Review of Player's Boy from 1971

[coughingbear]

Looking for something else, I came across this brief review by Gillian Avery of Player's Boy in The Tablet from 1971, so thought I would put it here in case other people don't know it:

Sweeping forward some three thousand years to 1590 Antonia Forest in The Player's Boy plunges into the uncertainties of England in the reign of Elizabeth the First. Her eleven year-old hero moves into a world of intrigue and secret plotting via the death of Kit Marlowe, an encounter with Lord Southampton and a place with Will Shakespeare's company of players. He works his way through the girl's parts and we leave him as a promising Hotspur. The background to the story is skilfully laid in. Antonia Forest catches the atmosphere of the players in a society totally dependant upon the patronage of the powerful and succeeds in conveying a wholly satisfactory impression of day to day living in a world of conflicting loyalties and uncertain futures which both lives vividly in the mind of the reader and satisfies the most demanding historian.There is a moving chapter in which we see through the eyes of our young actor hero a Tyburn execution of three Papists, one of whom he recognises.

I had a quick search in the archives to see if there were other reviews of her books, but only found one, from December 1953, by Pamela Whitlock:

Miss Antonia Forest's The Marlows and the Traitor (Faber, 10s. 6d.) is one of those novels for young people of which the standard seems to get higher every year. She has taken one of the most baffling problems of today, the psychology of treachery, and deals with it in terms of the experience of children none of whom are out of their teens, and though there are, of course, grown-ups in the story, and the traitor himself is one, yet the whole story turns on the attitude of the children to their discovery that the naval officer whom their brother thinks wonderful is, in fact, on the wrong side : the algebraical equation of The Heat of the Day, in other terms. The dialogue is vivid and assured, the plot integrated and the characterization is neatly defined, and we really care about the nice Marlows and their friends ; one even cares about the traitor, which of course would happen in real life.

Comments

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Thank you - I've just posted on the Peter's Room readthrough about the clash between friendship and principle in Forest, and so it's interesting to see MATT compared to a novel which is, according to wiki, about "the personal and the political".

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

That's interesting - I've just re-read Gillian Avery's Wardens Niece trilogy and was struck that the level of detail of characters' inner thoughts is similar to Forest and rare for a children's author. Was wondering if they ever read each others work.

[(Anonymous)]

Gillian Avery's a wonderful writer, but seems rather forgotten these days. Her books are clever and funny - "Likely Lad" is excellent. (Paula.)

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I'm amused and touched by 'the nice Marlows and their friends'. Are the Marlows 'nice'? Except in the D.H. Lawrence sense (http://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/dhl-nice.htm), I mean.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Gillian Avery and Pamela Whitlock are responsible for two of my favourite children's books ever. I love 'The Greatest Gresham' by Gillian Avery - so good on family life, the rules different families live by, and the sometimes difficult relationship between parent and child.
And Pamela Whitlock with Katherine Hull wrote the slightly 'Peter's Room'esque 'Crowns' in which four children create a fantasy world in which they have long, involved adventures. It was my favourite book as a youngish child - it's aimed at younger readers than Peter's Room, so there's no burgeoning sexual awareness going on and no friendships are betrayed!
I love that both authors appreciated AF.