Pete Hartley: sometime dramaturg, perennial scribbler
Flying solo at seventeen. Just to instil confidence the station fire engine trundled up and parked alongside the runway. I radioed for permission, taxied onto the runway, opened up the throttle and released the breaks. That first solo on 29th August 1974 was the beginning of the end of a dream.
but it smells as fine as any canine The solution to controlling the coronavirus could be staring us in the face every time we lock eyes with a dog. Medical Detection Dogs is a charity that supplies dogs to sniff out the tell-tale signs of ailments including cancer, type 1 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and malaria. … Continue reading My nose has no dog
Thirteen lessons from the contagion invasion.
The wait will be over when the beginners please. A prompt to re-start theatre after Covid-19 lockdown.
Preston, and scores of other Lancashire towns, prospered exponentially from the first wave of the Industrial Revolution. Their streets were paved with gold (for a few) because their sheets were plied with cotton. The cotton was cheap because the labourers who produced it were not paid. They were purchased. How should we declare our debt and pay our dues?
And it won’t take “no” for answer No matter how good your facemask is it will not protect you against the slyest infection of all: the personality of the mask itself. Wearing any mask changes your mind. There is no doubt. If you do doubt it, it matters not; your mask will still have its … Continue reading YOUR FACE MASK NEEDS YOU
I grew up next door to James Bond. This is true. His parents had one of the best fish and chip shops in Preston. Bond’s Chip Shop on St Gregory Road in Deepdale, barely two goal-kicks from the Preston North End football stadium, would boast queues doubling round the shop space and spilling outside onto … Continue reading You only Bond thrice
Mr Dionysus always danced out of doors. That was his natural environment. I smiled as I recalled the parties he had thrown. Wild did not come into it. They were out of doors and out of control.
Private investigations and public humiliation It felt bizarre to be sponsored by a firm of private detectives. Somehow it also seemed apt that a performance that peered into the private lives of three of the most publicly known ancient figures, Octavius Caesar, Mark Antony and Queen Cleopatra, should be partly funded by hireable spies. … Continue reading Mea Culpa Cleopatra
Making a crisis out of a drama
On 16th January 1997 a free newspaper bearing the front-page headline BLASPHEMY! plopped through every letter box in the municipality of Preston in Lancashire, England, and in many of its surrounding districts. It caused a local media storm, made headlines in national newspapers and sent ripples right around the world. This is an account of how the furore was created, contested and concluded.
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