A Hip Read – reviewed by Pete Donohue

Hastings author Bronwen Griffiths describes herself as an activist committed to solidarity with the Syrian Revolution. Whether those opposing an oppressive regime should be labelled revolutionaries or terrorists is no new argument. In this slim volume of short stories, flash fiction and poems Griffiths’ declared criticism of Assad and his allies is combined with the empathic insight of a writer who has had close-up contact with some of the everyday victims of this horrific crisis.

In the opening story a young woman tries to make sense of unforeseen vulnerabilities and a search for hope in the future of her people through the myth of Achilles. From there the work moves on towards themes of blind fear and the instinct for survival. Where does that ‘kill or be killed’ mentality come from? Tyranny and detachment from humanity perhaps, suggests Griffiths, citing the bloodstained hands of Lady Macbeth.

These stories and poems mark a brave attempt at exploring a variety of perspectives from a people ‘torn apart’ in all senses of that phrase. The pregnant widow, the father who has lost his wife and child, the fleeing refugee, the unwelcome seeker of sanctuary, the groomed suicide bomber and his confused family, the volunteer aid worker and the anti-war demonstrator are all given a voice by the author.

By skilfully weaving a diversity of experiences together into a moving collection of writings Griffiths achieves some success in guiding the reader towards an increased understanding of a terrible situation. Beyond a shared awareness, however, there is, as with any war, little sense to be made of it other than a fight for power, wealth and influence amongst the global elite.

Countless questions remain to be answered within this complex six year-long civil war, yet, as the author reminds us, many in Syria who dare to speak out are either killed, imprisoned or forced to flee. In one poem, ‘Border’,  Griffiths alludes to the futility of man-made divisions.

The border is a river, a mountain range, a line on the map, a sentry post, a wall, barbed wire. The border is a way of thinking, a national debate, it’s something your mother embroidered, it’s a frame surrounding a picture, a passport, a margin, the edge of something, a riot of flowers.

Birds, flowers, mountains and rivers are repetitive motifs throughout this collection – symbols of hope, peace and freedom. Nature alone, however, is unlikely to make the situation in Syria any better and Griffiths knows well that only a shift in human nature can really do that, which I suspect is why she is an activist for change. Clearly this was never intended to be an easy read but it is an important one, and one this reviewer certainly recommends.

•  Not Here Not Us is published by Earlyworks Press (December 2016) and is available from Bookbuster in Hastings or from Amazon – £8.50, 53 pages. Ten percent of profits from its sale go to ‘Women Now’ a charity that helps support Syrian women. Bronwen Griffiths is the author of A Bird in the House a novel
  set in Libya during the fall of the Gaddafi regime (Three Hares Publishing – 2014).
•  For more information visit: www.bronwengriff.co.uk www.earlyworkspress.co.uk www.women-now.org

Review by Elizabeth Allen

The innovation of screening live stage performances, drama and opera, and so making them widely available, has unarguably proved hugely popular. We can now see and hear stellar casts in performances sold out from the day booking opened, without paying stellar prices. And good news that, with the showing of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land, starring Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart, Kino Teatr, has made the offer even more attractive for drama lovers in Hastings.

The play offers us two old soaks, Hirst (Stewart) a writer with a Hampstead mansion and Spooner (McKellan), a failure anxious to establish connection – as rival, servant, agent? – with success and free-flowing alcohol. Hirst’s household, is made up of two of those menacing men, here played by Owen Teale and Damien Molony who always lurk in Pinterland: here characterized as a no man’s land which, as Spooner says in the play’s closing lines: ‘never moves, which never changes, which will never grow older, but whic which remains forever icy, and silent,

So what is this about and does it, forty years after its first production, still shock and disturb?

(First productions of Pinter often outraged audiences. As a schoolgirl I was desperate with embarrassment when my mother refused to applaud The Homecoming. ‘Mummy, you must clap.’ ‘I most certainly won’t.’) And since the screen version inevitably offers a different experience, does this have any downsides?

Pinter has always been wary of ascribing meaning. In an early essay he wrote: ‘The context has always been, for me, concrete and particular. I’ve never started a play with any kind of abstract theory or idea.’ Many years later he declared ‘I am essentially a poet’ and has generally been understood as intuitive rather than conceptual: mood rather than meaning.

No Man’s Land is classic Pinter territory: the creepy quotidian, figures of sinister authority, of degradation and abjection, silences interspersed by mad rivers of words, the insecure boundary between reality and fantasy. And comedy always threatening to tip into violence. Even today, while less unwilling to applaud, the audience seems unsure of how to respond to swings in mood and dramatic style, to verbal violence – in 2016 is the use of the c word really a cause for nervous laughter?

What is the effect of the intervention of the screen? Here we experience the rather different, more strongly signalled, form of acting required in a theatre. While this difference may be less marked in Shakespearean productions, the Pinter effect, depending so strongly on the juxtaposition of the banal and the bizarre, calls for a relatively naturalistic style. Here the early scenes of drunkenness felt rather too conventional and music hall. Then there is the dictatorship of the medium. In a theatre you might decide to focus on Hirst’s response to one of Spooner’s entertaining monologues; here the camera insists that you watch Spooner. Is there not a case for the camera sitting in the best central seat in the stalls, allowing the democracy of the wandering gaze?

‘The audience transforms the event every night,’ affirmed Patrick Stewart in the after-play discussion. Was that just the audience in London? Or the watchers in St Leonards too.?

By Heathcote Williams  – (Public Reading Rooms £9.95)

Review by Colin Gibson

In a post-truth world where idle conjecture has replaced fact and where public opinion is shaped by the keyboard tapping of sociopathic web-dwellers, it is refreshing to read fellow Etonian Heathcote Williams’ polemic demolition of the fat owl of the remove, Boris Bunter Johnson.

What makes this acerbic hatchet job such an especially delightful bowl of schadenfreude is its deadly accuracy. Every regrettable Boris quote such as the wildly racist “Left to their own devices, the natives would rely on nothing but the instant carbohydrate gratification of the plantain” or his description of the uber-rich as “a put-upon minority like Irish travellers and the homeless” is surgically researched and annotated by source, location and time, along with every swivel-eyed career move in Johnson’s mendacious ascent of the greasy pole.

The question of course is; how did this bumptious, over privileged hooligan, (whose mindless cruelty reached a sort of apotheosis at Eton’s exclusive Bullingdon Club, where the entertainment might occasionally consist of stoning a caged fox to death with champagne bottles during a gluttonous banquet), gain any political credence whatsoever? How did this duplicitous overgrown schoolboy manage to establish himself as a floppy-haired national treasure, a mayor of London, and finally, via some shockingly two-faced Brexit jockeying and a brief but unsuccessful attempt at becoming Prime Minister, become foreign secretary?

Williams charts his life, and that of his equally unscrupulous father, with terrifying precision, and riven as it is with hair-raising descriptions of violent cronies like fraudster and PG Wodehouse soundalike Darius Guppy, is not  a pretty story. In my opinion, the sooner this magnificent account of political flimflammery is filmed or televised the sooner Johnson’s ersatz star will burn up and plummet to earth, and the better it will be for all of us. There is a wonderful quote from Pulp Fiction which sums up the fat fornicator perfectly; “Just because you are a character doesn’t mean you have character”, but my favourite has to be this: “There’s a German word for people like Johnson: Backpfeifengesicht.  It means a face that needs to be punched.

Read this Book !

• NB: American Porn, Heathcote Williams’ poetic dissection of that other oddly coiffured star of the new age of permanent adolescence, Donald Trump, is released by Thin Man Press on inauguration day, January 20th.
  https://thinmanpress.com/ american-porn-by-heathcotewilliams-information

Turn away your gaze for a second and another corner of St. Leonards has been transformed.

The corner of Gardener Way with Grand Parade has had a dying fall for years, until now. One look at the vibrant and unusual Mexican inspired décor at The Edge tells you this is a place with a big heart and a very personal spirit. Those who know Ed will know what to expect: it’s welcoming and fun, and the food looks and tastes beautiful. The space is full of light, colour and things to amuse and intrigue. Everything from the alcohol free cocktails to the diamond shaped metal and enamel mirrors has been lovingly and imaginatively put together. There’s a choice of light meals, well priced: nachos, crepes, open sandwiches, platters you can share. You can relax enjoying the light on the sea while taking breakfast or lunch. There’s no need for the words ‘with salad’ to make your heart sink: with a crepe you get radish, watercress, rocket, red peppers and cherry tomatoes elegantly served with a pomegranate, tangerine and soy dressing. Why not give the kids an after school treat of banana split, or knickerbocker glory, or try their Affogato ( ice cream with espresso and liqueur) for a grown-up New Year stress buster? If you’re missing Christmas indulgences, you’ll find quality deli products: balsamic, olive oil, tapenade, capers and paprika sourced from Northern Spain; chilli jam from the South Devon Chilli Farm. If you have that cooked out after Christmas feeling, why not go down for a relaxed, light, affordable supper with friends, perhaps a Mexican platter with delicious homemade guacamole and salsa. This enterprise gives a huge lift to an under-developed area of the sea-front. Look for the ripple effect.