In its response to Mark Rylance’s comments, the National said it was “committed to sharing our work with as many people as possible. We agree with Mark that affordable ticket pricing plays an important role in that, and use our public funding to help achieve that accessibility.” Tickets to its main house shows, its spokesperson continued, ranged from £15 to £55, with no additional booking fees.
Tag: 07.10.15
Harper Lee’s “Watchman” Is… Disappointing. Should It Have Been Published?
“What immediately strikes you reading this first chapter is its utterly conventional voice, its lack of spark and intimacy. There are glimpses of the sharp, knowing phrases that characterise Mockingbird, but much of the prose of Watchman, not to put too fine a point on it, is pedestrian to the point of clunking.”
Harper Lee’s “Watchman”: Biggest Pre-Order Interest Since Harry Potter
“The novel, which is currently the number one best-seller on Amazon.com, is due to be published on 14 July.
Amazon did not give any figures for pre-orders, but publisher HarperCollins said it had ordered an initial US print run of two million.”
Amazon’s New Algorithm Appears To Be Blocking Reviews By The Most Dedicated Fans
“The online retailer appears to have tightened up its review policy to weed out people boosting their mates’ books with glowing notices, but whatever algorithms they’re using to work this out seem also to be catching anyone who engages with their favourite writers on social media.”
Actor Omar Sharif, 83
“Sharif died of a heart attack in a Cairo hospital, his longtime agent, London-based Steve Kenis, and the head of Egypt’s Theatrical Arts Guild, Ashraf Zaki, told The Associated Press. The actor had been suffering from Alzheimer’s.”
English National Opera Artistic Director John Berry Steps Down After Tumultuous Year
“His departure comes after a difficult year for the increasingly beleaguered ENO. A 29% cut to its public funding was announced in July 2014. In January this year, the company’s chairman, Martyn Rose, stood down after writing, in a subsequently leaked letter, that the artistic director was part of the problem not the solution. Weeks later executive director Henriette Götz also resigned after disagreements with Berry.”
John Berry’s Turbulent Time At English National Opera: Combative But Imaginative
“Those who squarely blame him for the company’s current organisational meltdown will be heartily glad to see him go when he quits his post at the end of next week, but there is no doubt that he has shown bravado and imagination in his programming and pulled off some tremendous coups.”
Is Our Publishing System Narrowing Our Literary Culture?
“We are losing stories in the UK. We are narrowing our literary culture. We have a publishing industry which continues to perpetuate its failure to reflect the extraordinary spectrum of communities in this country and so we are losing that potential vitality, social exploration and innovation in the books we publish. Unless we tackle this lack of inclusivity, the mountains marginalised writers must climb in order to get and stay published, we may never reach our true potential as an industry.”
Read The First Chapter Of Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set A Watchman’
Or listen to Reese Witherspoon reading it.
‘I Don’t Know What To Do Anymore. I Was Hired As An Actor, Not A Policeman Of The Audience’: Patti LuPone Talks About Snatching That Phone
“We could see her text. She was so uninterested. She showed her husband what she was texting. … When we went out for the second act I was very close to her, and she was still texting. I watched her and thought, ‘What am I going to do?'”