‘The kiss comes at the end of Act Three, just before the interval. It’s really what the play has been leading up to all along, and its high point. We try hard, but the fourth act is an anti-climax. Which is perhaps the point – new forms, new forms – but still you wish, with all due respect to the author, that it was stronger.’
A little bit about Jonathan Gibbs
Jonathan Gibbs is the author of two novels, Randall, or The Painted Grape (Galley Beggar) and The Large Door (Boiler House), and a book-length poem, Spring Journal. This poem, about life under Covid-19 and inspired by Louis MacNeice’s Autumn Journal, was written on Twitter between March and August 2020, and published in December of that year by CB Editions. His short stories have been anthologised in Best British Short Stories 2014 and 2015, and shortlisted for the inaugural White Review Short Story Prize 2013. He curates A Personal Anthology, which invites writers and critics to dream-edit an anthology of their dozen favourite short stories. A Personal Anthology has been running since 2017, and the online archive includes over 1,500 short story recommendations, by over 800 writers, picked by over 100 guest editors. He teaches Creative Writing at City, University of London, where he is Programme Director for the MA/MFA Creative Writing. He lives in south-east London with his wife and three children.