Birdsong

Last week I was lucky to see the stage production of Birdsong.  Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks, is one of my favourite books so I was interested to see how the play would compare.  We covered writing for stage, film and radio in one of my open university courses so I know that a huge amount of work goes into adapting a book for film or stage.  The first couple of chapters in the book set the scene before the First World War and I remember I found these a bit heavy going.  In comparison the play leaps right into the action as it opens in the trenches and the backstory is interlaced throughout the play to great effect.  The actors all gave moving performances and were just as I had imagined them.   The play was stunning and especially poignant given that it marks the anniversary of the start of the First World War.  I recommend going to see it if you get the chance.

Joanna Trollope OBE

I went to hear Joanna Trollope OBE give a talk and book reading at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing last night (thanks to my little sister for getting the tickets and coming with me).  I confess that I haven’t read any of her books, but I enjoyed her talk and she gave an entertaining insight into life as a writer.  It was interesting to see that there were quite a few men as well as women in the audience.  Joanna writes contemporary fiction and she was there to promote her latest book, Balancing Act.  Her first books to be published were historical romance novels written under the pseudonym Caroline Harvey (both her parent’s first names apparently).  A member of the audience asked why she stopped writing historical fiction and she replied along the lines that contemporary fiction gave her more scope and she liked writing about modern life and its challenges.  She has recently written a contemporary reworking of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, which sounds interesting.  She read two extracts from her latest novel Balancing Act, about Susie Moran who runs a successful pottery company along with her daughters.  The novel is set in Stoke-on-Trent and Joanna said that she visited the Emma Bridgewater factory there to gain an insight into the pottery business.  I guess the internet is all very well, but it’s hard to capture the essence of a place without visiting it for real.  So now I'm thinking - do I need to visit the countries I am writing about in The Salvesen Sisters? There again, Yokohama today will be very different to Yokohama in 1913 and there is no chance of me boarding the Trans Siberian Express  anytime soon so I guess I will make do with old photos, postcards, books and, of course, the internet!