Review of RSC's 2016/17 The Rover by Aphra Behn

“Love and mirth are my business” – The Rover by Aphra Behn at The RSC

While researching my dissertation on Aphra Behn, I found her short-lived career as a spy fascinating. When I picked up The Rover its alternative title of The Banish’d Cavaliers made me wonder – what did those flamboyant losers of the English Civil Wars get up to when Oliver Cromwell was in power? And so the […]

Pepys Exhibition

My novel is set in 1650s, between the violence of the English Civil Wars and the flamboyant return of King Charles II. It’s not a very well-known historical period. At school, I think there was mention of Oliver Cromwell cancelling Christmas, but that was about it. Here is the late, great Alan Rickman calling off […]