The Woman is Back

Despite its gothic memes, Susan Hill’s classic novel, The Woman in Black, is a post-modern tale. The narrative serves to remind the reader that you can’t always do something about every horrible situation you happen to find yourself in. To remind readers: lawyer’s clerk Arthur Kipps is sent by his boss to a remote part of England, to sort out the affairs of a deceased woman. There, he is hosted by a subdued though welcoming population as he weaves through the complexities of funeral and personal documents of the deceased. However, even this mixture of sanguinity and practicality cannot save Arthur from the machinations of the titular woman in black, her spirit grown malignant because of separation from her child in life. Arthur is utterly blameless of the proceedings that happened many years before he arrived. Yet, like a fly at the centre of a web, he becomes a victim in the direst fashion. Unlike the “typical” gothic hero or heroine, he is unable to escape his fate. He has not created the monster that stalks him (like Victor Frankenstein) and as with Van Helsing of Dracula fame, he cannot lay the evil to rest with the simple stroke of a mallet. His only solution is to keep a clear head and a sense of proportion as he wades through the mesh of circumstance: maybe that is the message of the novel? From serving time as an enthralling book, The Woman in Black has gained success as a play in the Fortune Theatre. Now, “one of the most successful and longest-running theatre shows in the history of London’s West End” has spread to suburban theatres, most recently that in Alexandra Palace. And there is still time to catch it before it closes on Saturday, 25 October. Really, truly, the woman is back. https://www.alexandrapalace.com/whats-on/the-woman-in-black/

Dracula, the Undead Novel

It is probably a little early in the season to talk of the Undead. But the play based on Bram Stoker's immortal novel is already in full swing at the Lyric Hammersmith (11 September to 11 October, written by Moreen Lloyd Malcolm and directed by Emma Baggott). A by-line on the Lyric H site reads "In this major new adaption of Bram Stoker's horror classic, Moreen Lloyd Malcolm uncovers the female voice at the heart of the tale". Interesting because essentially, the work is all about the significance of the voice. The action opens through the medium of Jonathan Harker's diary, and is continued later on by the correspondence of the other characters. Later on again, under the agency of Van Helsing, the diaries are recorded on that hot-tip technology of the time, the phonograph and its wax cylinders - jee-buzz! The first time I read it, the novel puzzled me, it coming across as a rather confused mish-mash of events outlined by a knot of middle-aged, rather egotistical males, the only real action coming from Jonathan's diary. But he too is male, commenting on feminine frailty and vapidity, while seeming in fear of the overtly sexual women he encounters at the Transylvanian castle. Seriously, what is it about this novel that, more than 100 years following its publication, has made it spawn more vampires than were ever put to rest with wooden stakes? I mean, there are hardly enough trees in the universe to finish them off. However, subsequent readings have revealed other strands, among them a Victorian parable on the role of women. Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray are not the feisty, self-determining gothic heroines of eighteenth-century literature but the rather vapid parlour creatures of nineteenth-century ordinance. One woman falls victim to vampirism, and the other almost sucumbs to the same fate until she is rescued by the men in the tale. But there is much to admire in the book, not least Jonathan's lush views of Eastern Europe, and the sublime Van Helsing and his pathology of the vampire. Right now, in advance of going to the play, I am restless as a werewolf at full moon....ooooow! Needless to say, I am a fan of the vintage movie (Dracula, Tod Browning, Karl Freund, 1931) just dissolving with delight when the wonderful, evergreen Bela Lugosi waxes lyrical about his children of the night. How the play lives up, I have yet to find out. Watch this space. https://lyric.co.uk/shows/dracula/

Who’s Soreen Now?

Or should that be “whose”? On this sunny morning, the niceties of grammar escape me, particularly when I am wallowing in disappointment at the outcome of a product that woo-ed me all summer, with its AHA-refed siren (or Soreen) jingle. I finally bought my slab half a week ago and friend, I just cannot understand the appeal of the stuff. For starters, when I try to cut it, the slab shies away from the knife’s blade and turns into a gluey lump, rather like trying to carve a block of plasticene. The resulting slice is reduced to a fattish finger of cake, rather than a generous hunk (like the lady on TV shows us) making it difficult to spread butter. Since my slab is still well in advance of the use-by date, it cannot be that. Or is there something else I don’t know? Friend, rather like one of those Blind Date columns in the Guardian newspaper, this is a romance that will never lift off. In summary, my Soreen has to go. It does deserve a rating though.
Overall appeal: packaging bright and attractive, so five out of ten.
Taste: rather good actually, so ten out of ten.
Texture: too gluey and sticky, I’ll give it two.
Table manners: in my Soreen’s stoic acceptance of my non-infatuation, it scores “excellent”.

The Sleepy Month

I can’t say why, but August the month has ever imbued me with a sense of sleepiness. Before the autumnal nip refreshens the air, a soporific inertia pervades every place. Humans snooze on beaches and on dried-up lawns. Cats and dogs doze in sunny corners and winged insects are rendered drunk on the sugary detritus of summer picnics. With the energy of earlier summer fizzled out, school exams done and dusted and the growing season faded away, we are left with a sense of waiting, for the results and the harvest and what better to do than sleep it off? And yet, there is life in the waning year.
Those of you on release from work and academia can choose from a raft of summer festivals. Depending on your location, the following may be of interest. On the first Saturday of the month, denizens of north-west England may catch a procession of rush sculptures or “rush-bearings.” This veneration of the wild plant reaches back to when rushes were valued as floor-coverings.
Fast-forward to the first Monday following August 12 and to Marham church in Cornwall. A Queen of the Revel is crowned by Father Time in front of the church, which was founded by St. Morwenna. Seated on horseback, the Queen is led to the Revel ground, where wrestling and other “Cornish” amusements take place. A week forward again and it’s haste to the River Teifi (bordering Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire in west Wales), and to the annual coracle races. This ancient form of boat is put to the test by modern-day fishers in catching a variety of sea and river species.
Third Saturday of the month and it’s on to West Witton (Yorkshire) to witness the burning of Owd Bartle after he is carried in procession through the town to the foot of Grasshill. Fear not: Bartle is made of straw, the effigy of a criminal from sometime in the past. Not quite Wicker Man, then. And this is only the merest flavour of what happens in August on the teeny island of GB. So get up and get going. Watch out for September.

Essence of Summer

The shopping mall is filled with bustle,
Peeling skin and bright-red faces
Van McCoy is playing The Hustle
Sun-browned limbs in public places – suddenly, it’s summer.

Refracted vistas; walls that waver
Bright-blue sky and plane delayed
Lip sunscreen with fruity flavour
We only find respite in shade–that’s just summer.

Braided hair and straw sunbonnet
Rose-pink dawn and evening stars
A broken flip-flop, jewels upon it
Melting tarmac, dusty cars– bring on summer.

Long, bright days and ice-cream sundae
Salty snacks and cool, sweet drinks
Short, dark night and boredom, Monday
Flaming oranges, shocking pinks –good ol’ summer.

Bright-green salads, dressings oily,
Polka dots on painted nails
Strawberries, cream and paper doily
Stripy beach bag, wind-blown sails – celebrating summer.

Swimming parties by the river,
Gentle breezes, yellowed grasses
Icy water makes us shiver
Clinking cubes in cocktail glasses: we love summer.

Sweaty nights and shirts are sticky
Lightening forks and violent thunder
Broken sleep with dreams so icky
Downpours sudden and – no wonder; it’s summer.

All too soon, maybe tomorrow
The bright sun fades, the darkness conquer
Season’s joy will turn to sorrow
And that is when we will long for – summer.

Magical Midsummer

Extremes have always fascinated human beings, the largest, fastest, shortest, and so forth. Whether midsummer (c. June 21 in the northern hemisphere) the longest day or shortest night, is moot. What matters is that something special, magical is afoot on this remarkable day/night. Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a nod to this sense of rarity. In European traditions, the supernatural world mingles with that of the human, causing a heady mix of havoc and revelation, recognition and reconciliation. As in every good comedy play, the ending of AMND is a world put to rights. But long before the man from Warwickshire began his writing, the known world venerated the summer solstice most notably through the construction of stone "calendar" sites like Stonehenge. The vanquishing of the druids saw the transforming of these pagan venerations into St. John's Eve, a time for lighting bonfires and spreading the resulting ashes on soil in prep for the following year's crops, all very good agricultural practice. In these secular times, most of us don our summer finery and enjoy the spate of events that summer brings, the outdoor concerts and opera, the tennis at Wimbledon, the racing at Ascot, all served up with strawberries and cream. But I always imagine them spangled with a dash of the ancient, midsummer magic.

Amazing Megan Mary

In 2024, US author Megan Mary published The Dream Haunters: A Metaphysical Mirror of Magick. Once again, the narrative pitches the reader straight into a world of dreams, storms, mirrors, cats, pumpkins and spells. Now, Megan Mary has published a sequel, The Dream Mirrors: A Metaphysical Mirror of Magick. The author weaves dream interpretation seamlessly into the series of events. The story’s setting, Skye Manor, is on an island remote, yet connected to the cosmos. Nor does the author shun technology, the characters (protagonist Hannah, Aunt Jewelia, Madame Morgan, Ashlin, Old Man Adams) making a healthy use of cars and telephones as they battle the dark forces of the Dream Haunters, entities who would forever deprive dreamers of the route to their subconscious store of knowledge and wisdom. At every turn, I recognised the interpretation methodologies as laid out in my book, Dreams: Exploring Uncharted Depths of Consciousness (Mandrake of Oxford, 2020). In Megan Mary's later book, Hannah is presented with the philosophy of the mirror, learning that what she (and we) see in the glass is but one step towards finding the true self. The mirror is a topic that I explore in my other book, Wicked Uncles and Haunted Cellars: What the Gothic Heroine Tells Us Today (Greenwich Exchange, 2024). Other gothic motifs that endear Megan Mary’s narrative to me include the ever-pervading storm, the old house and family connections, and unravelling mysterious documents. I was touched also with her selective use of the Celtic language, actually Irish, which I learned while growing up in Dublin. Above all is the warm sense of connection between the female characters, the sense that all women (fictional and real) can throw off victimhood and take our own steps towards self-actualisation, that we are not helpless pawns in a (mostly) male game of politics and economics. This is a message I stress again and again in “Wicked Uncles”, the gothic heroine being an intelligent, energetic and rational trope emergent in the literature of the time. Since “The Dream Mirrors” is the second in Megan Mary’s series, the time to get acquainted with her fiction is now.