a recent article in the New York Times, that languishing is "a sense of stagnation and emptiness." Whilst in this state, you may not see the point of things; simple pleasures lose all meaning, you lack any sense of purpose, basically you are feeling a bit "meh."

I can attest to that. A global pandemic sort of does that to you. What’s the point of booking a holiday when you know the chances of it being cancelled are so high? Last year I ended up taking my summer holiday in December. Why organise meeting friends when the border between England and Wales keeps opening and closing with more regularity than Tower Bridge? My second “home” at Theatr Clwyd was closed, along with theatres up and down the UK, so there was nothing to get excited about – let alone blog about. Happily, things are now starting to change, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Blindness – Theatr Clwyd – Thursday 17^th June

📅 Mon 14^th June – Sat 19th June

Running time 70 mins 

In the heart of a European city, the lights change at a major crossroads. A car grinds to a halt. Its driver, without warning, has gone blind. Within hours, it becomes obvious that this blindness has started to spread throughout the city. The government tries to contain what has become an epidemic by quarantining those infected in a disused asylum. In a panic driven city, are these measures enough, or will they contribute to something more sinister? 

It feels so strange to finally be walking back through the theatre doors. Even stranger, after sanitising my hands and giving my contact details, I’m told to sit down in the bar and someone will come for me. I’m then called forward and asked to accompany a member of staff through the door reserved for actors/staff. I walk onto a very dark stage. I’m told there will only be three ticket holders for this performance, but that a member of staff will sit with us for the duration of the performance. I’m shown to my seat and told to put on the headphones that are laid out for me. I’m also told there is a torch beneath my seat should I feel the need to use it to make my escape…but if I leave, I won’t be allowed to return.

Troubled Blood – Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)

2020, the year of constant surprises. I’ve never been a huge JK Rowling fan (I mean her books, not the person.  I’ve never met the woman so I can’t comment on her personally, unlike the Twitter dunderheads who like to misconstrue everything they read.) I have to give her credit for her vivid imagination and her wealth of knowledge and the amount of research she must undertake before putting pen to paper, but for me, her writing is prone to too much repetition which detracts from what could be an excellent read.

So why do I read the Strike books if I’m not a fan of her writing? Easy. Tom Burke plays the lead in the TV adaptations and with it he has brought an interesting, complex character to life, one full of charm, charisma, and sparkle. I’ve become invested in the character; I want to know what the next instalment is about and what the future holds for Strike. So, for me to keep up with Strike, and to not feel like I’m wasting any of my day, I turned to Audible books for both Lethal White and Troubled Blood. This way I could go for a walk or do chores and “read” at the same time.

As the orotund voice of Robert Glenister began permeating my ears, I realised that the format of this book was to be the same as the others. Each chapter to be preceded by a quotation…this time it was Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen. I hit pause, puzzled. It rang a distant bell in my memory and so I trotted over to the bookcase and pulled out my battered Norton’s Anthology of English Literature. Ah yes…there it was…battered and having obviously seen all of its 25 years of service, there was the page marker for Edmund Spencer, and more importantly the Cantos of The Fairey Queen. Forgetting I was supposed to be listening to Strikes adventures, I started pouring over the old verses and the associated notes I’d scribbled throughout the margins. 

Chekov or Hemingway?

Anyone familiar with Chekov will undoubtedly remember his principal “If in Act One you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act.” As we enter Strikes world for the fifth time, we find him in Cornwall, visiting his terminally ill aunt, and catching up with his oldest friend Dave Polworth in the pub. The question of marriage arises, and in the defence of marriage, Polworth quotes from another Russian literary giant, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.  With Strike coming back to his childhood “home” Cornwall and all the people he loved there, Robin dealing with a long and acrimonious divorce, and Strike’s ex Charlotte causing him no end of emotional reckoning, surely the poignant quote must have a bearing by the end of the novel. Or is JKR following Hemingway, whereby inconsequential details are just part of the plot?

In a departure for Strike and Robin, they take on the 40-year-old cold case of a doctor who mysteriously vanished one night. The client gives Strike a year to solve the case, and what a year it will be for both Cormoran and Robin. Many of the original witnesses for the case are dead, and for those still alive, how accurate will their memory of events be? Looking through the notes of the original chief detective on the case, it was apparent he was suffering with his mental health. Were his notes a sign of madness, or was there something more to his readings of tarot and astrological charts?

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil & The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt (Paperback)

I'm sat in a gorgeous chalet in the middle of a working farm, bedecked with Christmas lights, surrounded by various livestock in Lauder, Scotland. Being December, it means long evenings in which to amuse oneself; it is the perfect setting to sit wallowing in a hot tub but I needed books I wouldn't mind getting a bit damp! Two books I bought in a charity shop were the solution:

"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is based on a true story. A crime classic published in 1994, set in a world of highly original literary characters who only require the author to weave their tales together to produce this compelling gothic tale of a Savannah society. Settling back, mug of tea in hand, I travelled to America to be alarmed, entertained, to laugh out loud and gasp in shock with these overtly colourful characters.

The main narrative of the book is the shooting of Danny Hansford. Shots are heard ringing out of the home of respected antiques dealer Jim Williams in the early hours of 2^nd May 1981. For a decade, the question that required an answer was whether the shooting was murder or self-defence. Jim Williams maintained that the killing was in self-defence and that Danny (his employee and also a male prostitute) was prone to losing his temper, and, on this occasion, had grabbed a gun that was on display and pointed it at him. He had therefore shot back to protect himself and he testified that the murder had not been premeditated in any way. The complexities around the shooting, and a desire for the truth led to four murder trials taking place; the fourth eventually being moved outside of Savannah so that a different jury could be sworn in. 

“there is truth in the Hebrew fable, that the knowledge of Good and Evil brings forth Death.” Alestair Crowley