Canadian-born Mel Cooper first came to the UK to study English Literature at Oxford University and stayed. He was captivated by the culture and history of Britain, which he found to be a welcoming and tolerant country. After working in highly illustrated, non-fiction publishing for over a decade, he founded and edited the magazine Opera Now. Since then he has worked as a consultant to the Japanese broadcaster NHK, a broadcaster on British Satellite Broadcasting, a maker of audio shows and arts critic for several airlines, and as one of the team that started Britain’s first commercial classical music radio station, Classic FM, on which he was both a classical music DJ and creator and presenter of shows like Classic America and Authentic
Performance. Throughout this period, he also lectured in music and literature in London and Oxford and published short stories in Canada. After working with the Genesis Foundation on helping to fund arts projects, he continues to write, review and lecture on music and literature. His first novel has just been published as an e-book. The title is City of Dreams. It is the first volume of a projected saga called The Dream Bearers. You can find the Kindle version of the book on Amazon.
Since the days when Joan Littlewood resurrected the Theatre Royal at Stratford East after World War II, this theatre has had its own special ethos tha...
The RSC has paired new productions of Love’s Labours Lost and Much Ado About Nothing to promote the idea that the latter is the mysterious lost play L...
The collaboration by Rowley, Dekker Ford and James Etcetera on The Witch of Edmonton has always seemed to lots of people to me amazing. How can 3+ men...
It took me a while to grow comfortable with (or even figure out) the visual and metaphoric concept behind this production of The Marriage of Figaro, b...
Stones in his Pockets is a wonderful example of Brecht’s “alienation effect” working as it should. Two men: one short, one tall; one chubby, one lanky...
In some ways, you could think of Puccini’s opera La Fanciulla del West as the first spaghetti western. This aspect is completely adhered to in the new...
Though this may be the very first Shakespeare play, and though everyone always talks about how it has sketches within it for what it is to come (girls...
My main problem with this production of The White Devil was the turning of Flaminio, the brother of Vittoria and secretary to Bracciano into a woman (...
I found this production of Avenue Q quite delightful from the moment it started. Yes, it is a kind of Muppet Show for grown ups! Yes, the script is a ...
Sometimes a production comes along that makes you rethink your preconceptions of a classic play, and in the case of Benedict Andrews’ A Streetcar Name...
