Authors Electric

First of all, I must emphasise that I don't see the Christmas season through rose-coloured spectacles at all. I've had some bad experiences in past Decembers, including family members being taken ill, dogs biting people and trains home being seriously delayed. Christmas Day itself is often an ordeal, mostly because of the pressure of trying to make everything perfect, or at least bearable, for everyone. This top five is an attempt to remember the good aspects of the festivities by challenging myself to dredge up five jewels out of the surrounding sludge. Top of the pops (or the season's diamond, for any Bridgerton viewers who might be reading this) is an event from many years ago. This was a children's party organised at my father's workplace, a college of technology, for the children of the staff. I am not really a party person generally, but I do have fond memories of this one - in my recollection we went to at least three of them over the years, so we had the cha...

 An old friend and I have had season tickets for the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh for as long as I can remember - somewhere between twenty and thirty years, with an inevitable break at the height of Covid lockdowns. Even then the Lyceum was one of the theatres that produced online content,  including a Christmas show filmed on their own stage but without a live audience during one of the early lockdowns, which must have been very hard for the actors but was a treat for the viewers at a time when they were trapped at home and starved of entertainment. We've also experienced a break from going to the theatre together during this past eight months or so, thanks to my hip injury and some further illnesses for both of us. Neither of us is as steady on our feet as we were before, and actually getting to the theatre is quite an adventure at the moment, so I thought going out to the Christmas show at the Lyceum might get us back into the mood so that we could begin to make use of...

  Over the last few weeks I've gradually got the feeling that we have come through the worst of the pandemic. This could well be an illusion, of course, and we certainly have other problems to deal with at the moment, to make up for the loss of the constant worry about catching a potentially fatal illness just by doing something that was previously normal such as boarding a bus. My first glimpse of normality was when my son and I travelled to Llandudno and back by train(s). Even this wasn't entire normal as we wore masks all the way, despite the failure of many other passengers to do the same, and there were seats cordoned off and a lack of refreshments even on the first-class part of the journey (Edinburgh to Manchester). There was more of a sense of adventure than usually accompanies travel within the UK, too.  This more than made up for the hassle of having to change trains three times on the way and three on the way back, and my son didn't grumble at all, not even when ...

In the theatre, masks worn by skilled actors can be even more expressive than real faces. War Horse on stage was infinitely superior to the screen version because of the magic of the puppetry. Theatre has its own reality which draws on elements different from those of the everyday. And one of its masks is language. Othello’s wrong when he claims ‘It is not words that shake me thus’ because they’re exactly the things that show us his disintegration from: Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife; The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! to: Lie with her? lie on her? We say “lie on her” when they belie her! Lie with her—that’s fulsome. Handkerchief—confessions—handkerchief! To confess, and be hanged for his labor. First to be hanged, and then to confess—I tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without some instruction. It is not word...

The seductive lure of the theatre...it’s been calling to me ever since I can remember. I used to round up the local kids for ‘shows’ at the end of the cul-de-sac and spent hours threading raffia onto string to make grass skirts for hula-hula dancers, cutting up acres of crepe paper, writing scripts. I wanted to be an opera singer, never mind that I couldn’t produce a single squeak in my audition for the school choir. A ballet dancer, at 5’9”. An actor. I did join the local AmDram group and was offered an audition for the National Youth theatre on the strength of something (I’ve forgotten what) I played – but my ‘A’ levels were coming up and I took the straight and narrow way. I’m glad. I now know that I couldn’t have sustained the life of an actor; it’s simply too tough.           In more recent years, still under the old spell of glamour and greasepaint, I went for writing rather than performing. I submitted a script for Saturday Sit...

 Another in an occasional series, where our writers share their sources of inspiration. Dennis Hamley - visit website           Only once can I put my hand on my heart and say I’ve been truly inspired to write with the sudden mysterious lightning flash we all long for. That was for Hare’s Choice , when a multitude of impressions suddenly came together to give me sight of an idea which is the nearest to truly original writing that I have ever achieved,  owing nothing to any genre which I know of.           It's a moment I can’t forget and don’t want to but something which is, I fear, fairly unlikely to happen again. But I can dream.           I must be just about the only writer in the world who doesn’t keep a notebook handy. For me, inspiration, the getting of ideas, is usually quite a mundane affair. The lucky and unl...

     This week I went to the opening night of an intensely moving play, in which my grand-daughter, Anna Munden, was playing a leading role. Anna's been involved in theatre from babyhood (my daughter's a costume designer, and my son in law creates stage sets) and from the time she was a toddler, has always wanted to be an actress. Until recently, she's been involved in touring productions, mostly in the South West, so this Covent Garden debut, at the Tristan Bates Theatre http://www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk/transports.asp , was her big moment. And incidentally, getting serious reviewers to go to a Fringe production is every bit as difficult as getting reviewers to read and comment on previously unknown authors.      The play, TRANSPORTS, was written by Jon Welch, and it's very loosely based on the life story of Anna's other grandmother, who is a lot older than me. Her name is Liesl, and she's German-Jewish. As a fifteen year old, she was sen...

Coventry Writers' Group, the wonderfully supportive and excellent writing group to which I belong, has just, for the second year running, put on a performance of our work as part of the Coventry Literature Festival. We performed at the Criterion Theatre, Earlsdon, Coventry, who very kindly hosted us and even made some of our costumes. We read and acted out a variety of short stories, short plays, poems, factual articles and timely advice from Coventry City Council on how to deal with a zombie invasion. And that was just the start! The photo below shows us in action at our dress rehearsal. Photo by Derek Medcraft My offering was a short and (I hope) humorous poem about the trials and tribulations of an aspiring writer who is rather premature in trying to sell her work. She is enthusiastic and slightly mad (so lots of acting needed there!) It has some slight relevance to what we Electric Authors are trying to do... so my apologies and please don't be offended, anyone. I...