MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
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Quentin Blake – doyen of children’s book illustrators
(L to R) Mr Magnolia by Quentin Blake and The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
Quentin Blake: Illustrating Verse
Kirkby Gallery / House of Illustration
QUENTIN BLAKE is one of Britain’s best-loved illustrators of children’s books. His whimsical style, anarchist characters and their crazy antics have enraptured generations of children.
That said, my own daughter told me that as a child she found his illustrations “too messy, slapdash, the scribbly-looseness of it all turned me off, and all his characters seemed to have big noses, which I didn’t like.”
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