The tale of a faded  star swimming desperately against the tide of age and anonymity is depicted to innovative effect in Iñárritu’s brilliantly bizarre  Birdman. Set backstage in a Broadway theatre that appears like a labyrinth of disorder,  we see Keaton’s Riggan Thompson troubled soul (and body) laid starkly bare in […]

Not many words fill us with such good feeling as the word ‘Festival’. A bubble that exists beyond the pressures and cold facts of everyday existence that can so often hang heavy upon our tired and tender shoulders. After the glory years of music festivals, I spent the summer helping […]

When I packed a suitcase and took myself out towards Madrid, it was with trepidation. Having not spoken Spanish for several years, I knew that communication and language for me was to change beyond my control. Language, of course, plays a significant role in shaping identity, and so it was […]

Sometimes reminiscence can bring out romance. Headers and Volleys is that rarest of things: a game which, in my mind, has lost neither appeal nor excitement despite the often diminishing effects of time. Playing at the age of 23 still felt as it did at 13. All those afternoons and […]

The popular adage goes that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. As I sat there being offered a position that entrusted me with the education of adults and children a lingering feeling struck me that Lucifer didn’t roam alone in the act […]

I’m looking for someone who has haunted me for a long time. This is a tale that reaches far back into my history; a presence that I have noticed ever since I took the questionable decision to partake in a race in my socks at a year 6 disco. Thinking […]

Having spent several years in the same city on board the studying merry-go-round, my mind began to drift. I found myself in a search for inspiration, for a purpose in order to lull me out of a placidity that such routine had imbued upon my senses. Because days were passing […]