The Magic Theatre by James Harpur

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
Binding: Paperback / softback