Nuncle Music

‘You must not take me at my word, / you must take me at my lack of word, / you must take me at my music.’ In Nuncle Music, a sequence of monologues ‘spoken’ by the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, Gareth Reeves presents the psychodrama of an artist forced into the service of tyranny. Though the terror and intrigue of Soviet life haunt the poetry, acerbic wit and mischief are also here: Hamlet farts through a flute, Stalin plays the triangle, and up in space cosmonaut Gagarin sings a song by Shostakovich of ‘intergalactic platitudes’. Barrie Ormsby’s drawings provide a vivid accompaniment to Reeves’ poems.