Mat Osman’s The Ghost Theatre, is, in anyone’s book, a stunning achievement: a feverdream version of a literary historical novel, blending history with imaginative possibility to spell-binding effect. Written in lush, evocative prose and set in an alternative version of Elizabethan England, it’s a heady mix that explores the boundaries between reality and fantasy that includes a troupe of young performers who attain superstar status, a bird-worshipping cult, a utopian peasants’ revolt and encounters with reallife characters Queen Elizabeth and the magician John Dee.
It’s also an object lesson in writing what you know. Let’s just go back to the ‘troupe of young performers who attain superstar status’, because if anyone knows what that’s like it’s Mat, who as well as being an author is the bass-player in Suede – one of the defining bands of the ‘90s Britpop era, and beyond doubt the most decadent and glamorous. Writing Magazine meets Mat as Suede are playing a soldout show in Leeds, and he’s immediately recognisable: long, and lanky, possessing the understated, slightly louche rock-star elegance that comes with years of living a life beyond the comprehension of most people. No wonder he’s so wonderfully able to convey the lives of his fictional performers, onstage, off-stage and on the
