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Cluster index: Michelene Wandor

Strictly scrum.

Monday, 23 November 2020

Michele Wandor: ‘For those who understand rugby, know its history and personnel, there will be riveting insights into the minutiae of who was chosen, who rejected, which managers did and didn’t do what. Haskells’ hero, Lawrence Dallaglio, appears at intervals, as an important influence. The book begins with a boat trip and a series of out-of-mind and scatological things happening.’

Filed in Biography and Memoir, Sport & Fashion | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Twin cities.

Saturday, 5 September 2020

Michelene Wandor: ‘There are some wonderful pieces. Ed Vuillamy provides a vivid picture of the kaleidoscope that was Notting Hill in the ’60s, made all the sharper by his personal anecdotes. Tom Dyckhoff’s essay on the O2 (Greenwich) is pointed and illuminating.  ‘

Filed in Notes & Comment | Also tagged | Comments (0)

The last Mantegna.

Tuesday, 3 December 2019

Michelene Wandor: ‘In her will, Mrs van Hopper left me her library. As I went through the books, deciding what to keep and what to give away, I accidentally dropped a copy of Petrarch. Out of it fell a typed letter, addressed to a Count Alessandro Rietti. Three words were underlined in red: the names Isabella and Andrea, and the word “pearl”. The letter referred to a lost painting by Andrea Mantegna, a portrait of Isabella d’Este, the beautiful and powerful wife to one of the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua.’

Filed in Art & Architecture, Poetry & Fiction | Also tagged | Comments (0)

The marital subtext.

Tuesday, 29 October 2019

Michelene Wandor: ‘”State of the Union” is on the opposite, more public, side of the marital spectrum: Tom and Louise meet in a dreary, virtually empty, Kentish Town pub before they visit a therapist to discuss their marriage. I watched first because a friend recommended it, and was gripped by the springy, bantering interplay of the dialogue, the marvellously intimate, subtle, nuanced close-up performances and the careful, unob(and unin)trusive direction. End of story? Well, not quite.’

Filed in Film, Television, Video & Theatre, Notes & Comment | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Rankine’s uncomfortable citizenship.

Tuesday, 24 September 2019

Michelene Wandor: ‘This book does not make for comfortable reading; it may be cathartic for some, because of its passion. It may challenge others to think about their own ethnic place in their world. Some may find it too uncomfortable to confront. One reviewer called it ‘an unsettled hybrid’. It is also unsettling.’

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Sequence, consequence and the random.

Sunday, 18 August 2019

Michelene Wandor: ‘This collection…deserves to be read over time, starting at whatever page, or defying the publishers and reading the first (last) collection first, and the first (last) last. The idea of sequence has consequences and the random cannot solve the conundrum of how to read.’

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Michelene Wandor: Two new poems.

Monday, 1 April 2013

From ‘burning sage’:

sage brushes blue-grey leaves

once soft leaves, staining my hands moth-wing grey
now waiting, furled, rigid, waiting to flare
into nothing

Filed in Poetry & Fiction | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Mrs Dalloway. Episode two.

Monday, 25 June 2012

It is so nice to be out in the air. If I stand quite still, I can be a poplar tree in early dawn. Hyacinths, fawns. Running water and garden lilies. London is so dreary, compared with being in the country with my father and the dogs. I am a pirate, reckless, unscrupulous, riding on the omnibus up Whitehall, all sails spread. I am free…’

Filed in Broadcasting, Dance & Performance, Film, Television, Video & Theatre, Poetry & Fiction | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Mrs Dalloway. Episode one.

Monday, 25 June 2012

You have such a command of language. You can put things as editors like them to be put. If you, Richard, advise me, and Hugh writes for me, I am sure of getting it right. I already have a selection of choice phrases use – such ‘we are of the opinion that the times are ripe’. Something about ‘the superfluous youth of our ever-increasing population’. A phrase about ‘what we owe to the dead’. That sort of thing.

Filed in Broadcasting, Dance & Performance, Film, Television, Video & Theatre | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Dramatising Mrs Dalloway.

Monday, 25 June 2012

Michelene Wandor: One must engage with the rhythms and the style of the original, so that the dramatising process remains faithful to these, as well as to the more obvious issues of story, etc. The consummate dramatiser is also a consummate critical reader, for whom part of the dramatisation is the challenge of including not only elements within the prose, but also, in a sense, re-reading the imperfections, the contradictions, the lacunae, even, in the text. This is essential because, of course, one is reading from the present, with one’s critical insights, whatever they are.

Filed in Broadcasting, Dance & Performance, Film, Television, Video & Theatre, Poetry & Fiction, Principal Articles | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Can Creative Writing really be taught in British universities?

Sunday, 22 April 2012

Michelene Wandor: Writer-teachers are not being paid to write, but, rather, to teach. Their imaginative output (poetry, drama, prose) is now called ‘research’, within the academy, while still being deemed ‘literature’ outside it. It’s an issue which CW avoids

Filed in Principal Articles, Psychology, Philosophy & Education | Also tagged | Comments (0)

‘Private Eye at 50’, surrounded by elderly gents in greatcoats.

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

Michelene Wandor: This laid-back exhibition of images from its first fifty years, nestles in two interconnecting rooms at the V & A, conveniently on the route to the wonderful café. Lining one high wall are covers, each of which catches a chilling moment in recent political history. There is a young Tony Blair, dark hair waving over his head, visiting an elderly person in hospital. Blair has a huge grin, reassuring the patient that ‘there’ll be a spin-doctor along in a minute’.

Filed in Books & Publishing, Notes & Comment | Also tagged | Comments (0)

≡ Prêt à poetry in the Surgeons’ Hall.

Sunday, 24 July 2011

Michelene Wandor: This has been a rare moment of public protest among atomised artists, as all writers are.

Filed in Books & Publishing, Chronicle & Notices, Poetry & Fiction | Also tagged | Comments (0)

· Talent’s got Britain. Cowell’s got the world.

Monday, 13 June 2011

Michele Wandor: Cowell reminded us that, along with the £100,000 and a spot at the Royal Variety Performance, the winner’s career is assured. We know this from other talent shows, but the performing dog is now well out of the bag after Susan Boyle.

Filed in Broadcasting, Chronicle & Notices, Dance & Performance, Film, Television, Video & Theatre, The Fortnightly Review of Films and Video | Also tagged | Comments (0)

· Benjamin Britten’s Midsummer Camp.

Wednesday, 1 June 2011

Michelene Wandor: The end of the first half culminates in Shorty pulling himself on his stomach, across the front of the stage, to end with his head in Gangly’s lap. Perhaps this is true happiness. Perhaps not.

Filed in Chronicle & Notices, Music, The Fortnightly Review of Music | Also tagged | Comments (0)
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