• About
  • Listening
    • Baroque
    • Bluegrass and Country
    • Classical Fusion
    • Classical Period
    • Early Music
    • Film soundtracks
    • Folk Music
    • Jazz
    • Modern Classical
    • Modern Pop Fusion
    • Musicals
    • Romantic Classical
    • Spoken word
    • World Music
  • Reading
    • Fiction
      • Children’s and Young Adult Fiction
      • Classic writers and their works
      • Contemporary Fiction
      • Crime and Detective Fiction
      • Fictionalised Biography
      • Historical Fiction
      • Horror
      • Lighter-hearted reads
      • Literary Fiction
      • Plays and Poetry
      • Romance
      • SF
      • Short stories
      • Western
      • Whimsy and Fantastical
    • Non-Fiction
      • Arts
      • Biography and Autobiography
      • Ethics, reflection, a meditative space
      • Food and Drink
      • Geography and Travel
      • Health and wellbeing
      • History and Social History
      • Philosophy of Mind
      • Science and nature
      • Society; Politics; Economics
  • Reading the 20th Century
  • Watching
    • Documentary
    • Film
    • Staged Production
    • TV
  • Shouting From The Soapbox
    • Arts Soapbox
    • Chitchat
    • Philosophical Soapbox
    • Science and Health Soapbox
  • Interviews / Q + A
  • Indexes
    • Index of Bookieness – Fiction
    • Index of Bookieness – Non-Fiction
    • Index of authors
    • Index of titles
    • 20th Century Index
    • Sound Index
      • Composers Index
      • Performers Index
    • Filmed Index

Lady Fancifull

~ adventures in a mainly literary obsession

Lady Fancifull

Tag Archives: Simon Callow

Simon Callow – Charles Dickens and The Great Theatre of The World

19 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by Lady Fancifull in Arts, Biography and Autobiography, Non-Fiction, Reading

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Biography, Book Review, Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of The World, Simon Callow

The writer who adored the theatre, by the actor who adores the writer

Charles Dickens and the great TheatreSimon Callow has written a wonderful biography of Dickens, with a specific focus on Dickens adoration of theatre, and the links between the passionate, flamboyant theatrical heart in his writing, and the man who virtually killed himself by addiction to giving all of that passionate heart to audiences, in the punishing Reading tours he gave, both in this country and in America.

I loved an earlier book by Callow, My Life in Pieces, a collection of his published writings from newspaper columns, and remember particularly being struck by the way he wrote about Dickens, who he has clearly adored for ever. There is a pretty good fit between this larger than life, generously natured actor, and the larger than life, generously natured, and adored, writer, social campaigner and performer of Victorian England. I knew a little about Dickens the man (mainly, the details of his early life and the difficulties later in his marriage and his hidden liaison with Ellen Ternan), but the prodigious nature of his energy, and the extraordinarily wide scale of his talent – not just as novelist, but as editor, journalist, fosterer of younger writers, actor, monologuist/performer, director, producer, republican, radical, social campaigner and philanthropist in his life, not only his art, – has been revelatory. Dickens was adored by his public, transcending class, and was clearly a man who lived many lives in one, burning away with prodigious energy which must have been exhausting to keep up with. Emotionally highly volatile, he had close and loyal friendships with both men and women, although as someone with a keen business sense he also had some rather violent breakings of loyal friendships with his various publishers.

Dickens the Performer of His Works

Dickens the Performer of His Works

I was particularly interested in something slightly throwaway which Callow suggested, fairly early on, wondering, if Dickens had lived today, whether the particularly febrile quality of his energy, drive, imagination and passion, which lurked alongside deep despair, might not have led to the suspicion of mild bipolar disorder.

This is an excellently researched and written book, but it is Callow’s warmth,
appreciation and passion for Dickens which takes it out of the academic and ensures Dickens get placed not just in Callow’s heart, but this reader’s. And the life of the man, in Callow’s book, definitely illuminates that man’s art.

Callow as Dickens courtesy of a Time Lord and the Tardis!

Callow as Dickens courtesy of a Time Lord and the Tardis!

I received this initially as an ARC from Amazon Vine UK, and once again was grateful to fellow blogger and Amazon Viner FictionFan for alerting me to this book in the first place. Here’s the link to her review.

Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre Of The World Amazon UK
Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre Of The World Amazon USA

Advertisement

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Simon Callow – My Life In Pieces

10 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by Lady Fancifull in Arts, Non-Fiction

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Book Review, Literary criticism, My Life In Pieces, Simon Callow, Theatre, Theatrical Reviews

The Perfect Plum Pudding – rich, succulent and stuffed full of delights

My-Life-in-PiecesWe often don’t do too well by the exuberantly and flamboyantly talented; particularly in an age which adulates fame and outrageous behaviour rather than great talent and hard work.

Simon Callow, as actor and writer, probably fits many people’s ideas of a `luvvie’ If by that is meant someone who is effusively effulgent in their praise, appreciation and delight for the talents of others, then Callow is indeed a luvvie supreme – and how wonderful!

Here we have a fascinating, well written collection of `pieces’ about Callow’s beloved theatre, about plays and playwrights, about acting itself, the magic of the theatrical experience, about performers – actors, dancers, singers, comedians, and it is an exuberant, life-and-art affirming sort of book.

It’s a dense, rewarding, journey; easy to read and compulsive, and this reader struggled between the desire to gulp it down in one ferocious reading sitting, and to proceed through more slowly and savouringly.

Whilst Simon Callow’s first book `Being An Actor’ was a wonderful exploration into what that entails, and more of a straight through read and even autobiography of Callow himself as actor and man, this book, subtitled `An Alternative Autobiography’ is structured almost as a long raconteur, with `narrative’ and exposition interspersed with chunks of Callow’s prolific published writings in journals, newspapers et al – mainly as a reviewer of books about the theatre and theatrical biographies. Not so much about Callow, more Callow writing about other talents who have delighted, inspired and deeply influenced him.

The overall flavour of this book is one of generosity, intelligence and celebration. A welcome antidote to the sometimes mean-spirited way in which huge and brave talent is received.

Where most of everything tends towards the median, the average, dare one say it the mediocre, it is good to be reminded of the power which the arts are privy to. At their best, they give us a balance between the viscera, the Dionysian, sensual, felt experience, and the Apollonian, cognitive, reasoned, reflective response. Callow reminds us of the importance of art, particularly performance arts , where there is a living, dynamic, shared space. Here is a beautiful explanation of this, describing the National’s production of Amadeus, which effectively made Simon Callow a star:

It was as if the audience had been waiting for the play for years. They ate it up greedily and the ovation at the end was like the roar of the ocean…….Many factors were responsible, not least (Paul) Scofield at his most complexly, sexily dangerous, and the play’s theme – successful mediocrity and its revenge on genius – rang bells with many people. But in the end I believe that what it was all about was music: music as the expression of the spirit, music, one might say, as God’s voice……..which expressed the sublime. This was the hunger that the play fed, for something beyond the realm of compromised life, for the absolute.

And again, on Dickens (easy to see why he should so love and venerate Dickens as writer and man)

Dickens wrote fiercely and pertinently about the abuses of his day, which are not, alas, so different from the abuses of ours……..But it is not for this alone that we read him now; not even for the great generous heart, or for the unique literary voice. It is for his huge populist energy that we love him and need him, for the assertion of the glorious vitality of human life and the united diversity of society, for his denial of uniformity and his exploration of the unbounded manifestations of man and woman, both peccable and divine

In an age which so often seems determined to reduce everything to its meanest and simoncallow2_1970275bleast glorious, this book punches home, and flies high, reminding us of one way in which life in all its messiness, is to be celebrated and embraced – the arts: our cultural heritage is at its most precious in its power to illuminate our humanity

I originally received this as an ARC as part of the Amazon Vine UK programme
My Life In Pieces Amazon UK
My Life In Pieces Amazon USA

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Page Indexes

  • About
    • Index of Bookieness – Fiction
    • Index of Bookieness – Non-Fiction
    • Index of authors
    • Index of titles
    • 20th Century Index
  • Sound Index
    • Composers Index
    • Performers Index
  • Filmed Index

Genres

Archives

February 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728  
« Mar    

Posts Getting Perused

  • Philip Glass - Glassworks
    Philip Glass - Glassworks
  • John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
    John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
  • Barbara Vine - House of Stairs
    Barbara Vine - House of Stairs
  • Cormac McCarthy - The Road
    Cormac McCarthy - The Road
  • Joanna Rakoff - My Salinger Year
    Joanna Rakoff - My Salinger Year
  • Christiane Ritter - A Woman In The Polar Night
    Christiane Ritter - A Woman In The Polar Night
  • Janine Jansen - Bach: Inventions & Partita
    Janine Jansen - Bach: Inventions & Partita
  • Virginia Woolf - The Voyage Out
    Virginia Woolf - The Voyage Out

Recent Posts

  • Bart Van Es – The Cut Out Girl
  • Joan Baez – Vol 1
  • J.S.Bach – Goldberg Variations – Zhu Xiao-Mei
  • Zhu Xiao-Mei – The Secret Piano
  • Jane Harper – The Lost Man

NetGalley Badges

Fancifull Stats

  • 162,942 hits
Follow Lady Fancifull on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow on Bloglovin

Tags

1930s setting Adult Faerie Tale Andrew Greig Arvo Pärt Autobiography baroque Beryl Bainbridge Biography Biography as Fiction Bits and Bobs Bits and Pieces Book Review Books about Books Cats Children's Book Review Classical music Classical music review Classic Crime Fiction Colm Toibin Cookery Book Crime Fiction David Mitchell Dystopia Espionage Ethics Fantasy Fiction Feminism Film review First World War Folk Music Food Industry France Gay and Lesbian Literature Ghost story Golden-Age Crime Fiction Graham Greene Health and wellbeing Historical Fiction History Humour Humour and Wit Ireland Irish writer Irvin D. Yalom Janice Galloway Japan Literary Fiction Literary pastiche Lynn Shepherd Marcus Sedgwick Meditation Mick Herron Minimalism Music review Myths and Legends Neil Gaiman Ngaio Marsh Novels about America Other Stuff Patrick Flanery Patrick Hamilton Perfumery Philip Glass Philosophy Police Procedural Post-Apocalypse Psychiatry Psychological Thriller Psychology Psychotherapy Publication Day Reading Rebecca Mascull Reflection Robert Harris Rose Tremain Russian Revolution sacred music Sadie Jones Sci-Fi Science and nature Scottish writer Second World War SF Shakespeare Short stories Simon Mawer Soapbox Spy thriller Susan Hill Tana French The Cold War The Natural World TV Drama Victorian set fiction Whimsy and Fantasy Fiction William Boyd World music review Writing Young Adult Fiction

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Lady Fancifull
    • Join 771 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Lady Fancifull
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.

    %d bloggers like this: