Alan Read

Writer (sometime Professor of Theatre, King's College London & UC Berkeley). Arguments mine, no 'views' to speak of, from Essex after all.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

Packing my Library. In a reversal of my favourite essay by Walter Benjamin images from the Performance Foundation Archive before it moves: “a relationship to objects not emphasising their functional, utilitarian value but studied and loved as the scene, the stage of their fate”.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

‘Nina’ @battersea_arts last night gave us @kingsartshums so much to think about we adjourned to the unheimlich delights of the @FreudMusLondon to dwell upon ‘object love’, ‘fee association’, the ‘talking cure’ and Freud’s home movies graced by his Chows. Projection/Protection.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

Caroline Williams & Deborah Pearson have engineered a meta-theatrical apparatus within a cod-drape prosc-arch that like Testo and others before makes @battersea_arts just the kind of place I like to sit in the dark with students looking forward into futures worthy of performance.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

Despite being widowed before I was born I’d never seen my mother, an infant school teacher, cry ‘til the day Aberfan news arrived at our Essex home on the far side of two countries. It’s a memory of corporate indifference that reaches to Grenfell & beyond. https://t.co/zCxqFIz8rv

[Alan Read @readalanread]

Well, we grew up with the masts, ‘The Unfathomable Ship’ as Uwe Johnson called it from his Isle of Sheppey redoubt was our measure of life’s contingency (for those of us in Essex at least), and swimming the estuary will be just that bit less unnerving now. https://t.co/sLIvqztsiU

[Alan Read @readalanread]

I’ve argued claims for theatre’s political agency are wildly exaggerated, but this news within an hour of the staging of ‘Triumph’ in London is giving me pause for thought. OK Caryl was present which gave it all the more force, but the play was almost as long as Katie’s tenure.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

Caryl Churchill in their local today serving up a Katie Zacharia comms chief in ‘Triumph’ way before her time, in a twenty minute (not 15) ‘political sketch’ that nails the ‘feels’ for populist rhetoric in our age of emperors in old clothes. Precision playwright par excellence.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

I’m not sure when Joseph Beuys proclaimed “Jeder mensch ein Künstler” he had in mind Bob Dylan & Johnny Depp, but they’ve somehow arrived in South Moulton St together which conspires to heighten the considerable distance between their musical & acting talent and their ‘painting’.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

@Csvich Antidote to this nonsense mercifully available in the ongoing trilogy from @ForcedEnts who have always been on this ‘stolen voice’ patch but with such engaging formal good sense that you come away with that wierd hope it could be the banal ‘old’ theatre that might push back a tad

[Alan Read @readalanread]

It’s not just that @kingsartshums is blessed by two Woolf scholars, it’s that Anna Snaith & Clara Jones write with such style, and when choosing a pub for their shared book launch know Bloomsbury borders well enough to bring us together at the wonderful Marquis of Cornwallis.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

Jo Morton @Artangel welcoming performance students @kingsartshums to the Maughan Library they thought they knew, except being Artangel they have found a way for Terence Gower to work with @KingsCollegeLon archivists to reveal the first purpose built fireproof building in London.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

Jump for joy the incomparable Jake Xerxes Fussell brought his southern Georgia song book back to Union Chapel tonight where he sat back and melted into his music like only he can. ‘The River St. Johns’ rolled off the apron and swept a packed church away. Modest, marvellous human.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

My voice was ‘stolen’ by far-right Marystroyka in Moscow, and I’ve been chasing it for a while. The deeply sinister ‘Cold Sweat’ tonight, beautifully performed by ‘lip syncing’ @ForcedEnts @southbankcentre is as good as I’ve seen them in 42 yrs. How great they are back in London.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

Just finished a book called ‘Pathology’ so wanted to hear Bill Callahan sing Pathol O.G and he did along with ‘Let’s Move to the Country’ and much else @RoundhouseLDN for a packed house. Echoes in the foyer of so many great nights here with Rustaveli & Illuminatus! What a venue.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

The Surdoc Social Club off Lower Road is proper Surrey Docks (not Quays). And there’s only one Tony Humphreys who could bring together the broad church that celebrated his birthday tonight with the best fish ‘n chips around, and music to match. “C’est la vie” say the young folks.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

This scammer clearly hasn’t taken the time to come to class where I take students through examples of my books mulched through the AI papparatus. My first years recognise the complete loss of humour in AI that any decent academic writing inhabits as it’s natural milieux. Poor D-.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

I’ve always considered myself a ‘Friend’ of the wonderful Young Vic over four decades taking countless students there. But priority booking for Milo Rau’s incredible ‘Pelicot Trial’ at Young Vic (County Hall) is reserved for ‘Friends’ (£70) & ‘Patrons’ (£1750). Priceless though.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

400 souls settled upon Conway Hall this evening to listen to Iain McGilchrist on that old AI and our reasons for hope. Late but not too late in the last human venue, we conceived a cypher so smart in its representative capacity, yet so banal in its intuition, we might feel again.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

Thanks to a decade of commitment from @CultureatKings & Westminster Council, the toxic swamp that was hard on St. Mary le Strand & threatened our @kingsartshums students on departure each day has become a highway to heaven for believers and sceptics both. It’s truly welcome week.

[Alan Read @readalanread]

Well that was a surprise but it always is. Almeida site was busy though it delivered some wonderful mid afternoon tickets to look at something special. The content warnings suggest it will be quite the opposite of matinee material which suits the world we live in & Caryl writes.

[WhatsOnStage @WhatsOnStage]

In a surprise announcement, Emmy winner Kate O'Flynn and Tony nominee Matthew Beard will star in a Caryl Churchill world premiere – opening next month https://t.co/BIBMsShRt5

[Alan Read @readalanread]

“Let’s get cracking” is Penny’s rallying cry to launch the 2nd half of Simon Stephens’ marvellous ‘A Slow Fire’ @JSTheatre, the spirit of this magical place whose meticulous care for her ‘audience’ could teach subsidised venues a thing or two. Simon sat behind us, a real writer.