13th February 2023
A stripped back celebration of Verdi’s extensive career. The Verdi Collection is not, says conductor Stuart Stratford, a “superior range of M&S chocolates”. It acts, instead, as a series of highlights from Verdi’s exhaustive career (27 operas in total), a kind of Verdiad. The setting at City Halls is caught halfway between concert hall and ...
8th January 2023
Constance talks to the author of Parallel Lives, to discuss the role of marriage both within the book and in society more broadly. Phyllis Rose’s Parallel Lives, a study of five Victorian marriages, covers the ground of newlyweds, sexual disgust, affairs, ménage à trois, the mid-life crisis, re-marriage, love and revenge. It has become a ...
20th November 2022
Constance Roisin discusses with Charlotte Gordon her book Romantic Outlaws: the extraordinary lives of Mary Wollestonecraft and Mary Shelley. There have been a lot of stories told about Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley. In their own lifetime the pair were notorious, not just for their controversial books – A Vindication on the Rights ...
16th November 2022
Books Editor Constance Roisin reviews Pussy Riot’s anti-war tour as it closed the Great Western Festival. As it is the last act of a day-long festival, the crowd are all tired, half sitting down around the room, and no one seems to notice when a member of Pussy Riot gets on stage and starts a ...
14th October 2022
In honour of the ten year anniversary of The Thick of It finale, Armando Iannucci discusses his work with Constance Roisin and reflects on modern politics and the idea of performative society. This October marks ten years since the BBC political comedy, The Thick of It, finished its fourth and final series. Armando Iannucci, lead writer ...
1st February 2022
Is it a cardinal sin to read another’s diary? Writer Constance Roisin contemplates for whose eyes the author truly intends to write. A friend of mine (in fact my old babysitter) kept a diary after breaking up with her girlfriend. In it she wrote long and sincere entries about her heartbreak. Then, one day, she ...
