The script for A Clockwork Orange was first published in 1987, written by Anthony Burgess ‘to stem the flow of amateur adaptations’ that followed the publication of his novel in 1962. Nick Bagnall’s production at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, is a slick, shocking and well-executed show, based on Burgess’s script and using his original musical […]
When J.S. Bach completed the first collection of Preludes and Fugues that comprised the Well-Tempered Clavier in 1722, his aim was mostly pedagogical. He followed the first volume with a second about two decades later. Although compiling a collection of pieces that systematically worked through each of the 24 major and minor keys wasn’t a […]
A new exhibition at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation explores the connections between Anthony Burgess and Riddley Walker with artworks by Sam Meech. On its first publication in 1980, Anthony Burgess said of Russell Hoban’s novel Riddley Walker that ‘this is what literature is meant to be’. Set in a post-apocalyptic future two thousand years after […]
To celebrate the 101st anniversary of Anthony Burgess’s birth, we present a brand new discovery from our archive. Here is a rare recording of author Anthony Burgess singing. This is Burgess himself sitting at the piano, and the song is ‘The Young May Moon’, composed in 1807 and set to an old Irish tune. Dublin […]
The winners of this year’s Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism have been announced at a glittering ceremony hosted in London by The Observer newspaper. Felicity James wins the £3,000 first prize for her personal take on ‘At My Table’ by Nigella Lawson. Her successful entry will appear in the Observer New Review this Sunday. […]
Anthony Burgess’s The Bad-Tempered Electronic Keyboard: 24 Preludes and Fugues was released as a CD and download on 16 February 2018, in a new recording by the acclaimed Belgian pianist Stéphane Ginsburgh. Never previously recorded, Burgess’s cycle of preludes and fugues was written to celebrate the 300th anniversary of J.S. Bach’s birth and is dedicated to that […]
Burgess’s extravagant sketch of his possible origins. By Will Carr.
In 1970, Burgess moved with his family from Malta to Italy. They settled in the town of Bracciano, where they bought a fifteenth-century house on the cobbled Piazza Padella. This house would be the centre of Burgess’s creative life until he moved to Monaco in 1975, despite frequent trips to Malta and the United States. […]
This sketch by the Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli was drawn for Anthony Burgess’s son, Andrew (also known as Paolo Andrea). It appears to be a greeting for Easter 1979, and shows a recipe for a desert called ‘the sweet of “Passion”’. Zeffirelli describes it as an ‘Easter offering’. The ingredients include ricotta cheese, pistachios, […]
Direct from a sold-out, award-winning London run, director Alexandra Spencer-Jones’s electrifying, critically-acclaimed stage production of A Clockwork Orange will premiere in New York City this fall in a limited Off-Broadway engagement at New World Stages (340 West 50th Street). Jonno Davies, who led the London cast, will make his New York stage debut in the lead role of […]