‘The best book about poetry I’ve ever read…a tremendously good book…a masterclass in close reading and close writing…certainly the only [book about poetry] that's made me laugh out loud. Maxwell's students are lucky to have him, and so are the rest of us.’
-Adam Newey, THE GUARDIAN
‘The most compelling, original, charismatic and poetic guide to poetry that I can remember. A handbook written from the heart by one of the true modern masters of the craft.’
- Simon Armitage
Maxwell’s sequel to TWELFTH NIGHT, playing in repertory with Shakespeare’s great comedy, in the idyllic outdoor season at Grosvenor Park, Chester, ‘the Northern alternative to Shakespeare’s Globe’, The Guardian
SHOWING NOW till August 19
DIRECTED BY Robin Norton-Hale (Winner, Olivier Award 2011, for La Boheme)
‘I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you!’ vowed Malvolio at the end of Twelfth Night, but twelve years have passed in Illyria and nothing has been heard of him. Illyria is a ghost town now; all its young people have left for ‘Upriver’, for the legendary land of Moai, a realm of love requited, fortunes made and dreams come true, presided over a mysterious figure who may or may not be Malvolio. Whoever he is, the Duke wants him ‘terminated’ and sends a motley crew of fools and assassins upriver to get the job done. But, as the Ferryman warns them:
Nothing makes no sense where we’re going,
no geography, no history, no language…
Twelve years after ‘Twelfth Night’…
the palace of Duke Orsino…
