Having pulled together the video round of the Politics Quiz for Haiti back in October, I’m now going through a backlog of DVDs with a political theme. A Very British Coup tells the story of Harry Perkins, a steel worker from Sheffield turned politician is elected as prime minister of a left-wing Labour government. Though the book behind the screenplay was written by Chris Mullins in 1981, it is a peep into a parallel universe to see what might have …
Dan Gordon’s new play The Boat Factory opened in the heart of East Belfast last night. Part drama, part documentary, it plots out the development of the shipyard in Belfast, as well as charting the social history of the shipyard workers. Produced by Happenstance Theatre Company and directed by Philip Crawford, it’s the story Davy Gordon – played by Dan Gordon and based on his father – growing up and following his brothers into Harland and Wolff as an apprentice. …
Great little review of Listening to Van Morrison by Griel Marcus… It’s a short book, not a biography or a career survey, but an attempt to follow those moments in Morrison’s music, as he’s made it from his first records with Them, from Belfast in 1965 to the present day, when something happens that breaks through the boundaries of ordinary communication, of ordinary art speech. In this book those moments are called “the yarragh,” a term that comes from the …
Just finished reading Henry McDonald’s biog of Trimble (US). One of those last minute impulse buys waiting for an early morning flight out of Aldergrove. And still Trimble largely remains the enigmatic creature he was before. However the book is a useful reference for some of the action we’ve had since April 1998 (though it cuts off when the end-game was still in it’s early stages). Several things leapt out at me: 1 The key influence that several Catholic/former Nationalist …
