Hints and tips:
...Merle Hensel’s inky set, austerely lit and framed by a steely grey curtain, together with Peter Rice’s thrumming soundscape create a claustrophobic space in which events unfold like a bad dream....
...The artist I would collect if I could is William Blake – I have a few bookplates framed, but it would be amazing to have an original piece, particularly his print Pity....
...The avant-garde dancer and choreographer Merle Lister, whose company performed at the Lincoln Center in the 1970s, now navigates the Chelsea in a wheelchair, but dances anyway....
...They acted together in Shakespeare and Sheridan, and Olivier directed Leigh in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire....
...The other two — by Simon Stephens and Roy Williams — are set in the here and now. So, I ask Gupta when we meet via Zoom, why reach back into history?...
...His key plot twist, which occurs near the end, depends on Isabel discovering that Merle and Osmond’s past treachery ran even deeper than James himself suggested....
...In James’s Portrait of a Lady, the worldly Madame Merle makes her entrance as a vivid riddle....
...The only thing is that, to those weaned on Hank Williams or Merle Haggard or Johnny Cash, Kelsea Ballerini doesn’t look or sound in the least country....
...I was very proud of it, and then I played it in a bar and a guy comes up and says, “That sure doesn’t sound like Merle Haggard’s ‘White Line Fever’.” Where is your favourite place in the world?...
...“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, Andy Williams tells Americans …every holiday season. Our stocking of festive sentiment is stuffed with song....
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