Born in Wigan in 1901 and a childhood friend of George Formby, who was later to become his chief rival, Frank Randle was one of the greatest music-hall comedians of all time. His theatre career started in 1916, when he appeared as an acrobatic artist under the name of Arthur Twist. It was not until the thirties, however, that he achieved his greatest popularity and notoriety as a comedian whose wild, manic temperament introduced a fresh note of invention into popular entertainment. For ten years he ran his own touring company, Randle's Scandals, playing to enthusiastic audiences all over the country. He also made a number of shoe-string movies and was the star of Blackpool's most distinguished summer-season show. During the early fifties his health declined and he died in Blackpool in 1957. Originally published in 1978, Jeff Nuttall's account of Frank Randle is both a portrait of a 'very, very, funny man' and the story of his own search as he pieced that portrait together by talking to Randle's acquaintances, friends, colleagues and relations. What emerges from his narrative is a beautifully recorded analysis of the ways in which working-class values are expressed in popular entertainment and are thus ritualised by it. The image Nuttall builds of Randle also allows him to explore the perennial theme of the clown as outsider and, with the passing of Randle, he acknowledges the passing of a certain naive optimism which Randle so expressively embodied.

This exciting volume combines the diverse talents of an impressive range of writer-critics in an engaged and lively response to the poetry of Geraldine Monk. Monk's reputation as one of the most exciting and provocative writer-performers on the British scene has been established for some time and this new collection aims to reflect critically on a prolific career which has spawned fourteen major works in the last twenty five years. The contributions within pursue several lines of enquiry beginning with considerations of the early pamphlets published in the late seventies and early eighties, the substantial works of the mid-late 80s and 90s and the major collections of the beginning of the twenty first century. Unsurprisingly what many consider as one of Monk's finest books, 1994's Interrregnum (now available in the new Salt Selected Poems) - a stunningly complex evocation of the fate of the Pendle Witches - is examined from a variety of angles concerning its poetics of difficulty, its relationship to ideas of place, nature and eco-criticism, and its politics. Other contributors look at the presence of the 'eerie' in Monk's work; the role and function of children's games throughout her oeuvre and the ways Monk engages with the visual and the sonic aspects of language. This will be the first collection of critical responses to Monk's poetry and will be a must for any reader interested in engaging with this dynamic and strenuous writer.

Out of print for fifty years, Jeff Nuttall's legendary exploration of radical 1960s art, music, and protest movements. " Bomb Culture is an abscess that lances itself. An extreme book, unreasonable but not irrational. Abrasive, contemptuous, attitudinizing, ignorant and yet brilliant." -Dennis Potter Out of print for fifty years, Jeff Nuttall's Bomb Culture has achieved legendary status as a powerful, informative, and spirited exploration of 1960s alternative society and counterculture. Nuttall's confessional account of the period investigates the sources of its radical art, music, and protest movements as well as the beliefs, anxieties, and conceits of its key agitators, including his own. Nuttall argued that a tangible psychic dread of nuclear holocaust pervaded both high and low cultures, determining their attitude and content, much as the horrors of World War I had nourished the tactics and aesthetics of Dadaism. Accompanying the original text is a new foreword by author Iain Sinclair, who was closely acquainted with Jeff Nuttall and participated in the turbulent underground culture described in Bomb Culture. This anniversary edition is rounded out with an afterword by writer Maria Fusco and a contextual introduction by the book's editors which includes photographs and images of Nuttall's distinctive artwork as well as further archival materials.