Micro Review 25

 

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint (Wildfire Books)

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I've long loved tales from Ancient Greece, I think that my love stems right back to early primary school where we first looked at this history and especially to my Usborne Guide to Ancient Greece. I was lucky in that family holidays took us to Greece, and it is a place Mr Norfolkbookworm and I continue to visit (when we are allowed to) and also where we got married.

Retellings of the Greek myths from new view points have become really popular in the past decade and I very much like this new genre. 

In Ariadne Saint retells all of the tales connected to this Cretan princess but from her view point, and that of her sister Phaedra, not from the more traditional male narrated format.

I knew most of the stories that link together to form Ariadne's life but for some reason I hadn't joined them together to make a continuous arc, so to read the tales all linked together was really enjoyable. The tables weren't turned to the extent that Ariadne and her sister became flawless, and the male characters didn't all become cardboard cutout baddies - everyone had shades to their lives. The writing was such that I really did have a movie playing in my mind as I read the book, and I could feel the Greek heat as I turned the pages.

The portrayal of the Greek Gods in this version of the myths was fascinating to read, their jealousy and pettiness made them seem far more human than godlike and as a result even more terrifying in some ways. It also made me reassess my mental image of Dionysus - he really doesn't bear much resemblance to the Disney version from Fantasia in this novel!

It took me a couple of goes to get into the book initially, but that was definitely down to my mood and not the book. This debut novel is a great addition to similar works from Madeline Miller, Pat Barker and Natalie Haynes and I am looking forward to reading more from all 4 authors!

Many thanks to Net Galley for the advance copy, even if I didn't read it until publication day!

Micro Review 14

 

Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes (Pan Macmillan)

Regular readers will have hopefully picked up on my love of mythology and Haynes' writing style and will thus be unsurprised that I though this book simply wonderful.

Pandora's Jar is a non fiction book taking a critical look at many of the females in classical literature and then their portrayal in art and literature through the centuries since. Fans of Haynes' previous work will not be surprised to find that the original tales were often very different to the tales we know today.

That Pandora had a jar not a box is just the start of this look at the original stories and their subsequent retellings and the reasons for the alterations. The classic Harryhausen film Jason and the Argonauts would have been quite different if the original source material had been used too...

Looking into the retelling, simplifying and reworking of 'classics' fascinates me - to the extent that I wrote my MA dissertation on the topic. This book reminded me of the research I found so enthralling whilst also making me laughing out loud (and snorting in disgust) at the points Haynes, in her inimitable way, makes.

Another book that I know I will dip in and out of in the future.

Micro Review 6

Difficult Women by Helen Lewis

Subtitled A History of Feminism in 11 Fights I found this book to be fascinating. Lewis manages to tell the story of feminism via the stories of11 important women but rather than just talking about their feminist credentials, and why they deserve to be remembered, she also fills in the shadows of these same women. 

She reminds us that very few people are all good and that even those that are remembered and presented as pioneers have another side, and are rounded, often difficult people.

This is a clever book because it utterly champions pioneers of women's rights and women's causes but it does this with humour and reminds us that we have to take all of history not just the bits that appeal to us.

World Reading

Challenging my world views

I love reading books that are set in locations that I've never visited (and probably will never visit) whether the books are fiction or non fiction and regardless as to if they are in translation or not. Just lately two books have really challenged what I thought I knew about two countries.


The first was a non fiction book, called Two Trees Make a Forest.

This is a book that ticked many of my personal interests: travel, nature writing and family history. It was also about Taiwan, a country that I had always thought was a relatively liberal place and a definite alternative to China. I was very surprised to discover that it was subject to martial law for so long, and as repressive as mainland China in its way, just not a communist country.

I think that some of my preconceptions come about because in the time that I've been news/politically aware it has moved away from a one party, repressive system and become more liberal  - unconsciously I had thought that this was always the case.  Always good to learn more and this was a fascinating book about reconnecting with your roots.

The second book that really opened my eyes recently also comes from the far east, as it is set in South Korea, Kim Jeyung, Born 1982 (by Chi Nam-Joo, trans. Jamie Chang)

This is a book that is all about the pressures that South Koreans around my age/my sister's age face in society today, and especially how women are treated. It was truly horrifying and eye-opening, despite nothing truly horrific actually taking place.  The publisher blurb gives a hint of the subject matter:

Kim Jiyoung is a girl born to a mother whose in-laws wanted a boy.
Kim Jiyoung is a sister made to share a room while her brother gets one of his own.
Kim Jiyoung is a female preyed upon by male teachers at school. Kim Jiyoung is a daughter whose father blames her when she is harassed late at night.  
Kim Jiyoung is a good student who doesn’t get put forward for internships. Kim Jiyoung is a model employee but gets overlooked for promotion. Kim Jiyoung is a wife who gives up her career and independence for a life of domesticity.

This doesn't quite warn you just what a punch this book packs, especially at the end. Although fiction all of the statistical claims, figures and news stories are given footnotes that allow you to see that this is real and not exaggerated for a novel.

Again I had the idea that South Korea was a 'good guy' - that it was progressive and to be held up as a beacon for showing how a country can heal from a traumatic recent past.

A film has been made of the book, and it is a best seller in Korea. This translation will be published in February 2020 and I hope that it is as well received in English as it has been in Korean - it is an important read, and always good to remember that there is a lot of work to do world wide on equality.

With thanks to Norfolk Libraries & Net Galley for these two books.

Challenging My Brain

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy by Anne Boyd Rioux

Little Women (and the three follow up novels) have long been some of my favourite reads - I've lost count of how many times I've read them! However I've also spent a lot of time in the past few years debating with friends (who's opinions I really value) about if these books are pro- or anti-feminist works.

Warning - there are some spoilers below...

I've always maintained that they are positive reads for young readers - Jo makes a living from her writing and later her teaching. Meg may marry young but the struggle of being a homemaker and mother is stressed, Amy becomes a successful artist before marrying.

My more critical friends however see the books less positively - that only marriage and family can make women happy, or if they are truly good then they die.

When I saw advance copies of Boyd Rioux's book up for review on Netgalley I got really excited. Then a little nervous that perhaps a serious lit-crit book would be beyond my broken brain. It nearly has. I can only read the work in small chunks, and I have had to reread chapters/pages multiple times. I've also been reading this book for nearly a fortnight and I'm still not  at the end - something that those who know me will find incredible.

My feelings for this book are absolute love. It covers the way that Little Women mirrors Alcott's life, and a potted biography of all four March/Alcott women. It then talks about how the books have been represented on screen (and how this has influenced the pro/anti feminist debate) and I am just up to the part where Boyd Rioux is making the case for both viewpoints.

I can now appreciate my friends' views more but unless in the last portion of the book there are significant twists/revelations I am proud to stand by my opinion that this is a book that promotes female independence!

The book will be published in August and I know that I will be buying at least one copy for my Little Women critical friends!

September Reading Round Up

Our trip to Yellowstone and the other American National Parks has a big effect on me - I don't think that I've ever fallen in love with a place so deeply before.  My day (and night) dreams seem to be full of mountains and wildlife and so has my September reading as I worked my way through numerous memoirs of Rangers who live and work in the National Parks.

Apart from these books I've had an interesting month - many of my books had a space theme and as I blogged earlier this week these were of mixed quality. Unsurprisingly the two books I was complaining about haven't made my best of the month...

Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornack

This book isn't actually published until the 19th of October but thanks to Netgalley I got to read this early after hearing lots of good things. This is (sort of) a Christmas book - a family are forced into quarantine over Christmas as one of the family has just returned from Africa where she has been nursing in an Ebola style emergency.  Forced proximity with family is always stressful and this family all have secrets...
The book is a little cheesy and I did guess one of the twists but this didn't matter overall as it was just a really good book - it is also set in Norfolk and trying to guess the 'real' locations was an added level of fun to the read.

The Rise of the Rocket Girls - Nathalia Holt

After the success of Hidden Figures earlier in the year I was pleased to find another book about women working in the early days of the American space program. These women worked more with the unmanned programs and were based at JPL in Pasadena, CA.  It was great to hear more about the human computers and as I've been lucky enough to visit JPL this book really came alive for me.

A Galaxy of Her Own - Libby Jackson

Another book focusing on women in space, this is supposedly for children but wouldn't look out of place in any human spaceflight book collection. Jackson goes right back to the nineteenth century to look at women in history who have influenced the space program and features women from all over the world.  We get to 'meet' women from all walks of life - astronauts to computers to the people making the spacesuits. Each woman gets a page to herself and is illustrated by different up and coming artists.

The book isn't officially published until November but I got my copy at New Scientist Live and was lucky enough to get it signed by Jackson too.

A River Runs Through It - Norman Maclean

After reading so many books set in National Parks, Wyoming and Montana it was hard to pick just one as a book of the month.  Finally I settled on this one as it was just so different. On first glance it seems to be just about fly fishing but it was so much more - it is about families, nature, love and duty. I loved it! I wasn't quite so enamoured of the other short stories but this one really spoke to me.

Norfolkbookworm at the Movies: Hidden Figures

Hidden Figures (film and book)

Here's something you don't often hear the Norfolkbookworm say - the movie was as good as the book!

From reading past entries on this blog it is pretty obvious that I have an interest in reading biographies/autobiographies and that I am fascinated with space travel. Here the two passions collide and for once everyone wins.

The book by Margot Lee Shetterly is a great read, it covers the lives of many of the people involved in the early era of manned (and it was only men at this time) space flight but this time from the rarely covered point of view of the backroom women. In addition to this these women were black and living in a segregated America in a highly segregated/racist state.

The book covers their lives from childhood through their fights for education and then into their wartime careers where colour of skin temporarily mattered less than winning. After the war these women - incredible engineers and mathematicians continued to work for NACA/NASA and were an integral part of the space program.

I've read a lot of books about this era and I'd never heard of them so they really were hidden figures. I enjoyed the book but found it a little chaotic in style, however it covered so much time and so many people that I was worried how a film could ever be made from it.

The film sensibly narrowed its focus to tell the story of just three women and tightened the time frame to a taut two years or so.  This lead to a fast paced, tense story with real heart.  It also retained most of its accuracy and I do feel that if you just saw the film you would get a pretty fair idea of what the space program and NASA were like at this time. Apart from the amalgamation of NASA characters in to one or two leads the space history itself was spot on too if occasionally played a little too much towards dramatic crescendos.

I had two issues with the film, while I didn't expect the actors playing the Mercury Seven astronauts to look exactly like their real life characters the wrong hair cuts, especially on John Glenn really annoyed me.

The second issue is a little more nuanced - in no scenes where the actors depicted as smoking, and I really do think that in those offices where people were frantically trying to solve problems to safely send men in to space there would have been a *lot* of smoking taking place. Even in the climactic scenes of the film no one lights up in Mission Control and I know that is inaccurate from NASA images of the time!  Further investigation into this by Mr Norfolkbookworm gave the answer - if there had been accurate portrayals of smoking in the film then the cinema rating would have been higher and the distributors rightly wanted as many people to see this as possible! Full details on this here.

My final thoughts are a little more controversial, and point the finger at an American Hero somewhat:

In this film (and book) John Glenn is portrayed as the Mercury Astronaut who is the most accepting of the black women's roles. In the film his trust in Katherine Johnson is so great that he won't fly without her working a mathematical problem.
Yet... I've also read a lot of books about the Mercury 13 - the women who also went through the same training as Glenn et. al. (and performed better on many of the tests) - and it was Glenn's word that got their training scrapped and the idea of women in space, via NASA, postponed until 1983 - 21 years.

Since learning this I've always felt very ambivalent about Glenn's status as 'all American hero' but I guess that this just shows that no one is as good as they are portrayed and at least he wasn't a racist as well as sexist.

Digressions over - Hidden Figures is nominated for 3 Oscar awards this weekend, including Best Picture, and I would love for it to win. It is a heartwarming film, based on a great book, that shows viewers that gender and colour of skin really shouldn't be a barrier to doing what you love and being successful in it. #ThisGirlCan

Edited to add - Mr Norfolkbookworm has just let me know that his mum was also a computer, just like the women in Hidden Figures, in the UK and Switzerland - including on this project http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/acl/literature/earlyhistory/p014.htm.

Movie Going

I don't go to the cinema as much as I go to the theatre but this year I totted up my visits and I've been a respectable 17 trips to the cinema plus one National Theatre Live. This leads me to the first of my 'best of' lists for 2016.

It has to be said that about half of these films were animated and that this year seems to have been an outstanding for this genre.  Favourites here have been varied in topic but I enjoyed them all immensely and it has been hard to narrow it down to my top three - but these are Moana, Zootropolis and Your Name with Kubo and the Two Strings just missing out.

However my top film of the year, and possibly the decade was the incredible Eagle Huntress which I saw on release day. This narrative documentary film follows one family in Mongolia as their 13 year old daughter follows in the family tradition to become an Eagle Hunter. It has a strong feminist message - girls really can do whatever they set their minds to and compete in a men's world and it is also a film about the bond between fathers, grandfathers and daughters.

Aisholpan wants to follow in her father's footsteps, she wants to fly and hunt with Golden Eagles on the steppe in Mongolia, she also wants to be able to compete in the regional competitions showing her skills.  Her traditional (yet progressive) family support her wholeheartedly in this.  We then follow roughly a year in her life as she attains these goals - not without some hardships.

There has been a lot of criticism about this film for being too sentimental and also inaccurate. I don't recall the film saying that she wanted to be the first female huntress, just the first in her family and while any other women huntresses aren't shown at the competition I don't feel that this is against the story - this film is about Aisholpan's dreams. It is of course edited to have a narrative that draws you - that's how all films work.
It is also to be noted that the Mongolian and Kazakh communities do have a long tradition of equality which make Aisholpan's dreams realistic - it is just the Western perception of these different ways of life that need challenging and educating.

As someone who has a strongly supportive family and also a love of flying birds of prey this film really hit a chord with me.  I think that what ever criticism is out there this film should be shown in schools and also in Guide & Scouts units (and other such organisations) as a life affirming film showing that girls can do anything.

Theatre 2016: Review Twenty-three

Boys Will Be Boys, Bush Theatre at the Bush Hall, London. July 2016.

This was my final event of a busy few days (three plays/shows, one film and an exhibition in 50 hours!) and neither Rebecca nor I can remember why we picked to see this - a review somewhere must have enticed us.

We landed on our feet with this show - at just 1hr 45 minutes it packed a lot of punch.  The all female cast told a shocking story of sexism in the world of finance but the show was a mix of straight drama, cabaret style anecdote telling and big musical numbers.

The cast of 5 were incredibly talented and throughout the show I was never quite sure where the specifics of  story were going but the feel, that women don't compete on a level playing field with men currently was eloquently told without becoming didactic.

I found the show to be moving, socially aware, funny, shocking, and sensual.  I found Kirsty Bushell, playing Astrid to be the stand out of the show. With no costume changes at all she managed to convey all aspects of Astrid's character with just body posture and facial expressions and towards the end, despite her behaviour, my heart broke just a little for her as she looked so broken.  The rest of the cast were also terrific and as an ensemble this was stunning - it was just a little sad to see how empty the venue was.

If this tours or transfers I'd urge you to go - I know I'd try and get tickets again.

Theatre 2016: Review Six

Ellen Terry with Eileen Atkins, The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe Theatre, London. February 2016.

In the first year of my MA one module I studied was all about the history of Shakespeare in performance and for my final essay I chose to write about Ellen Terry.  She was the one of the leading Shakespearean actresses of the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth and very influential both through her family and also her own talent. In addition to acting she also wrote essays about Shakespeare's women and really brought them to life, she was an early supporter of the woman's suffrage movement too and made public appearances to raise money for the cause.

In her own life time she performed these essays to audiences and after her death they were collected together and published. It is these essays that are brought back to life by Atkins in this 70 minute monologue and it is hard to believe that they are 100 years old for they sound as fresh and worthy of study now as they were then.

Atkins is playing Terry from the moment she walks on stage and the lectures are given so naturally and conversationally that I was held spellbound from the first word. The small biographical details that are also woven in to the lectures were a delight, as I'd studied Terry in some depth there were no new anecdotes but hearing 'her' give them was a delight and hearing the audience response to them was also a joy.

Atkins managed a virtuoso performance switching from Terry to numerous Shakespearean roles with just a twitch of the shoulders or a facial expression and some of here scenes were easier to follow than actual performances.

I'm so glad that this was revived in this Winter season at the Globe as I was very sorry to have missed it last time round, I do think that it is quite specialised - you do have to know the plays quite well to follow some of the trains of thought but Atkins has such a splendid voice that just sitting and listening to the words would also be a treat.

Having seen Simon Callow's one man Shakespeare a few years ago and thoroughly enjoying that I have to say that I think this was better. I'm not sure if it was because the subject, Shakespeare's women, chimed more with me or if it is because I now know the plays so much better but the scant 70 minutes left me wanting more and I hope that in this special anniversary year that this show has been recorded and that it will be broadcast so that many more people can see a wonderful performance.

 Smallhythe House and barn theatre, Kent - Ellen Terry's home

Ellen Terry's costume for Lady Macbeth - it is made from beetle wings to get the iridescent shine

Return to Flight

Space Lectures event with Colonel Eileen Collins, Pontefract. April 2015.

Once more Mr Norfolkbookworm and I did battle with the road network linking Norfolk to Yorkshire for the chance to meet another astronaut.  Unlike previous events this one was with a much more recent space flier and indeed the first female Space Shuttle pilot, and later commander.

For me this was as exciting as meeting the Apollo era astronauts. I'm a child of the shuttle era and did see the launch of STS-123 in March 2008.  Sadly this wasn't Col. Collins' flight but the experience will stay with me forever.

We went to the dinner on the Friday night and this was a nice chance to catch up with the people we've met at other events and to help fund raise for more events in the future but the really exciting thing for me is the Saturday lecture.

We were spoiled this time as Col. Collins talked for well over an hour, mainly about her flight as the commander of the first space flight after the Columbia accident.  The talk, and I can't call it a lecture because despite an audience of 300+ it did just feel like a cosy chat, included photos, videos and anecdotes. It was pitched just right for the audience with it being neither too technical nor too basic.

After the talk there was a chance for audience questions and again I was impressed with the thoroughness and honesty of the answers given.  Space sickness is often dismissed by astronauts but Collins admitted to 'stomach awareness' on her first flight and that she took medication to avoid this on her subsequent one.

I was lucky enough to ask a questions and it was along the lines of will there ever be an all female crew, and if it would be a good idea.  The answer was that there certainly is no reason why there shouldn't be (and that the female astronauts did play 'fantasy crews' where they made them all female) but that personally Collins would not want to be part of it.  Her reasons were two fold - she wouldn't want the media pressure that such an event would generate and also the fact that if anything (however small) went wrong it would always be blamed on the sex of the crew.

This last point was illustrated with an story from Collins' first flight - on which she was the pilot - a booster returned to earth after being jettisoned from the External Tank and hit a wave wrong as it splashed down which damaged it.  Although this had nothing at all to do with anything that anyone on the Shuttle could have done it was still jokingly put down to having a woman driver.

Now I am sure that this was just lighthearted banter but for me it highlights just how far women still have to come in every field of work. Again I appreciated Collins' honest answer.

After the talk we waited to get Collin's autograph and now I have another cherished piece of space memorabilia as Eileen  Collins signed my own photo of a space shuttle launch.

(this is an edited photo of a photo hence the poor quality)

We'll be back in Pontefract in October as Jim Lovell of Apollo 8 and 13 fame will be the guest speaker, but before then we've also got tickets to meet Alexi Leonov - the first man to complete a space walk.  It is shaping up to be another out of this world year!

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-Three

Pitcairn, Shakespeare's Globe, London. October 2014.

I'm just back from another of my epic trips to London. This two day stay saw me take in three exhibitions, three plays and a 'setting the scene' talk at The Globe!

I'd enticed a new friend to London with me this time and before we went to the Globe he suggested a visit to see the Magna Carta exhibition at London's Guildhall.  The display was small but we still managed to spend ages looking at the document and trying to understand what it was all about.  We came to the conclusion that it was a wonderful piece of propaganda that seemed to be offering the common man a lot of things but that in actual fact it was firmly maintaining the status quo and protecting the rich! The one surprise for me was how protected women were in the document and how progressive society was towards us.
After this we also visited the Roman Amphitheatre buried below, and again although small was fascinating.  I shall go back and explore other areas of the building in the future.

Pitcairn in the afternoon was another surprise.  Reviews for this had been decidedly lukewarm and I was apprehensive - was my run of great new writing at the Globe about to be broken?

Absolutely not - from the very start I loved the play, the story, the acting and the use of space.  I wasn't hugely up on my historical knowledge of Pitcairn, Fletcher Christian, Captain Bligh and the Bounty but the story was so clear that this never became an issue, without resorting to too much back story narration I understood everything clearly.

My theatre companion is more knowledgeable in this part of history and he also agreed that this was a good imagining of what could have happened and neither of us spotted the twist in the story and the very funny denouement at the end. One element of the plot was very Enid Blyton but such was the story that it just added to my enjoyment. I was impressed that even a play about the Mutiny on the Bounty could get in the obligatory dig against the French!

The play was a bit rude, lewd and crude and I can see why some might not like it but for me it was a great piece of entertainment that made me think and also made me want to know more about the history around this version.  I also adored the jig at the end becoming a South Sea Haka.

Reuniting with an old (book) friend

Best to Laugh by Lorna Landvik

Electronic proof provided from Netgalley.com

I've been a fan of Landvik's writing since a friend pressed a copy of Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons into my hand many years ago.  Since then I've eagerly treated myself to her books on publication and sometimes even ordered the American versions because I just can't wait for the English edition.

I loved this new book although as it was in electronic proof form all the advance information I has was limited and it took me a little while to work out just when the book was set.

From the beginning the characters drew me in and I laughed and cried along with them.  Despite having little in common with any of them I could instantly identify with them and that is the mark of a good writer.

I loved escaping into this book on a day off and like other reviewers I found it blurred, in the right way, fiction and autobiography.  I think that the most shocking thing I found was just how little has changed for women in so many ways since the setting of the book. Women can't be funny, are still judged by their looks and are in a quest to stay young looking.

Brilliant book and now I must go and find Angry Housewives and reread an old favourite.

Lost in a good book

Book Review: How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis

This book nearly passed me by, but thanks to a tweet pointing me towards an excerpt I spent a very happy few days enjoying this book.

This book made me so happy - there is someone else out there who wants to be the characters they've read about. And there is someone who has thought about it even more than me - enough to write a book about it!

Samantha Ellis takes a look back at the female characters in literature that she's most wanted to be, and who's ideals she's tried to follow and then tries to decide if they are good role models or not. If they don't come up to scratch she then tries to find better ones.

I can't say that I'd ever thought as deeply about the subject as Ellis - generally I wanted to be a character for just as long as I was reading a book, although there are certainly some that have left me with a 'book hangover' and that I've found it hard to let go - many of Tamora Pierce's characters fit in this category.  However her thoughts have made me want to re-read a lot of books and look at them with the new ideas put forward in the book.

I hadn't read all of the books that Ellis talks about, and I didn't read those we had in common at the same age which may account for some of her ideas string me as new/unusual but my favourite bit of the book was that all books were championed from children's books to classics to bonk-busters.  It was the reading that was important not the book.

I find it hard to write reviews on non fiction that I've loved as much as this - it doesn't matter if you like books about books or are looking for a feminist rereading of classic books as this one slender volume covers it all.

I've already returned my copy to the library after strongly recommending it to two more people but I think I am going to have to buy this for myself and as a present for several people.

Theatrical Interlude 26

Blue Stockings, The Globe Theatre, London. August 2013.

I'd given up hope of seeing this play as it had so few performances and even fewer matinees but sometimes luck works in my favour and Mr Norfolkbookworm agreed that we could go on our wedding anniversary and he'd drive us home afterwards as he had the day after off work.

I'm so pleased that we could see this as a play about the struggle that women had in the past for the right to vote and for an education ticked so many of my personal boxes.  I went to an all girls school where it was expected that most of us would go on to university and take a degree but little was made of the fact that this expectation was a recent phenomenon. I certainly didn't know just how much of a fight women just 100 years before I took my undergraduate degree had to even attend lectures let alone graduate.

We saw the second performance of this new play and from the very beginning I was swept up in the story, the conflict between the male and female students, the conflict between the classes and the conflict between the desire for an education and a love life all came to life before my eyes and it really did feel like I was seeing history rather than a fictitious story.

Today women may be able to attend university on the same grounds as men but the fees are making it as hard for some to gain an education now as it was for women 100 years ago and this parallel made the play even more poignant to me.

I think that there were two things about this play that stood out for me - firstly the story focused on women trying to obtain science degrees (and being better at science than the men) not typically female 'arty' subjects and secondly that there were many sly digs at either Shakespeare or the topics (i.e. the French) that he typically made fun of which linked the play nicely to the setting.

This was the first modern piece that I'd seen at the Globe and it has made me keen to see more of the plays commissioned for the space - I wonder if I can fit in a trip to see The Lightning Child?