Waugh’s 1930 short story “The Manager of ‘The Kremlin'” will be presented tomorrow as part of program called “Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story” at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. This is described as “an annual series featuring actors from stage, screen, and television reading classic and new short fiction.” The title of this year’s event is “A Feast of Fiction”. Waugh’s story will be read by actor Dan Stevens who appeared in early episodes of the ITV/PBS series Downton Abbey. This story will be included in one of several groups of presentations during the weekend at the Getty Center’s Harold M Williams Auditorium. The program where this story appears will begin at 4pm on Sunday, 25 March. Details and ticketing arrangements may be found here.
Waugh’s story was published in John Bull magazine in mid-February 1930 as part of collection called “Real Life Stories–by Famous Authors”. It appeared a few weeks after the publication of Vile Bodies which was already by then an immediate success and had been reprinted several times. The story was not included in Waugh’s early collections but is available in the current collected stories volume. The Guardian had mentioned this story a few years ago when it named it as containing one of the Top 10 meal descriptions in literature. (See previous post.)
