February Culture

03-FEB - Nightwatchers, Tower of London.
Immersive theatre/experience: we put on headphones, switched on the provided mobile phones, and followed directions around the Tower of London and through a history of espionage, terrorism and dissent. I ended up doing this twice with different friends! An excellent opportunity to soak up the Tower's atmosphere after dark; no interaction with strangers required; some interesting, though occasionally heavy-handed, parallels between C16 Catholics and C21 Islamists.

08-FEB - Dixit Dominus (Handel) -- The Sixteen, Cadogan Hall
Thrilling music beautifully performed. I'm still tending Haydn-wards but this was lovely.

10-FEB - Deadpool, Leicester Square
Fun, hyperviolent, fourth-wall-destroying, surprisingly feminist (or, rather, less mysogynist than a lot of superhero movies). It absolutely does tie into the MCU: look at where the climactic battle takes place ...

13-FEB - St Matthew Passion (J S Bach) St Albans Cathedral
A dramatised performance in the round, with James Gilchrist as the Evangelist: I was initially a little dubious, but the minimalist staging and glorious sound worked very well together. Side note: not sure why St Albans feels so far away. But it does.

20-FEB - Common Property -- Jerwood Space, London
Art about copyright, reuse, mashups and fanworks. Could have done with more explanatory info in the gallery itself, rather than in the official programme. Some interesting ideas and some impenetrable executions. Thought-provoking.

27-FEB - Historical Fictions Research Network Conference, ARU, Cambridge
The first HFRN conference (to which I probably shouldn't have gone, given werk overload and February fatigue). Some really interesting items-- highlights for me included papers on Naomi Mitchison, Doctor Who, creative anachronism in genre painting; Debbie Challis on working with the ENO on Akhenaten; Greer Gilman interviewed by Nick Lowe.

2016/06: The Grasshopper's Child -- Gwyneth Jones

2016/06: The Grasshopper's Child -- Gwyneth Jones

‘We don’t belong at school. We’re far older at fifteen than we would have been if this was, I don’t know, the year 2000. Because everything’s changed.’

‘Younger, too,’ said Clancy wryly. ‘The government says so. It’s important to be young.’ [loc. 3883]

The Grasshopper's Child isn't exactly a sequel to the 'Bold as Love' series, though it features some of the same characters and takes place in the same future, about ten years after the end of Rainbow Bridge. It's a YA novel,( not that spoilery )