What Time is Love is published!

My debut novel is now out in the world… available in hardback, as an eBook and as an audiobook. For links to online retailers, click here, or The LRB Bookshop and Waterstones in Sheffield have some signed copies!

Continue reading “What Time is Love is published!”

Review: WARHOLCAPOTE, Rob Roth

Not many stars have stalkers who become as famous as them – but Andy Warhol achieved the same renown as his idol Truman Capote. By 1978 the two were not only friends, but were even plotting to write a Broadway show together based on their taped conversations.

Review: Betty!, Manchester Royal Exchange

Betty Boothroyd might not seem an obvious choice for a musical, but she did begin her career as showgirl with the Tiller Girls – and besides, this gloriously odd musical ain’t exactly Evita.

Review: The Glass Menagerie, Manchester Royal Exchange

At last, Atri Banerjee’s production of Tennessee Williams’s play sees the light: it was due to be staged in spring 2020. While the cast and team have re-assembled, Banerjee and designer Rosanna Vize completely reworked their plans, to take into account what we’ve all been through since then.

The great 16th-Century black composer erased from history

The Western classical music canon is notoriously white and male – so you might assume that a black Renaissance composer would be a figure of significant interest, much-performed and studied. In fact, the story of the first known published black composer – Vicente Lusitano – is only now being heard, alongside a revival of interest in his long-neglected choral music.

Why real love stories aren’t about fate or destiny

Have you ever wondered if you would have fallen in love with the same people if you’d lived in a different time? Would you even have met them, in an era with different social mobility – and if you had, would the relationships have worked out?