The Empress of Ireland

Description

Reviewed in CHAP Spring 24, The Empress of Ireland is a comical chronicle of a young Christopher Robbins, who drifts into 1980s London and is offered the job of writing a script for retired film director Brian Desmond Hurst, an eccentric queer who inhabits the seamier side of London’s gay scene. The script’s working title is ‘the events leading up to the birth of Christ’. His work is constantly interrupted by officers from the Welsh guards, rent boys and milkmen demanding money who are placated with a glass of Beaujolais. Hurst takes Robbins under his wing, attempting to educate him by taking him to his holiday home in Morocco, where they dine at a friend’s house entirely staffed by dwarves. This Slightly Foxed limited hardback cloth-bound edition is in immaculate condition.