Meet me by the left lion
The university term is over, even though Easter’s three weeks’ away. I’ve been fiddling about with some stories, trying to decide what novel I want to write next, and organising literary events. I’ll plug some of these on here when all the details are finalised. In the meantime, let me plug Leftlion which has an interview with me by James Walker on its site. Leftlion’s a bimonthly Nottingham free newspaper with a circulation of 40,000 and a regularly updated website.
It was partly as a result of reading the review on Leftlion that I went to see William Ivory’s fine debut play, The Retirement Of Tom Stevens last week. It’s a stage play about a Christmas family reunion in Southwell, very good on men and sex, and probably the most powerful thing that Ivory (best known for his TV work, including ‘A Thing Called Love’, ‘Common As Muck’ and, my favourite, ‘The Sins’) has done. Terrific cast, including Denise Black and Maurice Roevers. I hope that somebody revives it, soon.
If you’re at the Lakeside Pavilion, where the play was showing, don’t miss the photos of Sixties’ Nottingham, which include some of the making of the film of Alan Sillitoe’s ‘Saturday Night And Sunday Morning’. A particularly memorable one shows Alan Bates with Shirley Ann Field at Nottingham’s most famous meeting place, the lions in front of the Council House in Slab Square. Mind, I’m not sure if they were by the lion on the right or the one on the left.
