Rohase Piercy's Blog, page 6

Diversity - The Shock Of The Old

Last weekend we had a brand new literary festival here in Brighton (UK): 'The Coast Is Queer' was an LGBTQ+ event organised by New Writing South, a local non-profit organisation that supports writers both published and emerging. From 12th - 15th September a wonderful array of Queer writers, performers and academics offered talks, panel discussions, performances and workshops, some paying and some free, at a modest but welcoming venue. Those who attended gave glowing reviews. Unfortunately, due to a combination of ill health and other commitments I attended just one event, an interactive panel discussion on 'Publishing and Platforms for LGBTQ Literature', which turned out to be a bit – well, read on.

The young presenter, who hailed from 'Gay's The Word' bookshop in London, introduced the equally young and enthusiastic panel and invited them to say a bit about themselves and their various publishing initiatives. So far, so good. She then invited them to share their experiences of queer identity, their coming-out stories, the first times they'd encountered queer characters in a book, film or magazine, their own writing, writing they admired, and writers they represented. This they did at some length, always using very correct language as regards race and gender – two of the panellists were of Asian descent which naturally formed a large part of their identities, and the third, who had the disadvantage of being both white and male, was at pains to point out that his partner was a 'person of colour'. The audience continued to nod and smile, although by now half were getting fidgety and wondering when we were going to get to the main subject, when one panellist mentioned that his outfit had published a writer who was 'actually quite old - about thirty-five I think.'

Woah. Big mistake. Audience members recoiled visibly and fellow Goodreads author Maggie Redding, arguably the senior person present at eighty years of age, raised her hand.
“Oh, we'll be taking questions from the audience at the end,” said the presenter kindly.
“This is not a question, it's a comment. You. Wait. Till. You. Are Old.”
“Oh. Well, that's something we can perhaps discuss at the end, when we'll be taking questions and comments ...”
“Well, don't take too long will you, in case I don't make it!”

“What we're all waiting to hear,” chimed in another audience member, “is how to go about getting something published in today's very confusing climate ...”
“Oh. Well, I don't think you'll necessarily be getting an answer to that at this event ...”

?????????????

There followed another half-hour of the panellists talking about themselves and their Twitter accounts (with one giving a breathless synopsis of her current work-in-progress), until finally we were told that we had ten minutes or so for questions. Hands shot up, and at last the audience were able to air their concerns. Did the panel have any comment on the fact that in spite of the giant leaps forward made by the LGBTQ community in other areas, it was actually easier to get published thirty years ago (by outfits such as The Gay Men's Press or Onlywomen Press)? (They did not. Just bewildered, sympathetic faces). What had happened to all those books published back in the day, now presumably out of print? Would it be possible to form a kind of 'Queer Virago' that would bring old 'Queer Classics' back into circulation? (No idea). Jane Traies asked a question about editing: a lot of stuff published today could clearly do with some, what was the current policy on employing an editor? This question actually received an answer from one panellist, though by the time he'd finished waffling on about poets critiquing one another, but in an encouraging way, I was none the wiser as to whether his outfit did or did not provide an editing service. Other audience comments followed thick and fast, all of them interesting and relevant, and it felt as though we were, at last, getting to the nub of Publishing and Platforms for LGBTQ Literature when it was announced that it was time to wind up the event.

“Well,” said Charlie Raven as six of us 'old' authors drank coffee together afterwards, “If one thing's emerged from that useless talk, it's that we're going to have to do it all ourselves!”
And so we planned the inaugural meeting of 'Wyrd Sister, Ink' with a view to establishing an online magazine to promote one another's work. Watch this space...

PS: The event required us to fill in one of those diversity monitoring forms – you know, the ones where you tick or circle your ethnicity, gender, faith etc. There were loads of options – 'old' was not one of them, but there was a list of age ranges - and I had great fun blithely circling words until I discovered that I'd identified myself as a white, working class bisexual woman of a certain age who was also a 'person of faith' with mental health issues. This made me sound like someone more likely to be protesting with placards outside a queer literary event than taking part in one!

PPS: For the record, I'm a Pagan with OCD. I never forget to celebrate a festival.

The Pleasures and Pains of Pastiche

Writing pastiche – what a cop-out, eh? You don't even have to think up your own characters and plot, you just piggy-back on someone else's. It's cheating, really. It's a lazy choice of genre.

Seriously though, it's not all plain sailing, you do have to put in a bit of effort. For one thing, you have to get the style as close to the original author's as possible – the best compliments I've received about My Dearest Holmes have been along the lines of 'you really do think you're reading Arthur Conan Doyle!' For another, you have to deal with any little anomalies that crop up in the original story – sometimes you can have fun with these! I enjoyed thinking up an explanation for Watson's wife suddenly addressing him as 'James' in The Man with the Twisted Lip, and having Holmes remind Watson in (my version of) The Adventure of the Final Problem that he HAS heard of Professor Moriarty before (referencing The Valley of Fear, which Doyle wrote later, but set earlier).

No need to wrestle with an unfamiliar style in my current venture, 'The Cat In The Bag'. In The Summer House: A Trilogy, Alice Thomas Ellis uses a different voice for each of her three narrators - the young, pious, traumatised Margaret, the world-weary Mrs Monro, and Lili, the culture-hopping tart-with-a-heart – so I have carte blanche to give my character, Cynthia, her own style. I've endowed her with native intelligence, spiritual curiosity, a Grammar School education and secretarial qualifications, and her vocabulary betrays her working-class roots. I've had particular fun with her conversations with Mrs Raffald, her predecessor's cleaning lady, whom she clearly prefers to her hostess when staying at The Oaks in the run-up to Margaret's wedding.

But when it comes to tidying up the odd anomaly, I've had my work cut out. The three books that make up the trilogy were published in 1987, 1988 and 1989 respectively, so it's fair to say that Alice Thomas Ellis took a short break between each novella, and in doing so she seems to have muddled the time frame of Cynthia and Derek's visit to Croydon considerably! In The Clothes In The Wardrobe, Margaret writes 'My father arrived with his wife and children two days before the wedding' (elsewhere she seems to imply that it was the day before, but we'll disregard that, it's already going to get complicated enough). This means they arrive on the Thursday. At some point on that same day, Margaret goes down to the summer-house and finds 'some torn scraps of red crepe paper on the floor'. We know it's the Thursday, because that evening they phone Syl at his house and he's not in; on the Friday evening, he's having pre-wedding drinks at The Oaks with his mother.

In Lili's narrative, The Fly In The Ointment, she describes finding the children's red paper party hats discarded under the kitchen table on the morning AFTER their arrival and pocketing them ('I did it the next morning, when I was still not entirely sober'). If they arrived on the Thursday, this would be the Friday – so how does Margaret find scraps of paper from these stolen hats the day before? And it gets worse - Lili then pays several visits to Mrs Monro (Syl's mother), travels up to London to meet her errant husband Robert and her friend Celestine, and finally goes to her assignation with Syl - which we know takes place on the Thursday evening. This means that in Lili's version, Derek and Cynthia arrive on Wednesday at the latest (are you keeping up?)

Then we come to Mrs Monro's narrative, The Skeleton in the Cupboard, in which Lili appears to turn up at her house bringing red crepe paper to make into artificial flowers the day BEFORE Derek and Cynthia arrive! How did she get hold of the children's paper hats before they'd even left Southampton? You see my dilemma!

So how have I dealt with all this? Well, I've decided to stick with Margaret's version and have Cynthia and Derek drive up from Southampton with the children on the Thursday morning. The paper hats are left in the kitchen after supper that same evening, for Lili to discover on the Friday. Although Cynthia observes Lili going back and forth along the lane behind the garden hedge from the guest room window, the purpose and timescale of these shenanigans is not her problem, or mine! As for Mrs M, she's old and forgetful – Cynthia only meets her once, at the Friday night drinks party, and would obviously have no idea about Lili's visit with the filched paper hats, whenever it occurred. Phew!

And with that sorted, I've completed a first draft. Now for the polishing and editing process ...

Notes from a Foreign Country

'The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.' So said L.P. Hartley in The Go-Between, and how right he was! I'm currently mining the past – my past, and my mother's – for nuggets of authenticity to use in 'The Cat In The Bag'. As I said in my last blog, this is another 'alternative perspective' novella, adding a fourth narrative to The Summer House: A Trilogy by Alice Thomas Ellis. The original does not reference any specific date but seems to me to be set in the 1950s. I was born towards the end of that decade, and since the early 1960s were much the same (the Sixties didn't begin to 'swing' until around halfway through) I decided I could legitimately incorporate some of my earliest experiences into the narrative.

I have memories going back to the age of eighteen months, so lots to draw on – I can remember Bissell cleaners, full calf-length summer skirts (to cling to!), Housewives' Choice and Listen With Mother on the radio, broken biscuits bought cheap at the market, whistling kettles, paraffin heaters, Start-rite shoes, and the taste of whisky in sugared water (routinely given to babies and toddlers who wouldn't sleep). Less fondly, I remember blazing rows, a window patched with brown paper where my father's fist had smashed it, my mother cutting off all her long hair, my own screaming tantrums and obsessive handwashing, and most perniciously of all, the heady mixture of power and guilt that arose from knowing myself to be a bone of contention between my parents. As an adult, I came to understand these distressing scenarios from my mother's perspective: unmarried, bravely living with a man whose wife refused to divorce him and to whom she'd just presented an unwanted baby, she was trapped between a rock and a hard place. It was only thanks to the support of her family that she was able to keep going.

All this is fertile soil in which to plant the story of my character, Cynthia - second wife of a serial adulterer and stepmother to Margaret, the bride-to-be whose impending nuptials form the backdrop to the three 'Summerhouse' narratives. In Alice Thomas Ellis' stories, Cynthia is universally despised. Dismissed by her predecessor Monica (Margaret's mother) as 'a nice little thing' but 'someone you could pour into a jug', she's already been pigeon-holed by Monica's glamorous friend Lili as 'colourless, dowdy, poor and tedious.' When she finally actually meets Cynthia, Lili finds her 'a dreadful housewife ... skinny and hairy and gummy ... a good wash wouldn't do her any harm'. Mother to Jennifer and Christopher, who look, according to their half-sister 'as though they already knew that life was no laughing matter', Cynthia is, in her stepdaughter's eyes, 'a desperately tiresome female' to whom she 'always felt constrained to be pleasant ... merely because she was so uninspiring' - though tellingly, she admits that her mother 'had insisted when my father left that she should keep the house, and all its contents, and continue to receive a major part of his income ... my stepmother and her children could clearly have benefitted from some of it.'

What all this basically boils down to is that Cynthia is poor, unsophisticated and arguably working class – hopelessly out of her depth amongst a cast of confident, well-heeled upper middle class women. This too is something I can relate to. My father was also paying alimony to his first family, and I can remember my mother tearfully re-tracing her steps from East Dulwich to Peckham with myself and my sister in tow, in search of a dropped ten shilling note that constituted half the week's budget. I also remember finding visits to my father's middle-class relatives overwhelming, their parquet-floored houses enormous and their accents unintelligible!

So there's a lot from both my own story and my mother's that I can use to flesh out Cynthia and her children, and create a fresh perspective on the run-up to Margaret's wedding. Of course there are significant differences, I can't run all the way with it - little Jennifer is not me, Cynthia is not my mother, and her husband Derek is not, I must emphasise, my father (if you've read 'The Summerhouse Trilogy', you'll know why I stress this); but my trips down memory lane have given me a handle on their story and enabled me to immerse myself in it with relative ease. Progress is slow but steady, and most importantly, enjoyable!

Introducing 'The Cat In The Bag' ...

A little while ago I re-read (and reviewed on Goodreads) Alice Thomas Ellis's book The Summer House: A Trilogy, which I first encountered back in the 1980s as three separate novellas: The Clothes In The Wardrobe, The Skeleton in the Cupboard and Fly in the Ointment. These are the first novels (along with Pat Barker's Union Street) that inspired me with the notion of viewing the same sequence of events through different perspectives!
I loved the fact that the stories were short, quirky and focussed, and although I could only warm to one of the three narrators (Mrs Monro), I found myself returning to them again and again, each time searching for something … a missing perspective, another piece of the puzzle.
Well, I never found it, so in the end I decided to write it myself. This was years ago, you understand, and all the 'writing' was done in my head, playing about with different scenes seen from another character's viewpoint, how Margaret's or Lili's or Mrs Monro's behaviour would strike them not knowing the reason behind it, etc … and it's only now, after doing my duty by My Dearest Holmes and The Coward Does it with a Kiss, that I've actually started converting it from a fantasy into a reality.
So, 'The Cat In The Bag' is currently in production! I write slowly, so don't expect a big announcement any time soon, but it's taking shape. I'm having great fun with the research, dipping not only into my own early memories of late 1950s/early 1960s South London but also into those of the wonderful Mary Datchelor School Old Girls via our Facebook Page, especially those who took the Secretarial Sixth Course!
Now, I wonder if you can guess which character in the saga of Margaret's wedding preparations I've chosen to use as my narrator? If you're familiar with the books, you'll know there are several likely candidates … if you're not, go read The Summer House: A Trilogy and see who you think deserves to be given a voice!

Holmes, Watson and the Spotted Dog ...

When a kind friend offered to take me to a matinee performance of The Sign of Four at the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne, I accepted eagerly thinking 'Oh, it'll be a bit of fun'. To be honest, I wasn't expecting anything special, and I certainly wasn't expecting to come away with a whole new perspective on the Holmes/Watson relationship! But Blackeyed Theatre's production, adapted from the original by Nick Lane, proved to be quite extraordinary: with just six actors playing multiple parts, the strategic re-arranging of a few simple props and a specially composed background score, they present an intriguing and immersive version of the second Sherlock Holmes story that holds up whether or not one is familiar with the original.

Although Luke Barton doesn't fit Arthur Conan Doyle's original description of Holmes (too blond, too manly), he gives a bravura performance, veering between drug-induced apathy and twitchy, manic focus; and Joseph Derrington's Watson is a delight – handsome, soldierly, kind and intelligent. Stephanie Rutherford is a lively, inquisitive Mary Morstan who's given a bit more to say for herself than Doyle allows her, as well as a rather saucy Mrs Hudson who teases Watson with allusions to a mystery incident that he obviously doesn't want Holmes to know about – 'The Case Of The Spotted Dog'. Ru Hamilton is a brilliantly camp, hypochondriacal Thaddeus Sholto, Zach Lee plays Jonathan Small as a working-class anti-hero, and Christopher Glover manages to win sympathy for poor, bumbling Athelney Jones whilst also playing no less than four Indian gentlemen. All minor characters are shared between the cast, and their versatility doesn't end there: the incidental background score requires anyone not on stage to take up an instrument and play live, and between them they treat us to performances on xylophone, trumpet, guitar, violin, sax, clarinet and flute! It's a gem of a production, and my only criticism would be that the second half is a bit heavy on the explanations and preaching (about the role of the British in India, the attitude of the 'civilised' West towards foreigners, etc – obviously geared to be relevant, but laid on a bit thick for my liking).

However, the main revelation for me was – wait for it – a totally believable relationship between a straight Watson and an asexual, aspergery Holmes! This is something that not only failed to convince me in the original stories with their strong pre-Freudian homosexual subtext, but has continued to evade me in practically every stage and screen depiction of the Holmes/Watson partnership I've seen. Blackeyed Theatre's take on the courtship between Watson and Mary Morstan begins with an obvious spark between them at the initial interview, and continues with hesitant shared moments snatched here and there, an 'accidental' brushing of hands, and finally a shy kiss (in which Mary takes the initiative!) Beautifully done, and Holmes' dry observation and shrugging acceptance of the situation does not, for once, ring hollow. This left me quite gobsmacked as I contemplated the awful possibility that Holmes and Watson might, at a pinch, have been 'just good friends' all along ... fortunately, the impression has proved fleeting ...

Blackeyed Theatre's 'Sherlock Holmes: The Sign Of Four' has been touring the UK since last Autumn, and if you want to catch a performance there's only a month left before they're off to conquer China! But if you can get to one, you won't regret it. Oh, and as for the 'Case Of The Spotted Dog' – don't hold your breath.

'The Trials Of Oscar Wilde'

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a performance of 'The Trials of Oscar Wilde', performed by the European Arts Company at Brighton's iconic Royal Pavilion. It's a two-act play co-written by John O'Connor and Merlin Holland (Wilde's grandson), based on the trials that led to Oscar's downfall and imprisonment – the unsuccessful libel trial he instigated against the Marquess of Queensberry (father of his lover Lord Alfred Douglas) for leaving a mis-spelled card at his club inscribed 'To Oscar Wilde, posing as somdomite', and the two subsequent criminal trials that turned the tables on Wilde and resulted in his conviction for gross indecency and a sentence of two years' imprisonment with hard labour.

The dialogue is closely based on actual transcripts of the trials, interspersed by reflective monologues from Wilde and short excerpts from The Importance of Being Earnest', and the cast comprises just four actors: John Gorick plays Wilde to perfection in silk cravat and embroidered waistcoat, all dandified confidence and sparkling wit until wrong-footed by a reference to a certain young manservant named Walter Grainger:

Sir Edward Carson QC: Did you ever kiss him?

Oscar: Oh dear no. He was a peculiarly plain boy. He was, unfortunately, extremely ugly …

All the other parts are shared between Rupert Mason, Benjamin Darlington and Patrick Knox, who often have to switch characters at lightning speed with the aid of a few simple props and a change of accent and posture – a challenge met effortlessly and seamlessly by all three. The fact that the play was performed in the Royal Pavilion's sumptuous Music Room where Wilde himself once lectured added authenticity to the experience of 'listening in' on the trial, and since there were several references to Brighton, and to neighbouring Worthing, there was a real sense of local involvement. For example:

Sir Edward Carson QC: So, Mr Wilde, you met this young man, whom you'd never seen before, on the beach at Worthing and within a couple of days you'd bought him an entire suit of clothes, a straw hat, a cigarette case ... why? To dress him up and take him to Brighton?

Oscar: No ... no.

Sir Edward Carson (incredulously): You dressed him up for Worthing? (Cue smug Brightonian laughter and applause).

It was a long evening – each act lasting an hour, with a half-hour interval – but the interval included a free glass of wine in the Banqueting Room and the opportunity to wander through the newly refurbished Saloon with its suitably decadent silver, gold and crimson curtains, swags and wall panels. It was a very special experience all round, and my only criticism would concern the excerpts from 'Earnest' that punctuate the play – it may have been playing to packed audiences at the St James' Theatre at the time of Wilde's arrest, but any modern-day audience unfamiliar with the quotes might find them a little confusing, I thought.

The European Arts Company are touring the UK with the play until 1st June, and if you can make it to a performance you won't regret it – here's a link with dates and venues: http://www.europeanarts.co.uk/next

If you can't get to a performance, there's a consolation treat coming up on BBC2 on Easter Saturday from 9.00 – 10.30 – 'The Importance Of Being Oscar', a portrait of Wilde's life and work featuring Merlin Holland, Stephen Fry and a star-studded cast performing scenes from his work. Enjoy!

'The Coward Does It With A Kiss' is out!

Well today (7th April) marks 121 years since Constance Wilde's death, at the early age of forty, from what is now believed to have been Multiple Sclerosis. Several authors have given her a voice over the years, including fellow Goodreads Author Lexi Wolfe in Women Of Forgotten Importance: Three Stories and of course Franny Moyle with her 2011 biography Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde; and now my own contribution, The Coward Does it with a Kiss has been updated and is available in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon! Here's the blurb to whet your appetites:

"It has often been said (how often!) that I could not be blamed for having misunderstood you, that your actions were and are beyond the comprehension of decent people. But I do understand you, Oscar; I understand you perfectly well. It is myself, myself I do not understand."
'Following Oscar Wilde's imprisonment for gross indecency in 1895, his wife Constance seeks refuge on the Continent with their two young sons. She and her husband are never to meet again. Reading through the diaries in which she recorded her thoughts, feelings and reactions throughout their marriage, she writes an extended letter to Oscar in which she tries to make sense of their shared past, examines the truths and deceptions of their relationship, and searches desperately for a handle onto her own identity. Drawing on the recorded facts of the Wildes' marriage and their final years of separate self-imposed exile, this is the memoir Constance Wilde might have written, a moving testimony to a love that was inevitably doomed.'

As I explain in the Preface, much has been discovered about Constance since The Coward was first published back in 1990, and I've tried to be wisely selective in incorporating new material into the narrative as I didn't want to clog the flow of her retrospection with new facts and dates unnecessarily, especially if they would have had no major impact upon her thoughts and feelings during her final months. I do hope that anyone who's read the original version will find that The Coward Does it with a Kiss still offers a plausible picture of what Constance Wilde might have been thinking, feeling and wanting to say during the last three months of her life!

Brush Up Your Shakespeare?

Last Friday (March 15th) a fellow alumna of Mary Datchelor Girls School put up a photo on the Old Girls' Facebook page: a bottle of Kraft Classic Caesar salad dressing speared by a kitchen knife. The comments came thick and fast: “I referred to it being the Ides of March at work yesterday, and had to explain it to a load of blank faces ...” “At dinner with some Portuguese friends I made the mistake of referring to the Ides of March ... wished I'd never mentioned it!” “Et tu, Brute?” etc ...

There followed a long, nostalgic thread about the various Shakespeare plays we Grammar School gals were required to study as part of the 1960s/70s curriculum – Midsummer Night's Dream in First Year, followed by Twelfth Night, Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Coriolanus, King Lear, and for some of the older generation, Henry IV Part 1 – all of which featured in our annual Shakespeare Festival, produced by Head of Drama, theatrical impresario and all-round diva Miss Cronin. Memories of 'Julius Caesar' featured heavily: "I remember this scene where we were all supposed to 'flee' and nobody moved ... Miss Cronin said 'You're supposed to bloody flee!' First time I'd heard a teacher swear!" "I remember during a particularly strenuous 'Hail Caesar!' my Mum's brooch holding my toga together failed me!" "I got a fit of the giggles playing Caesar's corpse …"

We reminisced about school trips to the theatre ("Do you remember Diana Rigg as Lady Macbeth at the Old Vic?") and film viewings ("Who remembers the Zefirelli Romeo & Juliet with Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting? Lots of 16 year old girls sobbing their hearts out …") - not to mention, of course, the dreaded 'O' and 'A' Level exams, quotes memorised, themes analysed, characters criticised ... all of which resulted in us leaving school with quite an impressive (and seemingly indelible) memory bank of Shakespeare quotes.

Has this been an advantage to us in later life? Well, those of us who went on to become English teachers/professors, actresses/producers, journalists or, ahem, writers will obviously answer in the affirmative. But with the Bard being studied less and less in state schools nowadays (I'm sure my own daughters only did Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth), and modern-day language adaptations such as the BBC's 2005 'Shakespeare Re-Told' series doing away with the need to get to grips with iambic pentameter, do we really still need to 'brush up our Shakespeare' as Cole Porter so tunefully advised?

Well, it'd be a shame not to, in my opinion. The four modern interpretations presented in 'Shakespeare Re-Told' had some very witty moments (Macbeth's 'Birnam Wood to Dunsinane' riddle was reinterpreted as the assurance "Pigs'll fly before you go down!" followed by the sound of police choppers whirring overhead) but I still don't think they were a patch on the originals. The 2001 modern language version of 'Othello' starring Keely Hawes and Eamonn Walker did a good job of highlighting racism in high office and felt very relevant, but there was no heartbreakingly succinct "Put out the light, and then put out the light", no eloquent self analysis by "one not easily jealous, but being wrought, perplexed in the extreme …" The 2018 modern-dress King Lear starring Anthony Hopkins preserved the original language, but was so radically pruned and shortened as to lose the psychological integrity of the plot, leaving Mr B (whose Shakespeare education is non-existent) both baffled and incredulous - though he'd thoroughly enjoyed the 'Hollow Crown' series of historical plays, performed in period costume and original language.

Like Jane Austen's novels, Shakespeare's plays are so deeply rooted in human nature and psychological insight that they can, if well acted, easily engage a modern audience without updating the language. And apart from all that, it's quite cathartic to intone "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!" in moments of challenge, threaten to "do such things - what they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth", mutter "Out, damned spot!" at a stubborn stain, or step on the scales mouthing "Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt …"

PS: For those who do like a bit of 'Shakespeare with a twist', I can thoroughly recommend No Holds Bard: Modern LGBTQ+ fiction inspired by the works of William Shakespeare featuring a variety of writers with in-depth knowledge of the plays - including fellow Goodreads authors Julie Bozza and Bryn Hammond.

Cover Story ...

Charlie Raven and I, aka The Raven's Book Bunker, have been putting together a cover design for the new edition of The Coward Does it with a Kiss. Well, when I say 'Charlie and I', I actually mean Charlie – she's the tech-savvy one – I just sit there on the edge of my seat saying 'Ooh, that looks nice', 'No, not that colour, a bit darker', 'Can you get rid of that bit?' and so on …. she's very patient, for which I am very grateful!

The original cover (for the Gay Men's Press edition published back in 1990) features a rather portly, grumpy-looking Constance Wilde with hubby Oscar in the background sporting a green carnation. It's got a nice green background, which I wanted to keep as it was a colour associated with the Aesthetic Movement and one which Constance often wore; but I wanted something a little more symbolic of their relationship than just a picture of the two of them on the front. We toyed with the idea of a theatre programme, green carnation, lily and wedding ring arrangement, but on reflection it seemed a bit too cerebral, as well as confusing to any reader not already familiar with Oscar Wilde's story. So we thought we'd try a set of photographs scattered on a table - Constance, Oscar, their two sons Cyril and Vyvian, and Bosie Douglas (O's lover).

I had several such photos handy, snipped from various books I'd used for research nearly thirty years ago and therefore looking suitably aged – so we set them out in a fan shape, on a table draped with a William Morris style curtain. Then we added my wedding ring, which happens to be of the Russian variety, made up of three bands – because as Constance might have said (though it was Princess Diana who did), 'there are three of us in this marriage'. The result looked both crowded and confused, with no space for the title that did not involve writing over the photos.

So we decided to eliminate the children, as it were, and have just Constance, Oscar and Bosie. This should have worked well, but we ended up with Bosie folded in half along the spine so that he might as well not be there.

We took the hint, and tried it with just Constance and Oscar (as per the original GMP illustration!) with the wedding ring between them – and were presented with an option to place this image half on the front cover and half on the back, with the ring on the spine. The more we looked at this, the more we found we liked it - Constance taking precedence on the front with her husband on the back, by the blurb. It symbolised their separation, Oscar's hidden life, and the fact that their story is told from Constance's point of view, and it left plenty of room to place the title in a nice arty font on the green background. The text on the back will need adjusting – it'll be a shorter blurb than originally intended, to accommodate Oscar's picture – but all in all, it's shaping up nicely.

At this point I expect you're hoping to see a photo - but guess what, technophobe that I am, I can't work out how upload one! Hopefully you won't be too disappointed when you see the end result in a few weeks' time … official publication date is 7th April, the anniversary of Constance's death, so not long to go now. Watch this space!

The Not-So-Happy Prince

Well I finally got round to watching Ruper Everett's 'The Happy Prince'! I'd read some mixed reviews, so didn't set my expectations too high - but I must say I really enjoyed it.

It tackles the final three years of Oscar Wilde's life, spent in exile in France following his release from prison in May 1897 (events leading up to his disgrace and imprisonment are seen in flashback). As loyal friends Robbie Ross and Reggie Turner attempt to support him in exile, exhorting him to at least try and live within his greatly reduced means and shielding him from the snubs and humiliations dished out by fellow expatriates, Oscar drifts helplessly and self-destructively back into the toxic embrace of Bosie Douglas, and thence to recriminations, rent boys, near-destitution and early death (in 1900, at the age of forty-six). Wilde's short story The Happy Prince, whose tragic hero's charmed life is broken in upon by the realities of sorrow, poverty and suffering, is interwoven into the narrative as Oscar retells it, firstly to his sons Cyril and Vyvyan in flashback, and then to the young brother of a Parisian rent boy whom he befriends.

Rupert Everett is a very convincing Oscar, Colin Morgan a suitably pretty, spoilt and vindictive Bosie, Edwin Thomas a loyal and patient Robbie Ross and Colin Firth a long-suffering Reggie Turner. But the character I was most interested in was, of course, Oscar's estranged wife Constance, who also lived in exile on the Continent until her early death in 1898. Emily Watson has only a few short scenes in which to perfect her portrayal, but gives a moving and convincing performance; her Constance is both dignified and stoical, crippled by back pain and walking with sticks, torn between her love for the husband who has brought ruin upon his family and a steely determination to protect her sons from the fallout of their father's disgrace. She is shown in conversation with the legal advisers who repeatedly tried to persuade her to divorce her errant husband; planning to travel to Genoa for an operation to relieve her pain; and visiting Oscar in a dream at the time of her death. It's obviously a simplified snapshot of the long and tortuous three years during which Constance, having adopted the family name of Holland, stayed firstly with her brother Otho in Bevaix, then at a pension in Heidleberg, then in a friend's villa at Nervi on the Italian Riviera while her traumatised sons failed to settle at a series of different schools. Her letters show that her feelings towards Oscar fluctuated wildly during those years, veering from disgust and recrimination to care and compassion. She steadfastly resisted family pressure to divorce him, even when at her most angry and conficted. Her death at the age of forty following a botched operation by gynaecologist Dr Luigi Maria Bossi was tragic – Dr Bossi's theory that all women's health issues were gynaecological in origin led him to perform a completely unnecessary procedure upon her. Her brother Otho tried to take legal action against him after her death but was dissuaded on the grounds that she had freely consented to undergo the procedure.

In 'The Happy Prince' Rupert Everett employs Richard Ellmann's theory that both Constance's and Oscar's early deaths were caused by syphilis, passed from him to her at some point in their marriage; it's used to dramatic effect, but this is not what the medical profession now believes. Oscar died from meningitis resulting from a severe ear infection, and Constance's intermittent pain and partial paralysis were symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis, a recognised but little understood condition in the late 19th century.

I do think one reason The Happy Prince has failed to ignite enthusiasm amongst a wider audience is its reliance upon the viewer having some prior acquaintance with Oscar Wilde's story. I can see that someone who comes to the film completely ignorant about its hero's rise and fall would find it disjointed and confusing. But I myself was impressed, moved and entertained, and it's inspired me to crack on and get Constance's side of the story out there. Hopefully the new edition of The Coward Does it with a Kiss will be available in time for the 121st anniversary of her death, on 7th April 2019!