Pride and Prejudice - Adapted for the stage by Simon Reade

I saw this at the Oxford Playhouse earlier this year and it was wonderfully done. As any die-hard Austen fan knows, this particular work of hers is not easy to transcribe into film, let alone theatre. The costumes were spot-on and the set design very impressive. Lighting, music and sound complement the story as it unfoldswhilst managing to match to the mannerisms of each character.

All in all, a beautiful transcription that preserves the charm of the best-loved novel. A highly recommended show. The Theatre Royal Bath Productions are currently touring the UK with this so catch it while you can.

 

http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/archive/show.aspx?eventid=1307

Producing Company - Theatre Royal Bath Productions

Further Information

Director - Toby Frow
Designer -  Christopher Wood
Lighting - Johanna Town
Music & Sound - Richard Hammarton

Susan Hampshire leads as Mrs Bennett.

Mrs Moneypenny: Survival in the City

Survival in the City by Mrs Moneypenny

Excellent writing by Mrs Moneypenny. Intelligent and humourous whilst retaining a light-hearted style. Highly recommended to anyone, from beginners in the financial world to high-flying City workers. A must read for followers of Mrs Moneypenny's FT Weekend column.

The Boy with the Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton by Sathnam Sanghera

The Boy with the Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton by Sathnam Sanghera

Excellent first novel tackling the theme of cultural difference and growing up. Gripping and laugh out loud funny from start to finish, Sanghera tackles delicate themes and issues in multicultural Britain admiringly. If you like his style and manner from his column in The Times then you will enjoy this. 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I loved this book. So much so that when I finished it, I turned to the front and began reading it from the start again.

Zusak writes beautifully. The narrator style is unique, witty and engaging. The characterisation is done in a very creative and individualistic way and the use of literary techniques in the novel is impressive. As a result, the way in which relationships develop as the story unfolds is wonderful.

If like me you like to gain an understanding and appreciation of time periods, situations and events then this book will give you just that. You will laugh, cry and be immersed and in array of emotions along the way. Zusak's manner of using history as a backdrop to educating the reader is brilliant.

I would recommend it to anybody who appreciates good story-telling and experimental writing styles. I have bought this book as a gift for many friends since reading it. Heartwrenching yet heartwarming at the same time.

Charlottte Gray by Sebastian Faulks

A beautiful novel about hope, loss and combat set in a World War II backdrop.  
Horrors of war are described in minute detail and the use of synasthaesia help heighten the impact. The juxtaposition between the different atmospheres and situations experienced by the characters is skilfully used to transport the reader between the accounts, which link together. Although the story is told in the third person, you are able to feel each character's conflicts and emotion. The multiple accounts do not isolate you, instead they involve the reader and keep them gripped by the events that unfold.
The use of historical background and the accurate detail with which events are unfolded intensify the drama.
Compelling, moving and haunting. Powerful, emotional and painfully descriptive. A wonderful read and a definite war literature must-read.

Favourite quotations:

“Charlotte pulled back the door of the compartment and stepped out. Levade had told her one day that there was no such thing as a coherent human personality. When you are forty you have no cell in your body that you had at eighteen. It was the same, he said, with your character. Memory is the only thing that binds you to earlier selves; for the rest, you become an entirely different being every decade or so, sloughing off the old persona, renewing and moving on. You are not who you are, he told her. Nor who you will be.”

p.471.

“She could still recall the feeling of intense separation from the world that meeting Gregory had induced in her. She had never really believed that It would work out happily, she had hoped, but she had not believed. Before she left Edinburgh, her father had warned her that it was dangerous ever to think that one had solved buried problems of memory and fear. The human desire for neatness, he said, would always ultimately be defeated by the chaos of the mind’s own truths” – p486.