INTERVIEW WITH GILDIUS

This is an interview I did with Gildius this morning:

1. Kikarin is a fantastic character with loads of attitude. What influences did you draw upon when writing her?

This is a difficult question to answer. Can I take a minute to explain the genesis of the story? I began with the idea of what would happen to a cool, sassy young London girl if she were suddenly yanked out of her comfort zone. 

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TRANSLATIONS

We went to see Translations last week. This is a play by Irish playwright Brian Friel that I just love. If it is on the radio or there is a production nearby, I will make whatever effort it takes to attend. It was on at Northern Stage here in a beautiful, faithful production in front of a packed house. Four hundred and fifty people on a Wednesday night in Newcastle to see a play set in 19thC rural Ireland.

It is show not tell again [see Late Spring post below] and is about a platoon of English soldiers who have been sent into the countryside to re-write the Gaelic roadsigns and place-names into English. A young lieutenant falls in love with a local girl and there are consequences. It is about cultural imperialism of course. I was amused to see that it recently played to packed houses in Minsk. Wonder what how a play about cultural imperialism went down in Belarus?

Liam Neeson starred in the very first production in Derry back in 1980. What a firecracker he must have seemed then. 

LORRAINE MOTEL

The Lorraine Motel is the hotel in Memphis, Tennessee where Martin Luther King was assassinated. I went there once, many, many years ago when it was still a working hotel in the ‘colored’ part of the city and long before it became the glitzy National Civil Rights Museum that it is today.     You could rent any room, including the one [Room 306] that MLK was murdered in; nothing special in those days. Just a down at heel motel good enough for ‘colords’. Now of course, it is a place of pilgrimage and quiet contemplation. It’s that Churchill quote, isn’t it? ‘You can always count on Americans to do the right thing . . . after they have tried everything else’.

All this came to mind today when I read about MLK’s visit here to Newcastle in 1967. In all honesty, I do not recall that visit. I was a child then but the visit and the speech he gave, just six months before he was shot, seems to have been forgotten by almost everyone.

DRURIDGE BAY AT HALF-TERM

We walked for miles along the empty beach today, took flasks and sandwiches and had the most lovely walk in the sun. The tide was out and receding even further; just us and one other couple + dogs. Where is everybody? Its half-term up here, one might think that there would at least be a few kids and grannies around. Perhaps they are all at the Metro Centre.

To get on to the beach, you have to first of all make your way through the dunes which at this time of year are covered in exquisite ground-hugging spring flowers; daisies of course and buttercups everywhere but  there are primroses and a profusion of geraniums, some entirely purple, others purple and cream, a few pure white. We came across a patch of dark mauve orchids in full flower.

UNDER THE SKIN

I saw Under The Skin this week, already being claimed a ‘cult classic’ by predominantly male film critics. It was directed by a man called Brian Glazer and stars the American, Scarlett Johansson who is on screen for around 99% of the time. Her glassy performance, as an alien disguised as a woman is quite mesmerising but to be honest, I couldn’t understand it. Were you supposed to have read the book? Who was the guy on the motorcycle? In fact the word Why? was on my mind for most of the film. The musical score is just brilliant and I can’t deny that I was engaged for some of the time. It is shot on location in Glasgow, a city I know well. In the end however, despite the allure of Scarlett  I kind of felt a sense of hubris.

I very much preferred Glazer’s earlier film, Sexy Beast .

FOUR STAR REVIEW

The Bookbag have posted a four star review of Riccarton Junction this morning.


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There is also a short interview I gave the editor here.