Updates: 02/08/2024, 03/ 08/ 2024, 05/08/ 2024, 07/08/24, 10/08/24, 13/08/24, 07/09/2408/09/2024, 12/08/24 (long-standing error corrected), 16/09/2024 WITH SHORTLIST Dates added as completed 2024 Booker Longlist – Template for the books I read or intend to read this year. To be edited again after the shortlisting, winning announcement, and of course, as I finish more books … More 2024 Booker Longlist – Template for updating the books I read or intend to read this year.

‘Full fathom five thy father lies’:[1] Sometimes sprites are wicked creatures but even they know not to disturb the deeply buried bones of one’s father’s reputation and accuse him (openly) of lying. Nevertheless, Ariel in The Tempest, like Puck, in that other great fairy play, knows: ’what fools these mortals be!’[2] This is a blog … More ‘Full fathom five my father LIES’: This is a blog on Rose Boyt (2024) ‘The Naked Portrait: A Memoir of Lucian Freud’.

Laura Cumming says of Ronald Moody’s Johanaan of 1936 that it is apparently  ‘named after John the Baptist’ but more tellingly and with the sensitivity usual of this critic that ‘this elm torso is curiously androgynous, swelling and undulating and shot through with the glimmering contour lines of the wood’.[1]  This is from a series of … More This blog on a beautiful retrospective of Roland Moody is from a series of blogs on a day visit to see the art in exhibitions at the Hepworth in Wakefield. This is number 6 of 6 & the final one.

Bharti Kher (born 1969) works with, amongst other things including fabrics dipped in resin and hardened, ‘bronze casts of broken clay objects, reconfigured in new ways’ in the words of Laura Cumming in The Observer.[1] Art that is always interesting does not necessarily leave a strong impression conceptually, emotionally or networked on our senses. This … More This blog on Bharti Kher is from a series on a day visit to see the art in exhibitions at the Hepworth in Wakefield and The Yorkshire Sculpture Park at Bretton Hall Country Park. This is number 5 of 6.

The Hepworth – a gallery where individual works of power can facilitate learning how to gain from a gallery visit – my way at least! This is from a series of blogs on a day visit to see the art in exhibitions at the Hepworth in Wakefield and The Yorkshire Sculpture Park at Bretton Hall … More The Hepworth – a gallery where you learn from artworks. This is from a series of blogs on a day visit to see the art in exhibitions at the Hepworth in Wakefield. This is number 4 of 6.

The Royal Society of Sculptors describes Elisabeth Frink’s ‘single-minded focus on the male form, the divine and animals, from which she never deviated’.[1] A look at a small exhibition celebrating The Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s being gifted 200 new works by Frink suggest, man, the divine and the animal are not mutually exclusive subjects. Blog 3 … More A look at a small exhibition celebrating The Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s being gifted 200 new works by Elisabeth Frink suggests, ‘man, the divine and the animal’ are not mutually exclusive subjects. My Yorkshire art day-trip – Blog 3 of 6

Leilah Babirye, showing some of her work currently in The Chapel at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) is creating an art of resistance from her experience of growing up queer in Uganda. She uses ‘items found on the streets, such as tyres, cans, and scrap metals’ in the words of Melis Dumlu. Dumlu goes on to … More This blog on the queer sculptures of Leilah Babirye is from a series of blogs on a day visit to see art in Yorkshire exhibitions: here at ‘The Yorkshire Sculpture Park’. This is number 2 of 6.

Whilst working on the subject of trauma and pain at art school, Igshaan Adams (born 1982) asked his teacher what his work said about him. ‘She said: “it says that you like to make your trauma beautiful. You like to beautify your trauma”’. [1] This is from a series of blogs on a day visit … More “You like to beautify your trauma”’. This is number 1, from a series of 6 blogs, on a day visit to see the art in exhibitions at the Hepworth in Wakefield.

This is a blog on the National Theatre Live revision of Noël Coward’s ‘Present Laughter’. If follows a blog preparatory to seeing the play from July 21, 2024 in stevendouglasblog (use this link to read it in full) Enzo Cilenti playing Joe, Joanna in Coward’s script, the morning after the night before Last night I saw the re-streaming … More This is a blog on the National Theatre Live revision of Noël Coward’s ‘Present Laughter’.

Should queer readers be interested in the queer coding of the recent past: The case of anticipating watching Noël Coward’s Present Laughter. The blog written after seeing this production is available now here: Next Tuesday, I will be going to see the re-streaming of a once live performance of Noël Coward’s Present Laughter with the … More Should queer readers be interested in the queer coding of the recent past: The case of anticipating watching Noël Coward’s ‘Present Laughter’.