Midsummer Night’s Roundup

–The Jermyn Street Theatre has announced a production that may be of interest to Waugh enthusiasts:

Mr and Mrs Nobody is […] adapted from the popular comic novel Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith,  Keith Waterhouse‘s Mr and Mrs Nobody promises to be a blissfully funny headliner for the final third of Jermyn Street Theatre’s reopening Footprints Festival. […]

Jermyn Street Theatre Artistic Director Tom Littler said: “Evelyn Waugh said that The Diary of a Nobody was the funniest book ever written, and it’s hard to disagree. It’s a story of domesticity, marriage and class that’s both of its time and persistently recognisable. Keith Waterhouse‘s delightful script summons the spirit of the age and brings the Pooters to life.”

The theatre is located in London SW1. Performance dates and booking details are available at this link.

–The New York Times has posted a detailed archive of many if not most of the reviews and articles it has printed over the years relating to the writings and person of Evelyn Waugh. This includes in full several interviews as well as reviews of books by and about Waugh, and works published after his death such as diaries,  letters and biographies. No subscription is required. It is effectively a free and well researched tour of the NYT’s archives relating to Evelyn Waugh. Don’t miss the slide show linked at the bottom.

–Critic and novelist D J Taylor has written an essay for the TLS entitled: “Larger than life: How to go about writing an obituary.”  Here is an excerpt:

How do you write an obituary? Who are your audience? What rules are you supposed to follow, and what lilies – even in a plain-speaking age – might you find it prudent to gild? All these questions were nudged into gear by a request from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) to write a notice of the late Janetta Parladé (1921–2018), war-era “Lost Girl” and associate of Cyril Connolly – not, strictly speaking, an obit, but still a task requiring large amounts of minutely particularized judgement. To fix on only one aspect of the contested terrain that lies ahead, Janetta had four husbands and no fewer than six surnames. Doing justice to the woman whom Evelyn Waugh, fascinated by her habit of going around barefoot, christened “Mrs Bluefeet” will clearly require tact and discrimination.

–The Guardian explains in a recent fashion history article how women wearing trousers achieved acceptability (and how Waugh may have in a small way contributed):

In Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies, published in 1930, Agatha Runcible is turned away from a country hotel on account of wearing trousers. (“They made Miss Runcible stay outside, and brought her cold lamb and pickles in the car.”) In 1951, Katharine Hepburn used the staff entrance during her stay at Claridge’s because the London hotel did not permit women to wear “slacks” in the lobby. It is a backstory that brings, still, a certain swagger to a woman in a pair of grandly tailored trousers.

–An essay in a Spanish language newspaper (El Mañana) published in Reynosa, Mexico, is devoted to Waugh’s humor. This is entitled “Tremble after laughing” and is written by Maria Vila Zanetti. Examples from The Loved One, Brideshead Revisited and A Handful of Dust are described, and an analysis of a photo of Waugh from the 1920s is included. If you open the article linked above on the Chrome browser and click in the lower right corner when it opens, you may choose an English translation that will automatically appear.

 

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