Isherwood was both a journalist and novelist and spent a time living in Nazi Germany during the thirties. His novels offer insight into the state of pre World War Two Germany and explore the poverty and indulgences of the 1920’s and the threat of fascism and anti-Semitism that was building at the time. An interesting blend of fact and fiction, Isherwood’s novels use himself as character, participant and self to explore the tensions of the period.

This new production of I Am Camera which also marks the play’s sixtieth birthday uses a chapter from Goodbye to Berlin in which Isherwood meets the charismatic, infamous Sally Bowles. Vicky Campbell’s performance explores the underside of her seemingly self confident, quirky exterior, which are at once a hollow charade and a cry for help. Like Graham Greene’s Ida Arnold, Sally is at heart an innocent, and this is what renders her such an intriguing character. Sally and Christopher have a whirlwind friendship, trying to find enough money to stay a float, with Sally providing the dramatic narrative, as she creates mayhem where ever she goes. It is the comedy of Isherwood’s work which is really brought to life in this piece, his observation of human nature is at times absurd, but there is always an underlying threat of reality breaking through the characters’ own portrayal of themselves.

Mark Johnston’s Isherwood makes great use of the role of narrator, he is at once immersed in the story, an omnipotent narrator making witty remarks to the audience and at the same time is writing it all down in what was to become Goodbye to Berlin.

A great cast, well directed and beautifully staged, the play is a must see for fans of Isherwood, and truly brings to life the characters and story of The Berlin Novels. I Am Camera runs until 29^th May at The Rosemary Branch Theatre, Islington.

We see young Tim as a puppet, voiced by Meade, and read his accounts of his dull home life and crappy school life. The video segments, delivered as YouTube clips, are surprisingly touching given the simplicity of the puppet being used, while the diary passages are well written. Future Tim, along with his sidekick, known only as… Sidekick, is drawn in an engaging cartoon style. There’s also a genuinely bloggy-looking blog for a girl called Jenny, who seems to have stumbled across Tim’s time-spanning communications by accident, but turns out to be very central to saving the universe!

Meades is adept at giving his different characters distinctive voices, both on the page and via video and song, and the drawings add a psychedelic edge to proceedings. The use of the Internet for delivery is not ideal, as I think the creator knows – because asking users to work through 30 web pages, albeit some of which are relatively brief, is a challenge when all the other paraphernalia of our digital lives can intrude. Having said that, if you can clear an hour of your life, and avoid tabbing off to check your e-mails or see whether the world economy has exploded yet, I think you will find In Search of Lost Tim to be a charming and enjoyable tale, and proof that there can be more to short stories than just words and pictures on a printed page.

Read In Search of Lost Tim now

Black Static is edited by Andy Cox and published by TTA Press. After a few months’ hiatus, (wherein the publication formerly known as The Third Alternative – a mixture of sf, fantasy and horror – refocused on the darkside, redesigned with David Gentry‘s ambiguously appropriate artwork, and renamed), Black Static is now at a fifth issue, (although my timing will undoubtedly ensure that number six drops through my letterbox the day this review goes up).

What’s in it? An intriguing blend of consistently high quality dark fiction, and some fascinating non-fiction columns. On opening a magazine I inevitably find myself gravitating towards the latter, be it comment or reviews, before getting stuck into the fiction; so it’s these I’ll concentrate on first.

Other new genres include the B-Superhero Genre: middle-weight comics and ‘paper-thin brands’ building new franchises, now that the major superheros are exhausted; the Maleness-In-Crisis Genre: watch as the stressed out modern male loses it; the Holy-wood Genre: the Bible creeps into the plot appealing to millions of Americans; the Brand Genre: make anything that sells into a movie; the Gay Men and Teenaged Girls Genre: High School Musical, Mamma Mia – enough said. Fowler wonders what’s happened to the Real-Life Hero Genre, where real life is too sensitive and painful for us to be permitted to spend time watching it unfold on screen – it might upset someone.

Books on the other hand, books are a place and industry where the author has become one with his/her output. Authors are as much the brand as their protagonists, and in some cases they are the central characters in the story being told, take misery memoirs, for example. Fowler is reassured because he believes that books can continue to let us escape into (un)real-life with all their blends of fact and fiction and therefore, Freedom.

TTA Press also publishes Interzone (sf and fantasy), Crimewave (dark crime fiction), and The Fix, a highly recommended short-fiction review website. The Transmissions From Beyond podcast has just been launched, offering short stories from the pages of its magazines in the following genres: sf and fantasy, horror, and crime. These come from Interzone, Black Static, and Crimewave both past and present. Go here for their Flickr photostream.

What makes this first story innovative is that is essentially a mash-up of a simple linear adventure story with Google Maps. The text appears in bubbles attached to points on the map (occasionally you get richer content, such as a text message actually shown on the display of a mobile phone, or a photo of what the narrator is describing), and as you click the links to move the story forward (there is a lot of clicking), the narrator’s journey is plotted on the map. As you switch from chapter to chapter, the style and scale of the maps change. This can be quite exciting at first – it starts in the new St Pancras International station (which I liked because they used to be a client of mine!) – but when the action is all set in one building, for example an Edinburgh hotel, it seems a bit pointless to have a bird’s eye view.

The trouble with the whole thing is, because Cumming presumably knew how his work would end up being presented, he has done things which cause the story to suffer. The locations have been chosen more for aerial appeal than for any particular plausibility, and sometimes devices have to be shoehorned in to the plot to justify some showing off, the most notable being the jaw-droppingly bad line “I used to do a bit of roof running in London as a teenager. Once you get the hang of it it’s not too difficult.” Course you did, so now you can run across the roof of Edinburgh Waverley Station, no bother!

I don’t want to disparage the effort that has gone in to this, or the boldness of the thinking – but ultimately, good digital fiction must surely share the key attributes of good analog fiction, namely engaging characters, an imaginative plot and stylish writing. Sadly, The 21 Steps does not manage to transcend its curiosity value and the story is not one that I would have stuck with to the end had I not been writing this review.

Penguin’s naming of the site We Tell Stories seems designed to assert their artistic credentials over their commercial imperatives – but the fact that the six stories are all inspired by Penguin Classics reminds us that Penguin Sell Books too. I await the remaining five with great interest.

Via Shane Richmond at The Telegraph