Non-Fiction
On this page I have assembled a small selection of my non-fiction writing. This comprises:
- three talks for BBC radio, one of the many lectures I have given aboard Swan Hellenic cruises, and the 1997 World AIDS Day address at St Martin-in-the-Fields.
- general features relating to my life and work.
- theatrical features and interviews.
- reviews of books which relate either directly or indirectly to my own writing, as well as those for which I have a particular enthusiasm or, in a few cases, a strong aversion.
Talks
Naked Came I: Job in Literature
Literary Adaptation
The Problem of Suffering: World AIDS Day address 1997
Women Pirates of the West Indies
General Features
Agony of watching my dying mother stripped of dignity
Frills and Thrills: Why are so many priests gay?
The Decline of the Liberal Church
The Love That Dares Speak Its Name: James Kirkup’s poem 25 years on
Book of a Lifetime: The Human Predicament by Richard Hughes
Cruising: A lecturer’s life on the open waves
Swan Song: The demise of Swan Hellenic
A River Cruise Through Russia
A Visit to the Philippines
Arts and Theatre Features
Hans Christian Anderson: a bicentennial tribute
John Gielgud: The Last of the Titans
Joan Littlewood: Making a Scene
Stephen Sondheim: Caviar to the General
The Chippendales: Muscling in on Slease and Tease
DV8: At the theatre of blood and bruises
The Importance of Being Honest: a riposte to Donald Sinden
The Riches of Embarrassment: an Anatomy of Farce
Book Reviews
The Book of Heaven by Carol Zaleski and Philip Zaleski
Know The Truth by George Carey
The Roman Catholic Church by Edward Norman
A Defence of Masochism by Anita Phillips
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Proust in Love by William C Carter
Madame Proust by Evelyne Bloch-Dano
Shakespeare Revealed by Rene Weis & Shakespeare the Thinker by A D Nuttall
The Lost Life of Eva Braun by Angela Lambert
A Separate Creation by Chandler Burr
Heterosexual Dictatorship by Patrick Higgins
Magda Goebbels by Anja Klabunde
The Holocaust on Trial by D.D. Guttenplan
The Farewell Symphony by Edmund White
Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
The Artist’s Widow by Shena Mackay
Mother’s Milk by Edward St Aubyn
Kalooki Nights by Howard Jacobson
Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike
White Guys by Anthony Giardina
The Cleft by Doris Lessing
The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
The Abomination by Paul Golding
Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh
Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann
The Mystery of the Kaddish by Leon H Charney & Saul Mayzlish