David Charles Manners
Encyclopedia
With his mother raised in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, his father on India's North-West Frontier
North-West Frontier (military history)
The North-West Frontier was the most difficult area, from a military point of view, of the former British India in the Indian sub-continent. It remains the frontier of present-day Pakistan, extending from the Pamir Knot in the north to the Koh-i-Malik Siah in the west, and separating the...
and in the East Punjab
East Punjab
East Punjab was the part of the Punjab region that went to India following the Partition of the Punjab Province of British India between India and Pakistan in 1947...
, David enjoyed an eclectic European education in Epsom
Epsom
Epsom is a town in the borough of Epsom and Ewell in Surrey, England. Small parts of Epsom are in the Borough of Reigate and Banstead. The town is located south-south-west of Charing Cross, within the Greater London Urban Area. The town lies on the chalk downland of Epsom Downs.-History:Epsom lies...
, Lichfield
Lichfield
Lichfield is a cathedral city, civil parish and district in Staffordshire, England. One of eight civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly north of Birmingham...
, Bath, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
.
Having worked in public relations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, David settled in London where he worked as a theatre designer, primarily with Adventures in Motion Pictures, one of Britain’s foremost dance companies, for which he was also commissioned to compose original instrumental work. His designs included Matthew Bourne
Matthew Bourne
Matthew Bourne OBE is a British classical and contemporary ballet and dance choreographer.-Biography:Matthew Bourne was born in Hackney, London in 1960. He went to William Fitt and Sir George Monoux School in Walthamstow, London...
's Infernal Galop, Deadly Serious, The Percys of Fitzrovia and Drip (BBC's Dance for the Camera).
"David influenced a lot of AMP work throughout those years, because he had so many interests," says Matthew Bourne
Matthew Bourne
Matthew Bourne OBE is a British classical and contemporary ballet and dance choreographer.-Biography:Matthew Bourne was born in Hackney, London in 1960. He went to William Fitt and Sir George Monoux School in Walthamstow, London...
. "He was someone that I could definitely develop ideas with, that I could talk to about what I should do next ... Certainly David was an important influence throughout those years."
David also designed the first Italian translation of Bernstein's Candide for Graham Vick
Graham Vick
Graham Vick CBE is an English opera director. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester....
at Batignano, Tuscany.
He appears in the 1972 film Meet the Mormons and the 1994 hit British comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It was the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to feature Hugh Grant...
.
A translator for the Parisian Professor Alfred A. Tomatis
Alfred A. Tomatis
Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis was an internationally known otolaryngologist, and inventor. He received his Doctorate in Medicine from the Paris School of Medicine...
and the National Research Group, David was awarded a 'Sound and Image' music degree from Newton College, Bath, then went on to train in Physical Medicine. He subsequently worked for thirteen years as Physical Therapist with musicians, conductors and singers at Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an English opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.-History:...
.
He is an initiate of a little-known Eastern Himalayan tantric tradition, in which he has led introductory courses at Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne is a country house, thought to be about six hundred years old, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England. It is also the site of an opera house which, with the exception of its closing during the Second World War, for a few immediate post-war years, and in 1993 during the...
, English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
, for the Jerwood Young Artists’ Programme, and in various regions of India.
A contributor to various journals, his first book, In the Shadow of Crows, was published in 2009 by Reportage Press
Reportage Press
Reportage Press is a publishing house specialising in "books on foreign affairs or set in foreign countries, or just books written from a stranger's view."...
, with a percentage of the publisher's profits from its sale dedicated to the work of Sarvashubhamkara amongst the ostracised in India. Having received international acclaim, a second edition, published by Signal Books, was released in August 2011 for distribution in Britain, North America and India. His literary agent is Sheila Ableman.
In a return to the theatre, David has collaborated with Jerwood Award-winning choreographer Ben Wright
Ben Wright
Ben Wright may refer to:*Ben Wright , British film and radio actor*Ben Wright , English footballer*Ben Wright , English footballer...
, composer Alan Stones and projection artist Dick Straker on a new theatre production with the contemporary dance company Bgroup, which made a national British tour through the winter of 2011:
Since 1993, David has spent his life between the Sussex Downs and the Bengal Himalaya.
In the Shadow of Crows: Synopsis
In the Shadow of Crows recounts the passage of two journeys through India driven by loss, and an unlikely, remarkable friendship.Bindra, widowed granddaughter of a mountain bojudeuta shaman and mother of four children, contracts leprosy. She is violently driven from her mountain home and is forced to travel across the Plains in search of a place of safety, where she might one day reunite her family.
David is raised in Surrey speaking ‘kitchen Urdu’ and with a childhood imagination entirely consumed by a fantasy life in India, a country in which he has never once stepped. Not until he finds himself lost and isolated as a result of calamitous events is he driven to uncover the true history of his non-British roots in the foothills of the Himalaya.
And when he eventually walks into a cruelly mistreated leprosy colony and meets an elderly woman called Bindra, both their lives are transformed.
In the Shadow of Crows: Reception
Radio journalists initially took up In the Shadow of Crows, with Nikki BediNikki Bedi
Nikki Bedi is a television and radio presenter, born Nikki Moolgaoker in Aylesbury to an Indian father of Maharashtrian origin and an English mother. Famously married to Kabir Bedi from 1992 to 2005, retaining her married name after an amicable divorce, her first marriage was to food stylist...
on the BBC Asian Network broadcasting, "I learnt so much from this book … it shows a great depth of understanding"; Rhod Sharp
Rhod Sharp
Rhoderick "Rhod" Sharp is a Scottish broadcaster, best known as a presenter of Up All Night on BBC Radio Five Live.-Biography:...
on BBC Five Live calling it "wonderful philosophy"; and Wojtek Gwiazda, on Radio Canada International's ‘Masala Canada’, considering it an account of "two fascinating stories."
Line Boily reviewed the book on the French language Radio-Canada as "Une histoire ... écrit avec une candeur et honnêteté rare ... une histoire très touchante ... un livre que j'ai lu avec beaucoup, beaucoup d'intêret."
Montreal's Westmount Examiner and The Monitor newspapers published the following review by Bureau Chief Toula Fosclos: "'In the Shadows of the Crows' teaches us that there’s hope in the horror of daily life. There’s affirmation of good in the ghastly. Life is both better and worse than we ever imagined it to be and Manners is an inspirational, thoughtful, and compassionate writer, softly reminding us all of our common humanity and whispering to us that our life’s purpose should be to take care of one another. No matter our circumstances, we all live our lives in the shadow of death, but it’s the leaning into the light that makes the brief time we spend on earth hold any meaning at all ..."
Bill Richardson, author and broadcaster on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, has written, "David Charles Manners is an inspiring writer and speaker ... Intelligent and generous, cosmopolitan and compassionate, and an unrepentant polyglot and xenophile, Mr. Manners has led and is leading a big life. Disinclined to squander opportunity, his appetite for experience, as well as his humour and big-heartedness, are palpable on every page of In the Shadow of Crows. Having spent the better part of a quarter century interviewing people, mostly for CBC Radio, I have been on the fortunate receiving end of many, many personal and remarkable stories, and his is one I will always remember. Read him. Meet him. It will be time well spent."
Gilda O’Neill, novelist and author of the Sunday Times Best Seller My East End, described In the Shadow of Crows as "A journey into another world that tells a story which is at once accomplished, intriguing and moving." Award-winning Canadian author Brian Doyle
Brian Doyle
Brian Doyle may refer to:*Brian J. Doyle , former press secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security*Brian Doyle , former Major League Baseball infielder*Brian Doyle , Canadian writer...
deemed it "Very moving and well written ... In the Shadow of Crows was a book that I found hard to put down. I learned."
Professor Dhirendra Sharma, Editor of Philosophy & Social Action and Convener of Concerned Scientists & Philosophers, India, reviewed it as "A volume to provoke true soul-searching … a must read," whilst Indian writer Chandralekha Mehta, niece of Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...
and author of Freedom’s Child, wrote that In the Shadow of Crows "highlights with compassion an Indo-British connection that has always been swept out of sight."
The Lessening of Difference: Reception
“A sincere, sweet-natured study of intimacy and the sometimes delicate levels of love and desire pulsating between people … its real connective tissue is the written word, specifically the work of David Charles Manners, whose poems are periodically spoken aloud or projected … sensitive, observant and sometimes lovelorn texts.” – Donald Hutera, The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
(25th Nov, 2011)
“In The Lessening of Difference, Ben Wright has set out to beguile his audience with an ode to intimacy. He projects us into a world where everybody has a potential soulmate, and where love is the controlling force. An essential part of its charm is David Charles Manners's text – love poems back-projected on to the stage, and monologues delivered by four dancers ... The whole piece is a delightful package, entertaining and well executed." – Judith Mackrell, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
(27th Nov, 2011)
“In this haunting theatrical meditation on the subject of intimacy, Ben Wright has produced something incredibly special, if not wholly flawless. Working in collaboration with writer, David Charles Manners, Wright offers us a fractured, non-narrative piece that allows the psychological impact of love and loss to physically and vocally breathe ... Exquisite writing ..." - Sarah Wilkinson, The Stage
The Stage
The Stage is a weekly British newspaper founded in 1880, available nationally and published on Thursdays. Covering all areas of the entertainment industry but focused primarily on theatre, it contains news, reviews, opinion, features and other items of interest, mainly to those who work within the...
(29th Nov, 2011)