The best place to write
There is nowhere in the world (that I know of) that is quite like St Deiniol’s Library in Hawarden, Flintshire. It was founded by Gladstone as a place where people(mostly academics and clergy) can stay and study in the excellent (and beautiful) library. Not unlike Dr. Williams’s Library, another amazing place, it has large holdings of theological works (thou

Mrs Warren’s Profession
Last night was the last Birmingham show of Mrs Warren’s Profession, Theatre Royal Bath’s production with Felicity Kendal. It was good to see a full house, and the production really deserves it, too. In many ways it’s an awkward play, perhaps, because it is so much of a period piece, and because the central part of Vivie

i-witness
Volcano Theatre’s play i-witness is currently touring, and if you are interested in fiction and its effects, this is a play to see. It’s based on – or rather, inspired by – WG Sebald’s loose and sprawling novel, The Rings of Saturn (2002). The members of the theatre company read the book and then responded to it, in remarkably different ways. Of course, this is a book that lends itself to a range of interpretations – it could be a novel about walking; it could be about academia; it is also about dozens of other things – what it’s ‘about’ is p

National Student Forum 2009 Report
The National Student Forum recently launched its 2009 report to Government, covering a wide range of issues which we have discussed over the last academic year. You can read the full report here; it particularly looks at issues around teaching and learning, employability, postgraduate students, mature and part-time students, disabled students, and student accomodation.

Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice, romantic comedy for the erudite, has been adapted for theatre by Simon Reade for Theatre Royal Bath and is currently touring. This week it has been in Birmingham, where I went to see it last night. I’m often sceptical about adaptations of books, but (as countless BBC adaptations have shown) Austen’s social comedies with their light touch and sparkling wit, not to mention romance, tend to lend themselves to good adaptation.