Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Bainbridge, Beryl (Vol. 131) - Nicci Gerrard (review date 5 January 1990)

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Nicci Gerrard (review date 5 January 1990)

SOURCE: “The Death of Tinkerbell,” in New Statesman and Society, January 5, 1990, pp. 38-9.

[In the following review, Gerrard offers tempered assessment of An Awfully Big Adventure.]

This is Beryl Bainbridge's first adult novel for five years, and initially it seems as if a sweet whiff of her writing for children curls round the edges of its chilly humour. The title harks back to jolly yarns and to Peter Pan's brave hopes; the setting is the raffish fifties society of weekly rep in Liverpool, where everyone is smeared with greasepaint and called “ducky”; the central character Stella—no star but assistant stage manager—is an aspiring actress who extracts drama out of the dustiest situations. The novel that Beryl Bainbridge evokes and rewrites is, inevitably, Priestley's Good Companions—a novel that has always struck me as more suitable for children than adults; and the play...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Colin Thubron (review date 23 September 1984)
   2. David Punter (essay date 1985)
   3. Suzon Forscey (review date 12 January 1986)
   4. Richard Ingrams (review date 22 August 1987)
   5. Nicci Gerrard (review date 5 January 1990)
   6. Francine Prose (review date July 1991)
   7. Nancy Engbretsen Schaumburger (review date Fall 1991)
   8. Francis Spufford (review date 20 December 1991)
   9. Andro Linklater (review date 4 January 1992)
   10. Michael Cross (review date 11 April 1992)
   11. Elisabeth Wennö (essay date 1993)
   12. Dennis Drabelle (review date 10 April 1994)
   13. Gary Krist (review date 17 April 1994)
   14. Michael D. Schaffer (review date 9 June 1994)
   15. Amy Gamerman (review date 13 July 1994)
   16. Judith Freeman (review date 7 August 1994)
   17. Alex Clark (review date 6 January 1995)
   18. Judy Cooke (review date 13 September 1996)
   19. Jane Gardam (review date 14 September 1996)
   20. John Updike (review date 14 October 1996)
   21. Karen Heller (review date 22 November 1996)
   22. Susan Heeger (review date 24 November 1996)
   23. Kate Saunders (review date 1 May 1998)
   24. Daniel M. Murtaugh (review date 6 November 1998)
   25. Francine Prose (review date 29 November 1998)
   26. John Gallagher (review date 7 December 1998)
   27. Gail Pool (review date January 1999)
   28. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 5 August 1999)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright