The Engine

EUGENE DELACROIX AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) was a product of the post-revolutionary era in France, glimpsing the bitter end results of Napoleon's campaigns, the restoration of the Bourbons, annotating the upheaval of 1830 which was to lead to 1848 and the era of the second French Republic and then the second French Empire under Napoleon the Third. Delacroix was born on the eve of a new century and his parents were older than is the norm when his mother conceived. His father apparently had a two stone tumor removed from his left testicle at the same time as he was supposedly procreating.  Charles-Francois Delacroix was Minister of Foreign Affairs, his successor in the post was Talleyrand.  Therefore, many believe that Eugene's real father was Talleyrand (1754-1838), a ubiquitous Enlightenment figure simultaneously berating nuns and the like while continuing elicit affairs with scions of the rich.  However, it must be sa...

Educating Rita by Willy Russell at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast on the 4 th of March, 2016 Directed by Emma Jordan Starring Michael James Ford as Frank And Kerri Quinn as Rita This chalk and cheese drama details the relationship between an alcoholic Professor of English and his Open University student, Rita.   He is an all washed up alcoholic drifting between whisky-fuelled remorse, a relationship with wife Julia seemingly on the rocks and his albeit reluctant attempts to re-make a woman after his own image.   The play’s obvious antecedents are John Milton’s Paradise Lost (God’s creation of man and woman and the account of the Fall.), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (man becoming God through creation of new life.   This becomes a monster since created in the image of a ‘fallen’ creature.), George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (a Professor’s attempt to create an upper class woman from a Covent Garden flower seller thus demonstrating that class is as tang...

  Artist and Empire at the Tate Britain The Tate’s new exhibition concerns Britain’s past as an Imperialist, colonising world power.   At one point Britain ruled a quarter of the world’s entire land mass encompassing cultures as diverse as those of Newfoundland, Canada, the Indian Punjab, Durban in South Africa and Sydney, Australia. Britain’s relationship with its colonies and subject peoples but also with the rest of the world generally is a subject of constant examination and re-examination as the parameters of Nationalism, Imperialism and Colonialism shift and re-integrate only for the pattern to be altered again.   This is clearly an important point to re-consider Britain’s post-colonial development since the decline of a Socialist opponent is apparent but other, more elusive developments continue to appear. The Tate exhibition is divided into six sections and each section depicts a certain stage in the Imperialist project.   The first room deals w...