The Bluestocking, vol 123: Classic Roach
Happy New Year!
A special newsletter this week, with some of the stuff I enjoyed this year. Although not all of it, because it turns out January 2019 might as well be January 1465 for all that I can remember of it. I think it was . . . cold? Also, relatedly, it was my book deadline. The bloody thing is finally out in February. If you haven't already pre-ordered it, now is a great time to do so. Tomorrow is also good.
Last night I made a list of my New Year's resolutions, which were broadly the same as they are every year. Eat less crap. Spend less time on Twitter. Say no to things. See my friends more.
If you've been worried that I might have let my Radio 4 appearance quota slide over the holidays, be of good cheer. Here's me on the review of 2019 with the MEN's excellent Jennifer Williams, who I was very pleased to meet at last. The next episode of The Spark, with Paul Krugman on zombie economics, is on New Year's Day. And then the News Quiz is back, baby, on 6 January, with one of its THREE new hosts. None of them are me, but I will be on the panel.
Helen
Some Things I Enjoyed In 2019
Just Kids, Patti Smith
Not a new book, but I interviewed Patti Smith this year and so read her memoir of arriving in 1970s New York, shacking up with (gay) Robert Mapplethorpe, and becoming an artist. Her narrative really captures the feeling of being young in a big city, when the world is full of possibilities.
Borderlands 3, Xbox One
What raises Borderlands above any other FPS is its pitch-black humour, and its obsession with its characters foibles and incorrectly high opinions of themselves. It's like a computer game written by a dirty-minded Jane Austen. (What if Mansfield Park, but with extra points for shooting the boss in the penis?)
Faith, Hope and Charity, National Theatre
The phrase "play about austerity" made me deeply fear two hours of being told that TORIES ARE BAD, but Alexander Zeldin's low-key depiction of the lives of people using a community centre tore my heart out. Mostly for its quiet acts of kindness (the same thing which makes the ending of Lynn Nottage's Sweat a tear-jerker). I never thought I would mist up at people singing the New Radical's You Get What You Give. Would now see anything else Zeldin does. FH&C was unlike anything else I saw in 2019. As was The Antipodes, to be fair. Well done theatre.
The Rules Do Not Apply, Ariel Levy
Also not new; I first read this on a plane to Nepal last year, which felt appropriate (the centrepiece of the narrative is Levy's late miscarriage in Mongolia, another very remote and mountain-filled place). It is unflinchingly honest about loss and regret.
The Witcher, Xbox One and Netflix
Look, I'm not here to tell you that this is high art, but what made The Witcher so enjoyable as a game is entirely replicated by the TV series, ie the fusion of verrrrry serious wars against a backdrop of tits and dragons and with the constant reminder that, come on, this is just tits and dragons. The Witcher himself, Geralt, is always tight-lipped and super-serious (Henry Cavill has got the HMMMMMMM down perfectly) while everyone else is either gaily chopping off each other's limbs or quaffing/brawling/wenching/being wenched. It's like watching Christian Bale's Batman move through the world of George Clooney's Batman. As a bonus, if you've played the game, you can spend your time shouting stuff like, "HAS ANYONE GOT ANY GWENT CARDS?" The series is also in no doubt that Roach, Geralt's horse, is the quiet star of The Witcher, and remorselessly tries to build up his part.
The Heavens, Sandra Newman
My relentless promo drive for this book continues. It's sad, and beautiful, and strange. Just read it.
Far Cry: New Dawn, Xbox One
Deeply enjoyable, if shameless, reskinning of the world of Far Cry 5. As a bonus, it seemed to have stolen its post-apocalyptic colour scheme directly from Annihilation.
Theatre I Am Excited About in 2020
January
The Welkin, National Theatre
Lucy Kirkwood writes about 12 women called to judge a woman trying to escape being hanged for murder by pleading pregnancy. Set in the eighteenth century. The publicity photos feature everyone with mud smeared on their faces but don't let that put you off, as it has not only Maxine Peake but Ria Zmitrowicz in it.
February
Leopoldstadt, West End
Tom Stoppard's new play, set in turn of the century Vienna. Bit of a risk given his patchy recent record, but when on form, there's no one like him.
The Visit, National Theatre
Tony Kushner (Angels in America) rewrites a German revenge tragedy, starring Lesley Manville.
A Number, Bridge Theatre
Weird Caryl Churchill play, with clones.
Nora: A Doll's House, Young Vic
Rewrite by Stef Smith to set the play in three different time periods, echoing the waves of feminism. Because I'm a nerd, I will also be going to Amsterdam to see Robert Icke's update of A Doll's House, called Children of Nora, in April. I might also see Jessica Chastain in Jamie Lloyd's West End version of A Doll's House in June. God, Ibsen's having a bit of a year, isn't he? Someone - maybe Susannah Clapp - noted this weekend that Ole Henrik has totally seen off Chekhov (though there is a new Uncle Vanya in the West End with Toby Jones), a decision which meets with my approval, as I much prefer Ibsen.
March
The Seven Streams of the River Ota, National Theatre
It's about Hiroshima. It's seven hours long. COME ON.
April
Orlando, Barbican
Alice Birch's [BLANK] was one of my favourite plays of 2019, so I'm excited to see what her version of the Woolf classic is like. Only slightly alarmed by the fact that the last Birch/Katie Mitchell collaboration I saw at the Barbican featured two naked actors wandering around a hotel room, interspersed with black and white videos of the sea, complete with a voiceover about LA MORT, OHHHH LA TRISTESSE DE LA MORT. Absolutely the Frenchest thing to ever happen to anyone.
Death in Venice, Barbican
It's Ivo Van Hove, it's in Dutch, almost certainly some people will get their kit off even though it's not strictly germane to the story. Ian Leslie is still recovering from me taking him to see The Damned, which featured, inter alia, people screaming in coffins, a Nazi orgy and a terrifyingly loud steam whistle. More of the same please.
The Doctor, West End
Big Icke Energy transfers to the West End. For my glowing thoughts, see this previous newsletter.
May
House of Shades, Almeida
The phrase "state of the nation" play has the same effect on me as that dog in Up! when it thinks it's seen a squirrel. I can't resist them even though most are dire. What if - bear with me - Tories are bad? But this is from the Almeida, so I have strong hopes.
To Kill A Mockingbird, West End
Can't lie, I'm .... intrigued by the decision to cast Rhys Ifans as Atticus Finch here. But still. Written by Aaron Sorkin! Will it be as good as Studio 60? (shut up, that was good) Will he be wearing nicely chosen briefs?
June
Glass Menagerie, Barbican
A second helping of Big Ivo, in French this time, with Isabelle Huppert. Sacre bleu.
Sunday In The Park With George, West End
Jake Gyllenhaal! In a Sondheim musical! Shame the tickets are eleventy billion pounds!
July
La Belle Sauvage, Bridge Theatre
Nicholas Hytner adapted His Dark Materials into a hit play at the National. Here he will attempt to replicate the magic with the first of the latest Pullman books. Should look gorgeous.
I must also mention that Cush Jumbo is doing Hamlet (and she's playing a boy-Hamlet at that) at the Young Vic, so I will be able to maintain my steady Hamlet-a-year quota. For centrist Dads, David Mitchell is taking Upstart Crow to the West End. And in March, Breach Theatre are bringing back It's True, It's True, It's True to the Barbican, to coincide with the National Gallery's Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition. I saw it at New Diorama with my theatre wife Caroline Criado Perez and it was great.
Talking of milady, The Watsons is also transferring to the West End, and features a Jane Austen tenner. Recommended.
Quick links:
Ta-Nehisi Coates on the 2010s was great. I was particularly struck by how he decided to withdraw from journalism because every time he published a piece, "there’d be like 50 op-eds to what I wrote". I'm consistently intrigued by what I think of as the "level two" problem, ie there's loads of advice about getting published for the first time, breaking through as a writer etc, but much much less about what to do when you have a modicum of success and need to think about turning it into a career. I guess, bleakly, because fewer people get to that stage, but also because it looks like boasting to talk about the problems of being too much in demand. But it's a real thing, and I bet women, working class people and minorities get hit by it more, because there's a constant sense of "hang on, they're going to tell me that my whole career was a clerical error at some point, better say yes to everything while I can".
Shameless log-rolling section. I am currently reading a draft of Ian Leslie's new book, Conflicted, and it turns out that arguing can be good (if done right). You can pre-order it here, it's out in September. I am also the proud owner of a very handsome finished copy of Hadley Freeman's House of Glass, a memoir of her family (and by extension, Jewish lives in the twentieth century). Yellow book covers are the best book covers.
The NYT on what Philip Roth called "the indigenous American beserk". It's mind-blowing how much of Hofstadter's 1960s description of the "paranoid style" applies today. "The modern right wing, he wrote, feels dispossessed: 'America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it.' In their view, 'the old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals,' and national independence has been 'destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners but major statesmen seated at the very centers of American power.'”
"In contexts like texting or chat, where the default way of breaking up utterances is with a new line or a new message, the period takes on connotations of seriousness and formality, a slight deepening of the voice at the end of a sentence. Thus, a period can reinforce a negative message (“that’s rough.”) but undermine a positive one (“that’s fine.”). The latter style reads to many younger people as passive-aggressive, a sign that the writer could have used a sincere exclamation mark (“that’s fine!”) but decided not to." The internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch on how written language is now as vibrant as spoken language. I'm obsessed with how Sally Rooney's Conversations With Friends is the first book I've ever read that captures WhatsApp-speak perfectly.
While we're on language, Deborah Cameron on the 2010s: "If feminism had started a linguistic to-do list in 1975, it would certainly be a lot longer now, but very few of the original items would actually have been crossed off."
Housekeeping: sorry, I included the wrong link to Adam Hochschild's piece on the Belgian Congo last time. Here it is.
Classic Roach:
That's all for now... phew.