The Ghost Theatre

Description

'Dramatic and gripping... a breathless journey of hope, beauty, wonder, tragedy, and the power of theatre' Isabelle Schuler 'Utterly transporting' Catriona Ward 'Vivid, heady and brilliantly staged' Stuart Evers 'Rich and evocative with shades of Angela Carter' Ever Dundas TO LOVE IS TO FALL . . . On a rooftop in Elizabethan London two worlds collide. Shay is a messenger-girl and trainer of hawks who sees the future in the patterns of birds. Nonesuch is the dark star of the city's fabled child theatre scene, as famous as royalty yet lowly as a beggar. Together they create The Ghost Theatre: a troupe staging magical plays in London's hidden corners. As their hallucinatory performances incite rebellion among the city's outcasts, the pair's relationship sparks and burns against a backdrop of the plague and a London in flames. Their growing fame sweeps them up into the black web of the Elizabethan court, where Shay and Nonesuch discover that if they fly too high, a fall is sure to come... Fantastical and captivating, The Ghost Theatre charts the rise and dramatic destruction of a dream born from love and torn apart by betrayal.

Mat Osman is the bassist and founder member of iconic British rock band Suede and a composer of music for TV and films. He also worked as a culture journalist during the noughties, writing about art and travel for papers, magazines and online.

Dramatic and gripping, The Ghost Theatre pulled me on a breathless journey of hope, beauty, wonder, tragedy, and the power of theatre. * Isabelle Schuler * A wild, vivid, eerie flight of imagination about the stories we live, and those we tell others. Utterly transporting. * Catriona Ward * I was utterly immersed in the world of Shay and Nonesuch, swept into the ordure and shine of Elizabethan London, felt the mad rush of performance and the darkness after it has passed. The last third, with its reversal and manic dash had me furiously turning pages, the events of Saturnalia as big as the city itself. It is vivid, heady and brilliantly staged. * Stuart Evers * Stunning! I devoured The Ghost Theatre and when I finished I couldn't stop thinking about it; all I wanted was to be back in that world. Beautifully written; rich and evocative with shades of Angela Carter. * Ever Dundas * A story of rebellion and magic, of mysticism and broken love in the streets and theatres and rooftops of Elizabethan London. Beautifully written, delicate and sad. I'm still haunted by it. * Mariana Enriquez, author of Our Share of the Night * In his glorious new novel, Mat Osman starts from the insight that the Elizabethan world was so close to being magical that it takes very little to erase that boundary and make those possibilities real. From the first page, Osman brings the underworld of Elizabethan London to life with its child theatres, rioting apprentices and anarchic riverine world, its jumble of squalor and glamour. But from here, the novel takes a step into air. The line between stagecraft and witchcraft is erased, and now larger-than-life heroes raise child rebellions; pursue exalted, treacherous love affairs; see the future in a flock of birds. As a reimagining of history, The Ghost Theatre has the subversive power of The Quincunx, with an added dash of prophetic magic and fantastical extravagance. It brings the reader into the predatory intimacy between the nobility and the painted children of the theatre world, then gives the children power and opens the door to hope and vengeance. Glorious! * Sandra Newman, author of The Heavens *