Most of us have at some point been fed cake by a relative we didn’t entirely trust – the sort of woman who keeps porcelain dolls in glass cabinets and refers to you exclusively as “it.” But Walter de la Mare, that poetic custodian of the uncanny, raises the stakes considerably in this morbid little … Continue reading Auntie Christ: Evil in a Lace Collar – Seaton’s Aunt
Arthur Wing Pinero: The Magistrate of Mirth and Other Dastardly Dalliances – Part Two of Dandy Dick
Or, how one man in a cravat brought Victorian theatre out of its corset and into its knickers. Before Wilde minced in with cigarette cases and cucumber sandwiches, and long before Coward lit up the drawing room with his razor-sharp repartee and possibly questionable moustache, there was Pinero. Arthur Wing Pinero, to give him his … Continue reading Arthur Wing Pinero: The Magistrate of Mirth and Other Dastardly Dalliances – Part Two of Dandy Dick
On Dandy Dick – Part One: Or, How to Ruin a Dean and Win a Race
Theology, gambling, and a horse named after a dandy – what could possibly go wrong? There are some things that should never mix: vicars and vodka, bishops and betting shops, or indeed, the very Reverend Augustin Jedd and anything with hooves. And yet in Arthur Wing Pinero’s frothy 1887 farce Dandy Dick, all these taboos … Continue reading On Dandy Dick – Part One: Or, How to Ruin a Dean and Win a Race
Langcliffe: A Quiet Benediction in Stone and Fur
Another little jaunt today as I round off my short stay in the Dales. Today we took tea not in the grand halls of empire, nor beneath the cloisters of cloaked abbots, but in the altogether finer establishment of the Langcliffe Village Hall, where the china clinks not in diplomatic negotiation but in defence of … Continue reading Langcliffe: A Quiet Benediction in Stone and Fur
The Old Music Hall and Miss Victoria’s Garden
No need to worry, I’m not turning this blog into a travel journal, but.. A reflection on Victoria Hall, Settle – by a sentimental wanderer with a taste for cake and Gothic revivalism Settle, in the UK, as any weary pilgrim of the Dales knows, has more than its fair share of charm. There are … Continue reading The Old Music Hall and Miss Victoria’s Garden
Wording 