With a series of 'music in care' books aimed at supporting adults through a range of life's situations using music, John Osborne has collaborated with a new young author to bring fresh perspective on how the power of music can affect a young person's life. Coping with moving to a new school can be a difficult and challenging time for any young person but it can be even more problematic if you are on the autistic spectrum. This book tells the story of Luke Fiddes a remarkable young man and talented musician. It explains how Luke became aware of his different and special status and how he learnt to manage this. It also contains a self help manual for all young people which is designed to help deal with the struggles of adolescence using personalised music. This heartwarming, funny and frank account of Luke's journey gives a remarkable insight into some of the challenges but also the surprising benefits of living with Asperger syndrome. "I love my autism because I love music." Luke Fiddes

Music is central to our experience of the world around us. it is a primary source of the way we experience, understand and interpret the world in which we live. It is one of the core experiences that define us, unite us and enrich us. This book arose out of John's professional care experience and personal experience as a carer for his father who had dementia. As a musician he understood the power of music to enrich the quality of life. This practical, fun and interactive book is designed to help people to draw together those pieces of music that are most significant to them. These become a compilation that can travel with them on their dementia journey and can be used in therapeutic ways to reconnect to their memories and impact on current mood.

Having been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer John realised that specially chosen pieces of music have a major role in supporting people who are going through complex medical procedures. This book is practical, fun and interactive. It helps people to choose music that will support them in particular aspects of their treatment and to apply this therapeutically, to help cope through diagnosis, treatment and to aid healing and recovery.

20 songs from these hard rock heroes arranged for ukulele! Complete with full lyrics, and easy-to-read chord boxes. Songs include: Children of the Grave * Die Young * Heaven and Hell * Iron Man * Lonely Is the Word * The Mob Rules * Paranoid * Snowblind * War Pigs (Interpolating Luke's Wall) * and more.

In 1956 John Osborne's Look Back in Anger changed the course of English theatre. 'Look Back in Anger presents post-war youth as it really is. To have done this at all would be a significant achievement; to have done it in a first play is a minor miracle. All the qualities are there, qualities one had despaired of ever seeing on stage - the drift towards anarchy, the instinctive leftishness, the automatic rejection of "official" attitudes, the surrealist sense of humour... the casual promiscuity, the sense of lacking a crusade worth fighting for and, underlying all these, the determination that no one who dies shall go unmourned.' Kenneth Tynan, Observer, 13 May 1956 'Look Back in Anger... has its inarguable importance as the beginning of a revolution in the British theatre, and as the central and most immediately influential expression of the mood of its time, the mood of the "angry young man".' John Russell Taylor

This volume completes Part II of Series A of the Paper Museum. Together with the first volume, it reflects an unusual aspect of Cassiano's interests, but a particularly relevant one for modern scholars: the material remains of post-classical culture in Rome and the psychical inheritance from the earliest centuries of Christianity. Catalogued here is a diverse and fascinating range of antiquities: reliefs, inscriptions, sarcophagi, sculpture, manuscript illuminations, gold-glass, gems, ivories, lamps, metalwork and 'instruments of martyrdom'. The drawings were mainly collected by Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, Cassiano's brother, in the later seventeeth century and include some of the finest examples of archaeological draughtsmanship of the period. Catalogued here is a diverse and fascinating range of antiquities, mainly collected in the later seventeeth century: reliefs, inscriptions, sarcophagi, sculpture, manuscript illuminations, gold-glass, gems, ivories, lamps, metalwork and 'instruments of martyrdom'.

What was German Naturalism? What were its achievements? How does it compare with its counterparts in other European countries?
These are some of the difficult questions addressed by John Osborne in Gerhart Hauptmann and the Naturalist Drama, a revised and updated version of his The Naturalist Drama in Germany, now widely acknowledged as the standard introduction to the subject. The debates to which he contributed, and in some cases initiated, on Naturalism in the German theatre, Naturalist theory in Germany, and the development of the Naturalist movement to the contemporary Social Democrat movement, have remained central issues. This revised edition preserves the structure and approach of the original, including its emphasis on the early dramas of Hauptmann, while taking full account of subsequent scholarship which provides the context in which this Naturalist playwright's work can be placed.

Intended as a sequel to Rome in the Eighth Century (Cambridge, 2020), this survey of the material culture of the city of Rome spans the period from the imperial coronation of Charlemagne in 800 to the nadir of the fortunes of the Roman Church a century later. The evidence of standing buildings, objects, historical documents, and archaeology is brought together to create an integrated picture of the political, economic, and cultural situation in the city over this period, one characterized initially by substantial wealth resulting in enormous patronage of art and architecture, but then followed by almost total impoverishment and collapse. John Osborne also attempts to correct the widespread notion that the Franco-papal alliance of the late eighth century led to a political and cultural break between Rome and the broader cultural world of the Christian eastern Mediterranean. Beautifully illustrated, this book is essential for everyone interested in medieval Rome.

This book addresses a critical era in the history of the city of Rome, the eighth century CE. This was the moment when the bishops of Rome assumed political and administrative responsibility for the city's infrastructure and the physical welfare of its inhabitants, in the process creating the papal state that still survives today. John Osborne approaches this using the primary lens of 'material culture' (buildings and their decorations, both surviving and known from documents and/or archaeology), while at the same time incorporating extensive information drawn from written sources. Whereas written texts are comparatively few in number, recent decades have witnessed an explosion in new archaeological discoveries and excavations, and these provide a much fuller picture of cultural life in the city. This methodological approach of using buildings and objects as historical documents is embodied in the phrase 'history in art'.

St Peter's Basilica in Rome is arguably the most important church in Western Christendom, and is among the most significant buildings anywhere in the world. However, the church that is visible today is a youthful upstart, only four hundred years old compared to the twelve-hundred-year-old church whose site it occupies. A very small proportion of the original is now extant, entirely covered over by the new basilica, but enough survives to make reconstruction of the first St Peter's possible and much new evidence has been uncovered in the past thirty years. This is the first full study of the older church, from its late antique construction to Renaissance destruction, in its historical context. An international team of historians, art historians, archaeologists and liturgists explores aspects of the basilica's history, from its physical fabric to the activities that took place within its walls and its relationship with the city of Rome.

Medieval Rome was uniquely important, both as a physical city and as an idea with immense cultural capital, encapsulating the legacy of the ancient Empire, the glorious world of the martyrs and the triumph of Christian faith. Rome Across Time and Space explores these twin dimensions of 'place' and 'idea' and analyses Rome's role in the transmission of culture throughout the Middle Ages. Ranging widely over liturgy, architecture, sculpture and textual history, the authors focus on the mutual enrichment derived from the exchange of ideas and illuminate how cultural exchanges between Rome and its 'neighbours' (Byzantium, Italy, England and France), and within Rome (between Ancient and early Christian Rome and the medieval city) worked as catalysts for change, both to shape the medieval city and to help construct the medieval idea of Rome itself. The result is a rich and original perspective on a beguiling city with enduring appeal.

St Peter's Basilica in Rome is arguably the most important church in Western Christendom, and is among the most significant buildings anywhere in the world. However, the church that is visible today is a youthful upstart, only four hundred years old compared to the twelve-hundred-year-old church whose site it occupies. A very small proportion of the original is now extant, entirely covered over by the new basilica, but enough survives to make reconstruction of the first St Peter's possible and much new evidence has been uncovered in the past thirty years. This is the first full study of the older church, from its late antique construction to Renaissance destruction, in its historical context. An international team of historians, art historians, archaeologists and liturgists explores aspects of the basilica's history, from its physical fabric to the activities that took place within its walls and its relationship with the city of Rome.

Medieval Rome was uniquely important, both as a physical city and as an idea with immense cultural capital, encapsulating the legacy of the ancient Empire, the glorious world of the martyrs and the triumph of Christian faith. Rome Across Time and Space explores these twin dimensions of 'place' and 'idea' and analyses Rome's role in the transmission of culture throughout the Middle Ages. Ranging widely over liturgy, architecture, sculpture and textual history, the authors focus on the mutual enrichment derived from the exchange of ideas and illuminate how cultural exchanges between Rome and its 'neighbours' (Byzantium, Italy, England and France), and within Rome (between Ancient and early Christian Rome and the medieval city) worked as catalysts for change, both to shape the medieval city and to help construct the medieval idea of Rome itself. The result is a rich and original perspective on a beguiling city with enduring appeal.

During the late nineteenth century a remarkable combination of circumstances and individual talents permitted the Court theatre of a small German state to become the theatrical sensation of its age. The Meiningen Court Theatre developed into an international touring company under the leadership of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen. This book is based on a wide range of published and unpublished contemporary documents, photographs and sketches (many of which are reproduced here). In this 1988 volume, Professor Osborne provides a broad cultural-historical context for the emergence of the Meiningen Company and describes in detail the style and staging of productions, as well as the personality and directorial method of the Duke himself. Two famous items in the Company's repertoire, Julius Caesar and Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, are selected for particular attention. The Meiningen Company became famous throughout Europe, and became a source of inspiration to future directors of the modern theatre such as Antoine, Brahm and Stanislavsky.

Photography, one of the most influential inventions of the nineteenth century, has been shaped by Canadian innovators. Among them are two Quebec men who have flown beneath the radar in studies of the history of photography: the Smeaton brothers. Out of the Studio documents the life, oeuvre, and achievement of Charles Smeaton and his younger brother, John. Launched by the opening of their "photographic gallery" in 1861, they developed a reputation in Quebec for images of contemporaneous people, places, and events taken in challenging outdoor settings. Smeaton pictures of the aftermath of the Great Fire of Quebec in 1866 helped bring an understanding of the disaster to an international audience; images featuring the gold mining industry were displayed at the Exposition universelle in Paris the following year. When Charles travelled to Europe in 1866, he accomplished a feat previously thought impossible, taking the first successful photographs in the Roman catacombs. John moved to Montreal in 1869, where he worked for newspapers and developed techniques for the direct transfer of photographs into print without the necessity of intermediary engravings. Out of the Studio is the first comprehensive biographical study detailing the innovation and imagination of the Smeaton brothers and their legacy of images across two continents.

During the late nineteenth century a remarkable combination of circumstances and individual talents permitted the court theater of a small German state to become the theaterical sensation of its age.The Meiningen Court Theater developed into an international touring company under the leadership of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen. The company became famous throughout Europe and was a source of inspiration to future directors of the modern theater such as Antoine, Brahm, and Stanislavsky. This book is based on a wide range of published and unpublished contemporary document, photographs, and sketches, many of which are reproduced here. Osborne provides a broad cultural-historical context for the emergence of the Meiningen company and describes in detail the style and staging of productions, as well as the personality and directorial method of the Duke himself. Two famous items in the company's repertoire, Julius Caesar and Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, are selected for pariticular attention.

A narrative of decline punctuated by periods of renewal has long structured perceptions of Rome's late antique and medieval history. In their probing contributions to this volume, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars provides alternative approaches to understanding the period. Addressing developments in governance, ceremony, literature, art, music, clerical education and the construction of the city's identity, the essays examine how a variety of actors, from poets to popes, productively addressed the intermittent crises and shifting dynamics of these centuries in ways that bolstered the city's resilience. Without denying that the past (both pre-Christian and Christian) consistently remained a powerful touchstone, the studies in this volume offer rich new insights into the myriad ways that Romans, between the fifth and the eleventh centuries, creatively assimilated the past as they shaped their future.

This third collection of John Osborne's dramatic work includes three classic plays for the stage which confirm his reputation as one of the greatest British playwrights of the twentieth century. A Patriot for Me 'It is a landmark play in its open treatment of homosexuality and in the breadth of its historical canvas...few post-war plays have dealt so brilliantly with the way the individual, in rejecting the ethos of his society, also uncannily reflects it.' Guardian Luther 'The language is urgent and sinewy, packed with images that derive from bone, blood and marrow; the prose, especially in Luther's sermons, throbs with a rhetorical zeal that has not been heard in English historical drama since the seventeenth century.' Kenneth Tynan Inadmissible Evidence 'This is a work of stunning and intemperate power, a great bellow of rage and pain...there is a self-lacerating honesty about his writing that few other playwrights have come close to matching.' Daily Telegraph

In 1956 John Osborne's Look Back in Anger changed the course of English theatre. This volume includes some of the early plays which launched his career along its startling trajectory, as well as his much later play, Dejavu, which brings us Look Back in Anger's Jimmy Porter thirty-five years on, older and wiser, but no less indignantly eloquent.

The Origin of German Tragic Drama is Walter Benjamin’s most sustained and original work. It begins with a general theoretical introduction on the nature of the baroque art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, concentrating on the peculiar stage-form of royal martyr dramas called Trauerspiel. Benjamin also comments on the engravings of Durer and the theatre of Calderon and Shakespeare. Baroque tragedy, he argues, was distinguished from classical tragedy by its shift from myth into history. Georg Lukacs, an opponent of Benjamin’s aesthetics, singled out The Origin of German Tragic Drama as one of the main sources of literary modernism in the twentieth century.

This collection of drawings and watercolours of the mosaics and wallpaintings of early medieval churches in Rome forms an important part of the paper Museum, since it sheds much light on the nature and scope of antiquarianism in Italy at the time of the Counter-Reformation. The drawings and watercolours catalogued and illustrated here are all in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle, and are mostly by the artist Antonio Eclissi. The reproductions are generally in full colour, and frequently accompanied by illustrations showing the actual decoration in situ. The introductory essays outline the important phases of Cassiano dal Pozzo's career, discuss the history and significance of the 'Paper Museum', and explore the Christian tradition in seventeeth-century Rome. The Catalogue Raisonnee analyses each drawing in the greatest detail. This volume, the first to appear in the series, will be of special interest to archaeologists and medievalists engaged in the study of Rome's Early Christian churches, since many of the buildings, mosaics and paintings are now no longer extant. This collection of drawings and watercolours of the mosaics and wallpaintings of early medieval churches in Rome forms an important part of the Paper Museum, since it sheds much light on the nature and scope of antiquarianism in Italy at the time of the Counter-Reformation.

16 revealing stories about the human brain. Ever wondered how Scandinavians cope with 24-hour darkness, why we feel pain - or whether smartphones really make children stupid? Have you heard about the US army's research into supercharging minds? You need some Brainology. Written for Wellcome, the health charity, these stories follow doctors as they solve the puzzle of our emotions, nerves and behaviour. Discover fascinating and intriguing stories from the world of science. Contents Ouch! The science of pain - John Walsh Why doctors are reclaiming LSD and ecstasy - Sam Wong Inside the mind of an interpreter - Geoff Watts How should we deal with dark winters? - Linda Geddes Smartphones won't* make your kids dumb (*Probably) - Olivia Solon You can train your mind into 'receiving' medicine - Jo Marchant Charting the phenomenon of deep grief - Andrea Volpe The mirror cure for phantom limb pain - Srinath Perur Can you think yourself into a different person? - Will Storr How to survive a troubled childhood - Lucy Maddox What tail-chasing dogs reveal about humans - Shayla Love A central nervous solution to arthritis - Gaia Vince Could virtual reality headsets relieve pain? - Jo Marchant What it means to be homesick in the 21st Century - John Osborne Lighting up brain tumours with Project Violet - Alex O'Brien The US military plan to supercharge brains - Emma Young EXTRACT Ouch! The science of pain. John Walsh One night in May, my wife sat up in bed and said, 'I've got this awful pain just here.' She prodded her abdomen and made a face. 'It feels like something's really wrong.' Woozily noting that it was 2am, I asked what kind of pain it was. 'Like something's biting into me and won't stop,' she said. 'Hold on,' I said blearily, 'help is at hand.' I brought her a couple of ibuprofen with some water, which she downed, clutching my hand and waiting for the ache to subside. An hour later, she was sitting up in bed again, in real distress. 'It's worse now,' she said, 'really nasty. Can you phone thedoctor?' Miraculously, the family doctor answered the phone at 3am, listened to her recital of symptoms and concluded, 'It might be your appendix. Have you had yours taken out?' No, she hadn't. 'It could be appendicitis,' he surmised, 'but if it was dangerous you'd be in much worse pain than you're in. Go to the hospital in the morning, but for now, take some paracetamol and try to sleep.' Barely half an hour later, the balloon went up. She was awakened for the third time, but now with a pain so savage and uncontainable it made her howl like a tortured witch face down on a bonfire. The time for murmured assurances and spousal procrastination was over. I rang a local minicab, struggled into my clothes, bundled her into a dressing gown, and we sped to St Mary's Paddington at just before 4am. The flurry of action made the pain subside, if only through distraction, and we sat for hours while doctors brought forms to be filled, took her blood pressure and ran tests. A registrar poked a needle into my wife's wrist and said, 'Does that hurt? Does that? How about that?' before concluding: 'Impressive. You have a very high pain threshold.' The pain was from pancreatitis, brought on by rogue gallstones that had escaped from her gall bladder and made their way, like fleeing convicts, to a refuge in her pancreas, causing agony. She was given a course of antibiotics and, a month later, had an operation to remove her gall bladder. 'It's keyhole surgery,' said the surgeon breezily, 'so you'll be back to normal very soon. Some people feel well enough to take the bus home after the operation.' His optimism was misplaced. My lovely wife, she of the admirably high pain threshold, had to stay overnight, and came home the following day filled with painkillers; when they wore off, she writhed with suffering. After three days she rang the specialist, only to be told:'

When John Osborne died at Christmas 1994, his obituaries cited his autobiographical writings as perfect examples of undiluted talent and acerbic wit. Now, Osborne's superb autobiographies, A Better Class of Person: 1929-1956 and Almost a Gentleman: 1955-1966 (winner of the J. R. Ackerley Prize), are available for the first time in one volume, Looking Back. 'A brilliant, funny, melancholy and acrimonious book of memoirs . . . Almost every page confirms that his powers as an elegist, definer of the Zeitgeist and master of unforgiving disgust remain undimmed.' Observer This volume also contains 'Bad John', a review by Alan Bennett of A Better Class of Person, and David Hare's eulogy for John Osborne at the memorial service for Osborne in 1995.

Jimmy Porter, frustrated and bitter in his drab flat, lives with middle-class wife Alison. Also sharing the flat is Cliff who keeps things tenuously together. Alison's friend Helen arrives and persuades her to leave Jimmy only to fall for him herself. When Alison becomes pregnant Helen leaves them together. This play originally opened at the Royal Court Theatre in 1956 and has since proved to be a milestone in the history of theatre.