Polly Vernon: Hot Feminist, Hay-on-Wye
As part of the launch of her headline-grabbing new book Hot Feminist, journalist Polly Vernon speaks to the Telegraph’s Bryony Gordon at the Hay festival. Feminism discourse, according to Vernon, has “gone a bit weird”; rather than liberating young women, it now leads them into frequent tailspins of self-doubt, their anxiety not a product of striving to conform to patriarchal standards but of failing to match up to even more exacting feminist ones. Aside from the fact this feels like a rather strained attempt to create a niche for herself in the feminist journalism market, you can just about see where Vernon’s coming from: the idea being that the exhaustive dissection of perceived collusion with patriarchal forces can be alienating. How this observation manifests itself, sadly, is with Vernon choosing to dismiss the more subtle forms oppression takes and calling that progress.
Hay festival, Sat
RA
David Sedaris, On tour
Be warned that once you’ve heard David Sedaris live, going home and merely reading his books is like trying to pore over the score of an opera. The American humorist’s stories have the rhythm and structure of finely wrought stand-up, with pay-offs carefully seeded and gags dispensed at precise intervals. In person, Sedaris stands stock still, blinking and deadpan like a grown-up Peanuts character, his weary Alan Bennett warble and Steven Wright-like mastery of the verbal ellipsis turning the written word’s wry smiles into out-loud hysteria. Sedaris catalogues man’s infinite capacity for absurd hubris and plain stupidity, which means dancing on the line between wry observation and outright snobbery, and occasionally overstepping it on purpose – a cathartic joy best shared.
The Everyman Palace, Cork, Sat; Ulster Hall, Belfast, Sun; St David’s Hall, Cardiff, Mon; Plymouth Pavilions, Tue; Bournemouth Pavilion, Wed; Margate Winter Gardens, Thu; De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, Fri; touring to 15 Jun
JS
Katy England: Styling McQueen, London
At times, the contents of the Alexander McQueen exhibition, currently showing at the V&A (to 2 Aug), feel almost sublime. Yet although his clothes seem to transcend taste, time and place in their exquisite and visceral beauty, to view them as such would be to overlook the serious intellect and intent behind them. And as singular and uncompromising as his vision was, it didn’t come solely from McQueen’s brain – his house was home to a meeting of minds. One such collaborator was Katy England, who here discusses her many years working alongside the designer. Having begun her career styling for magazines in the early 90s, she was approached by McQueen – as a fan – in a Soho shop in the middle of the decade. Nominally a stylist, England spent her time researching, discussing, fitting, casting and, as a result, helping to shape the crude grandeur of the McQueen aesthetic.
V&A, SW7, Mon
RA
