Category Archives: drama

Stop, Look,Listen…my weekly selection of favourite films, books and events to get you out of the house..

Watch..new drama at 24/7 Theatre Festival in Manchester. 10 new plays by new writers. Topics vary from The Cell a collaboration with writer-in-residence, Mike Crowley at Lancaster Farms YOI and young offenders and prison warders to Eric Northey’s drama about … Continue reading

Posted in art exhibition, book review, drama, Manchester, music, Salford, Uncategorized, women | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Eva Gore- Booth: Irish feminist, political activist, poet..

Eva Gore- Booth An Image of such politics by Sonja Tiernan (Manchester University Press) ISBN 978-0-7190-8232-0 Ruth and Eddie Frow were the first people to tell me about Eva Gore- Booth and her companion and fellow activist Esther Roper. They … Continue reading

Posted in biography, book review, drama, education, human rights, interesting blog, Ireland, Irish second generation, labour history, Manchester, poetry, Salford, Socialism, Socialist Feminism, trade unions, women | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Manchester Marxman

To get the most out of life you must be active, you must live and you must have the courage to taste the thrill of being young” Engels 1840 Friedrich Engels, was born in Germany in 1820. He was an … Continue reading

Posted in biography, Communism, drama, education, films, human rights, Ireland, Irish second generation, labour history, Manchester, young people | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Stop, Look,Listen…my weekly selection of favourite films, books and events to get you out of the house..

Watch… Germinal(1993, a film based on the novel by French writer Emile Zola. It tells the story of a mining town in northern France in the 1860s, where children and women are still working down the pits. There are many … Continue reading

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Stop, Look, Listen………excerpts from my Roman Holiday…….

Watch…Christ stopped at Eboli (DVD) originally a book by Carlo Levi, an anti-fascist, who in 1935 was sent into internal exile by Mussolini. The title comes from a saying by southern Italians that the area has been neglected even by … Continue reading

Posted in anti-cuts, biography, book review, Communism, drama, films, human rights, music, occupy, Salford, Socialism, young people | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Stop,look,listen my weekly selection of favourite films,books and events to get you out of the house

Watch…Let’s Talk about the Rain (2008) Directed by Agnes Jaoui from a screenplay written by her husband Jean-Pierre Bacri. Only the French can make films that say so much about politics; in this film it is about the politics of … Continue reading

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Stop,Look,Listen! My weekly selection of favourite films, books and events to get you out of the house

Watch…Shoestring starring Trevor Eve as private “ear” Eddie Shoestring. He works on a Bristol based radio show and responds to the problems of his listeners. It was made in 1979 and has a very English style. Trevor Eve was fancied … Continue reading

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Stop! Look! Listen! my weekly selection of favourite films, books and events to get you out of the house…

Watch…The King of Comedy (1983) One Of Martin Scorsese’s finest films, although it was not one of his most successful when it came out in 1983. A mixture of fantasy and real life it features Robert DeNiro as Rupert Pupkin, … Continue reading

Posted in biography, book review, drama, films, human rights, Ireland, Irish second generation, Middle East, music, North of Ireland, novels, trade unions, women | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

My interview with playwright Lee Hall

George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier wrote this about miners: “In a way it is even humiliating to watch coal miners working. It raises in you a momentary doubt about your own status as an ‘intellectual’ and a … Continue reading

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Stop! Look! Listen! a weekly selection of some of my favourite films/books/people…

Watch…The Good Companions (DVD) The TV series was made in 1980. It is Alan Plater’s adaptation of the J.B.Priestley’s book of the same name. I loved the book, which is the story of a struggling concert party, set in 1929, … Continue reading

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