Why do people find Chekhov boring?
The short answer is that in Chekhov’s plays nothing happens. His subject is boredom. Nobody actually says, as Estragon says at the beginning of Waiting for Godot, “Nothing to be … Continue reading
The novel of the film
Water by Bapsi Sidhwa is the novel of the film by Deepa Mehta. ‘The film of the novel’ is a much more familiar phrase, the subject of many discussions about … Continue reading
Period drama
Period drama has been a staple of British television for as long as anyone can remember. Classic novels of the past, including nearly everything by Charles Dickens, have been dramatised … Continue reading
Shakespeare’s only one act play
A Yorkshire Tragedy is not one of Shakespeare’s better known plays. It was listed in the Stationers’ Register in 1608 as a play by William Shakespeare first performed by the … Continue reading
Shakespeare and the invention of theatre
There were no theatres when Shakespeare was a boy. The plays he watched would have been performed either in a church or on the street, unless he was fortunate enough … Continue reading
Two poets from Hull
Philip Larkin’s poems have an epigrammatic quality that is shared with Hull’s other poet, Andrew Marvell. The grave’s a fine and private placeBut none I think do there embrace could … Continue reading
D.H.Lawrence and the urge to write
The urge to write is not unusual. When I was a teacher I saw it in many of the children I taught. But not all. Some had a greater urge … Continue reading
Three kinds of novel, Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Woodlanders’
The difficulty in reading The Woodlanders is in knowing what kind of novel it is. Sometimes it reads like a psychological case study, sometimes like a fable or even a … Continue reading
The five acts and four intervals of Henry VIII
Shakespeare’s last play was not The Tempest, but Henry VIII, which was written some two years later. It is easy to read The Tempest as Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage … Continue reading
Charles Dickens, dramatist
What makes a writer choose to write in one form rather than another? Is it a matter of choice, or do poets, playwright and novelists have poetry, plays and novels … Continue reading
