The Magic Theatre
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Two Rivers Press
Publishing:21st Feb '25
£11.99
This title is due to be published on 21st February, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
‘Sharp-edged, brilliant, and original.’—from the forward by PENELOPE BUCKLEY
A new collection from James Harpur, chronicling his time at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the 1970s. Compelling, humorous and poignant, The Magic Theatre is an enthralling rite of passage amid the ‘full catastrophe’ of university life.
1976: just as the Sex Pistols are about to release ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’, James Harpur arrives at Trinity College, Cambridge, to read Classics. As if stepping onstage in the strangest of theatres, he finds himself acting in a play without knowing what his part is to be.
Changing to study English, the poet finds an education in unlikely places: a broken love affair; excruciating meetings with professors (and his father); initiations into Brahms and Rubens; writing a play about computer dating; and gatecrashing May Balls. Compelling, humorous and poignant, The Magic Theatre is an enthralling rite of passage amid the ‘full catastrophe’ of university life.
‘The Magic Theatre is at once an entertainment and a mystical progress, sharp-edged, brilliant, and original. The snakes of Harpur’s Cambridge slither powerfully and fast’—from the forward by PENELOPE BUCKLEY
‘Succeeding Harpur’s award-winning portrayal of boarding school in The Examined Life, these are poems of rare subtlety, of heartbreaking poignancy and laugh-out-loud humour, of pitch-perfect craft and the most marvellous music’— MARK ROPER
ISBN: 9781915048233
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
124 pages