If Gogol showed us corruption, and Beckett showed us despair, then Alfred Jarry — bizarre, bicycle-riding prophet of the avant-garde — showed us what happens when civilisation finally gives up pretending to be civil. Ubu Roi isn’t a play; it’s a cultural detonation, a theatrical act of vandalism so gleefully grotesque that even today it … Continue reading Ubu Roi: The Crown, the Curse, and the Colossal Belly of Human Folly
Tag: reading
The Government Inspector: A Farce in Which Humanity Trips Over Its Own Shadow
Been a while since I looked at a play. So.. There are moments in literature when I realise the human race isn’t merely flawed but gloriously, catastrophically absurd. Gogol understood this long before Beckett ever let Vladimir and Estragon wander out onto a dusty road to wait for a man who’d never come. If Waiting … Continue reading The Government Inspector: A Farce in Which Humanity Trips Over Its Own Shadow
The Scarlet Letter – Sin, Society, and the Theatre of Virtue
The Scarlet Letter is a work so suffused with moral intensity that even the commas seem to blush. Hawthorne’s Puritan New England is a place where daylight feels like cross-examination, and every whisper sounds like scripture. Sin, here, isn't merely an act — it’s a neighbourhood watch. The story begins, quite literally, with a symbol … Continue reading The Scarlet Letter – Sin, Society, and the Theatre of Virtue
The Naked Civil Servant: A Gospel According to Outrage
This book didn’t slip quietly into the world like a well-behaved parishioner. The Naked Civil Servant — Quentin Crisp’s scandalous act of cultural streaking, his autobiographical confession written with the dignity of a saint and the insolence of a man determined to rattle the tea trays of middle England. It’s a work so defiantly honest, … Continue reading The Naked Civil Servant: A Gospel According to Outrage
ROSEMARY’S BABY — A Psychological Reflection
What book are you reading right now? There are some novels that pretend to be about the devil but are, in truth, about the far more distressing creatures that live under our own ribs. Rosemary’s Baby is one of them. On the surface it’s a story about covens, conspiracies, ancient rituals, and a baby with … Continue reading ROSEMARY’S BABY — A Psychological Reflection
Wording 