Friday, 24 January 2025

Alan Price

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Some years ago I put together a little book about the early career of National Treasure Helen Mirren. It sent me back to some of her first ...
Monday, 25 March 2024

Riverdance

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RIVERDANCE – THE 25 th  ANNIVERSARY SHOW: LIVE IN DUBLIN DVD review   Where were you on the night of 30 April 1994? Chances are, like millio...
Friday, 12 January 2024

Sondheim and Nyro: Putting It Together

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(Photo by Stephen Paley) Jamie Bernstein (b. 1952) is Leonard Bernstein’s eldest daughter. Nowadays she describes herself as an “author, nar...
Thursday, 30 November 2023

Yes

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“Progressive music” we used to call it. There was even a society devoted to the genre at school. Nowadays I see it more often referred to as...

Ted Hughes and Shakespeare

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In a little humoresque on Shakespeare in my volume  Instead of a Critic , I made passing reference to Ted Hughes’s monumental study  Shakesp...
Wednesday, 8 February 2023

SoundCloud

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You'll find a few of my compositions up on SoundCloud . Be sure to pay a visit and let me know what you think. I've also dabbled in ...
Tuesday, 9 August 2022

Nancy Mitford

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‘I suspect there was a neurotic dichotomy between Nancy’s barbed pen and her warm heart.’ Thus wrote Harold Acton in a memoir of his friend ...
Friday, 22 July 2022

Instead of a Critic

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This is my new volume of essays.  From the cover blurb: "Instead of a Critic  brings together pieces written over twenty years or so in...