Urban magic
On the way to hear Zadie Smith, I passed through some urban magic.
Besuited, untied, Thursday working week bedraggled
I stutter up out of Euston Square into the hazy light
Stepping not lightly down Gower Street fading into the worker
Ant mass I realise I am travelling the wrong road
Not just the wrong road of working life simply
Just the wrong road to the Bloomsbury theatre
I turn left. University College London. Graduation day.
Besuited students. Smiling in their family best. Fathers, mothers
Grandfather, grandmother, grand-everyone always
on the edge of embarrassment on the edge of tipsy
set against the forbidding old architecture of UCL; the pretty little
gardens, the absurd magicalness of obtaining a degree – I step
through this, down the stairs to the left of the garden, through the
wasteland of a basement and building detritus up some stairs into
a foyer full of readers, books and people waiting in anticipation of Zadie.
Strange, contradictory and somehow very magical slice of urban London.
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About me
I'm a playwright and investment analyst. I have a broad range of interests: food, gardening, innovation & intellectual property, sustainability, architecture & design, writing and the arts. I sit on the board of Talawa Theatre Company and advise a CIS investment trust on socially responsible investments.
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Recent Work
Recent plays include, for theatre: Nakamitsu, Yellow Gentlemen, Lost in Peru, Lemon Love. For radio: Places in Between (R4), Patent Breaking Life Saving (WS).
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Nakamitsu
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Yellow Gentlemen
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