GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
Latest editorial
The Breakup Monologues: The Unexpected Joy of Heartbreak
Engagingly comic take on positives and negatives of love's labours lost
EMPATH: Rosie Wilby
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean
DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world
HAVING published her brilliant book Is Monogamy Dead? in 2017, comedian Rosie Wilby is back with another witty and self-reflective exploration of romantic relationships.
This time her focus is the near-universal experience of the breakup, with much of the material presumably coming out of her long-running The Breakup Monologues podcast.
In an attempt to get to grips with her own history of serial monogamy and serial separations and provide useful insights for the reader, Wilby adeptly mixes LOL memoir with academic studies, testimonials from other comedians and friends and lists of break-up songs and films.
Similar stories
LYNNE WALSH reports from the Women’s Declaration International conference on feminist struggles from Britain to the Far East
IAN SINCLAIR draws attention to the powerful role that literature plays in foreseeing the way humanity will deal with climate crisis
SARAH TROTT explores short fictional slices of life in the American midwest from a middle-aged and mostly female perspective
RON JACOBS reviews a new biography of the American poet who revolutionised the perception of black writers in the creative milieu of the day