Frank Tallis is a clinical psychologist and writer of fiction and nonfiction. He was born in Stoke Newington, London in 1958 and trained at St George’s Hospital Medical School and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. His series of psychoanalytic detective novels, The Liebermann Papers, has been adapted for television as Vienna Blood, which can be viewed on BBC iPlayer. His new nonfiction book is Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna, and the Discovery of the Modern Mind. He lives in London.
1. Theatre
Robert Lloyd Parry has been touring one-man shows for many years in which he performs and interprets the supernatural stories of MR James in unusual and atmospheric venues. I went to see him recently at the Horse Hospital, behind Russell Square tube station in London (a strange building that I didn’t even know existed) and felt as if I had joined a secret literary society. For those with a Gothic sensibility, an intimate evening with Lloyd Parry is sure to satisfy. The lights go down and he casts a spell. Tickets sell out as soon as devotees hear about a coming “visitation”.
2. Book
The New Life by Tom Crewe
Tom Crewe’s debut is a beautifully crafted period piece that isn’t at all dusty or deadened by artificiality, but fresh and fully alive. The narrative is set in the world of Victorian sexology and the characters are memorable and modern. Writing about sex is notoriously difficult, but Crewe seems to find original and interesting ways of meeting the challenge. Only a few pages into chapter one and he offers us a spent member, possessing a “greeny Renaissance sheen, like some dying Christ”. At a deeper level, the novel grapples with substantial social questions.
3. Art
Sargent and Fashion, Tate Britain
I loved this. Klimt’s portraits frequently include direct references to the sexuality of his subjects, but Sargent is more subtle: a wrap slipping off the shoulder or a flash of teeth is enough. Freud would have approved. He believed art is at its most powerful when it eschews the explicit and whispers to the unconscious. Frocks positioned next to the portraits in which they were worn remind the viewer that Sargent’s society beauties were not dreamy, fantasy figures. These fabric creations encased a carnal reality. Anyone who thinks Sargent is anodyne should look again. He painted animals.
4. Hobby
Basic French, Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution
On Tuesday mornings I attend this course. We are taught by Marie-Pierre Pérez, a former actor who has performed at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, and whose considerable theatrical gifts are now deployed in the classroom. When teaching us how to use the expression “Je ne supporte pas”, her example was “Je ne supporte pas le poids de l’existence” (I can’t bear the weight of existence) – so French it made me laugh. Passe-moi les Gauloises. She also does a good Edith Piaf impersonation. The class is enormous fun – we are all useless, and anyone can join.
5. Restaurant
I’ve just been to this modern pub and dining room in King’s Cross for the first time. I went with my two sons (aged 42 and 18) and we enjoyed three reasonably priced courses, while looking out – from a pleasingly elevated vantage point – over the urban bustle and buzz of Granary Square. Whenever I’m in King’s Cross I feel obliged to explain my wide-eyed wonder. My sons must be getting bored of it by now. I can remember when there was nothing to see except dereliction and sex workers. I can’t quite believe the extent of the transformation.
6. Album
Víkungur Ólafsson: Goldberg Variations
“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” The provenance of this quote has never been established and, anyway, I’m not sure I agree; that said, I must confess that finding the necessary superlatives to do any kind of justice to pianist Víkungur Ólafsson’s recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations is, for me, close to impossible. The first time I heard Ólafsson play Bach it spooked me. I knew the piece well – I’d even played it myself – but it was like I was hearing it for the first time. Ditto Ólafsson’s Goldberg Variations. So – I’ll restrict myself to one word: revelatory.
