A highly anticipated read that did not disappoint.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this audio book in exchange for my feedback.

This is a beautifully read and written novel that completely transported me to Hydra in the 1960s. I was totally immersed in this audiobook and wanted to savour every word. Highly recommended.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital audiobook.

I listened to the audiobook version of "A Theatre For Dreamers" which brought the added bonus of author Polly Samson's mellifluous tones and husband and Pink Floyd veteran David Gilmour's exquisite guitar playing. Oh, it is glorious! "A Theatre For Dreamers" is a beautiful, transporting summery read. Full disclosure - I had no prior knowledge of Leonard Cohen etc. but I don't feel that diminished the experience.

The narrator of this book was wonderful. I read it previously as a hardback, but the audiobook really brought it to the next level for me. I would definitely recommend it, even if you've already read the book yourself.

Unable to review audiobook as the audio has disappeared from my Netgalley app after the title was archived.

I'll admit to not always getting on brilliantly with audiobooks at times in the past, but I really couldn't resist the sound of this one after I saw Polly Samson read sections of it during a Hay Festival online event. I found she had a really soothing voice and I was intrigued by the story that she described, plus the fact that she had written music to accompany the novel with her husband, Dave Gilmour.

The story is told by a fictional character, Erica, who arrives on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960. Her mother has died and she is visiting her mother's friend, Charmian Clift, who lives on the island with her husband, George Johnston (a writer) and their children. Erica arrives with her boyfriend, Jimmy, and what follows is a glorious time in which Erica learns about love, loss, her mother's past, art and writing.

Erica's time on Hydra introduces us to a massive cast of characters, some of whom were real people - including Charmian and George, Leonard Cohen, Axel Jensen and Marianne Ihlen. This is one book where you will be constantly googling the people to find out the reality behind the fiction! The only issue I had was the fact that the novel serves us with a massive cast and I couldn't always remember who was who!

One of the main stars of the novel is Hydra itself and the reader is treated to the sun-soaked, heady, irresistible charms of the island throughout. It sounds like a beautiful place and absolutely perfect for this tale of 1960s free spirits in what was essentially a big artistic community of expats.

Another draw for the novel is Charmian Clift herself who becomes a mother-figure to Erica but is hiding her own secrets. Indeed, it is Erica's relationship with Charmian that drives a lot of the narrative, so it was no surprise to learn that it was Charmian's own writing that led Polly Samson to write this book.

I think this is a novel definitely enhanced by the audiobook format. It was lovely to hear Polly Samson read the book as I got a real sense of how she imagined the characters to speak. I also thought that the little musical interludes between chapters and the song at the end enhanced the narrative - it gave more of a taste of the time and music and added depth to the novel. As already mentioned, Polly Samson's voice is extremely relaxing to listen to and I really enjoyed being caught up in her world of artists, poets and novelists on Hydra as related to me in her hypnotic voice! Although I found the narrative a bit sprawling and long in places, I found I enjoyed the way it was presented.

I would highly recommend this audiobook - it really does offer more than just an audio recording of the novel and I liked the story of the intertwined lives and the lasting impact of the events of 1960.

A Theatre for Dreamers should have been fascinating. Its starting point is the true story of a community of writers in the early 1960s, living cheaply on the Greek island of Hydra. They include a struggling poet and novelist by the name of Leonard Cohen, and Marianne Ihlen, the estranged wife of a successful Norwegian novelist.

The story is told by Erica. Erica is eighteen and newly arrived from London. Her mother has just died, leaving her and her brother legacies which offer a tantalising hint of another life – he gets a sports car and she gets cash, neither of which her mother was known to have. They keep the secret from their abusive father as they plan their escape.

Erica is in love with her brother’s friend and fellow art student, Jimmy. The three of them take off for Hydra, inspired when their mother’s friend, the real-life author Charmian Clift, sends Erica a book about the island.

Their early days on Hydra are beautifully evoked. Samson perfectly captures that feeling of being young and suddenly realising the possibilities of a very different life from the one you’ve always known. Erica is entranced by the island, and the fascinating community of unconventional and glamorous artists, particularly Charmian, who takes her under her wing. And she is in love.

A Theatre for Dreamers is like a gorgeous travel magazine, replete with images of the blue sea, the dramatic landscape, the food and the festivals. It makes mention of the more difficult and impoverished lives of the locals, dependent on sponge fishing at a time when synthetic sponges are about to render them obsolete, but only enough to add colour rather than spoil the trip.

Once you get past the scenery though, there isn’t much of a story. There are numerous strands which could each be dramatic – the Cohen/Ihlen romance, Erica’s first love, the search for the truth about her mother, and the unfolding sense that Charmian has a secret of her own. However, none of them quite comes to life.

Despite all the time Erica spends with Charmian, and her apparent longing to know the truth about her mother, they never quite get to the point, and when her mother’s secret is finally revealed, it’s not that dramatic or surprising.

The biggest letdown is the weak characterisation of Leonard and Marianne. Leonard arrives on Hydra shortly after Erica. He is unknown to them but immediately impresses with his charisma and sex appeal. Or so Samson tells us, but we don’t really see it in the text. Rather than charm and wit, we just get pretentious statements from him and the observations of the other characters, adoring from the women, crude or resentful from the men.

Marianne famously became his ‘muse’ (with all that problematic term implies) and played a significant part in his life for a number of years. In this telling, though, she is pretty but bland, more a proficient housekeeper than an inspiring presence. Their relationship was the key draw for me in reading A Theatre for Dreamers, but as a long-time Cohen fan I didn’t feel I learnt anything abut his character, creativity or the way this relationship shaped his work.

There are hints of a darker side to the lives of the exiles – the poverty, the lack of medical treatment, the dependence on alcohol, the affairs and minor dramas among the small community which is far too turned in on itself.

The characters are authentic in the sense that they are just like the people you meet in certain end-of-the-line resorts, who fell in love with a place and decided to stay, who collar you at the bar and tell you of their great adventures with increasingly bright-eyed desperation, who find themselves trapped in a perpetual adolescence as they drink and sleep with the same small circle and watch with a sense of betrayal the ones who move on. Ultimately, the trouble with getting away from it all is that you are away from it all.

There is a historical note at the end. Samson explains the fate of some of the real-life characters, and talks about her own inspiration to write the novel. I guess maybe it’s a cautionary tale that hanging out with artists isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and that they can be as dull as anyone else you meet on holiday. Still, flawed people do make great art and a deeper exploration of what drove her characters would have been interesting.

A note on the narration

The way you respond to this depends on how you feel about audiobooks as a form. Do you want innovation or do you want to forget you’re listening at all? This book includes original music by Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd, husband and sometime song-writing partner of Polly Samson. He has written musical interludes that appear at the end of every chapter and at the end there is a bonus track – a song they wrote together. Both are a pastiche of Cohen’s music. I found the musical interludes very intrusive, especially as the chapters aren’t very long, and disrupted the flow of the novel.

The novel is narrated by Polly Samson itself. Her voice tends to fall at the end of every phrase and she struggled with the accents. Most author-narrators read the dialogue in their own voices which I think works better than trying and getting it wrong, especially when you’re attempting such a well-known and distinctive voice as Cohen’s. Generally, I think a professional narrator works better, unless the author is also known as a performer.

Bohemian life on the Greek island of Hydra.
I think this would be the perfect book for lovers of poetry, it's definitely lyrical and descriptive. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of poetry and I'd prefer one word rather than three to illustrate passages. I really struggled to get to the end; I found it extremely slow.
I'm a great fan of Leonard Cohen and it was his part in the book that drew me to listen to the audiobook in the first place. However, he doesn't appear until a fair way through and even then he's really only a secondary character.

The main character is Erica, a teenager who has just lost her mother and whose father is a tyrant with little interest in her. In her will, her mother left Erica some money and a car, so she sets off with her brother and her boyfriend to the Greek island of Hydra. She is searching out the author Charmian Clift, who had been a friend of her mother's and who now lives on Hydra with another author, George Johnston.
It's a bohemian existence, surrounded by authors and artists, along with several 'wannabes', who seem to spend a lot of time drinking, philosophising and discussing the other residents.
While Leonard Cohen has a minor part, his muse, Marianne is a more major character and I was interested to learn a little more about the person behind Cohen's iconic song.

The narration was done by the author, which was interesting; I could hear her love of the descriptions in her narration, even if I didn't share them.

I did make it to the end but it didn't grab me and not a lot happened.

This book was very well written and transported me to the Greek Islands. It was interesting to read about the lifestyle of writers in the 1960s and the depiction of women as always the muse. I am glad I listened to the story.

A Theatre for Dreamers – Polly Samson.
Narrated by the author.

1960 set in the idyllic Greek island of Hydra. Erica’s mother has died and she is left living with an abusive father. She escapes to Hydra along with her brother and boyfriend using money from her late mothers passing. I was hoping for a wonderful adventure but alas this did not occur.. There are far too many characters to follow – none of which I cared to find out what would become of them. I struggled to continue with the book.

The Narration cannot be faulted. Usually I avoid books narrated by the author – but this was well read and at a good pace.

I would not recommend this book and my star rating is for the narration.

I listened to the audio of Polly Samson's mesmerising coming of age story, a blend of fact and fiction, set in the idyllic Greek island of Hydra of 1960. Teen Erica is drowning in the grief of the loss of her mother in London, anchored by boyfriend, Jimmy, and her brother, Bobby, stranded in a impossible situation with her abusive and controlling father. Receiving a parcel of a book set in Hydra by her mother's close friend, the writer Charmian Clift, she decides to use her unexpected financial inheritance from her mother to leave for Hydra with a difficult and problematic Bobby and Jimmy. They find themselves living in the most basic of accommodation, but a naive Erica, living on the edges of the bohemian artistic circles coming from all round the world, painters, poets and musicians, is charmed and beguiled by this theatre of dreamers, in paradise, but a disintegrating paradise that is set to fragment and splinter apart before her very eyes.

The community includes the likes of the destructive Norwegian writer, Axel, married to the beautiful Marianne, the young Canadian Leonard Cohen, already displaying signs of being a serious writer, getting involved with Marianne, and the Australian writer married to Charmian, George Johnston. Amidst her constant daydreams of her marriage to Jimmy, Erica is obsessed about finding out her mother's secrets, a constant annoying mosquito as she pesters Charmian for information. Feeling rudderless, not hearing from her father, and Bobby being emotionally unavailable, Erica is desperate to ingratiate herself into Charmian and George's family and home. Charmian, her marriage to George revealed as a turbulent, painful and volatile affair, plays both mentor and an invaluable support, providing advice, some of which Erica does not always want to hear, such as warnings about her relationship with Jimmy.

The bohemian crowd is a source of joy and magic, dancing, celebration of festivals, revolving around Charmian and George, but begins to be interspersed with the chaos and emotional carnage, in relationships, with the almost inevitable heartbreaks, artistic rivalries and insecurities, abuse, betrayals, infidelities, deceit, cruelties, secrets and the emerging gender politics. Women are the ministering angels, muses, domestic drudges, the providers of childcare as mothers, struggling to get equal recognition as writers and artists in this supposedly progressive bohemian community amidst the atmospheric island of Hydra with its sun and sea. Authors so often do not make the best narrators of their own books, but Polly Samson's narration is a dream, possibly because of her bone deep familiarity with the subject matter and command of her novel. She evoked the characters and Hydra in such a way that she caught my interest and immersed me into the bohemian world of real artists and writers of the time, creating an all too believable picture of their interactions. Fantastic historical fiction that many readers and listeners will adore. Many thanks to WF Howes Limited for the audio.

One for fans of the Gerald Durrell's My family and other animals and Ester Freud's Hideous Kinky, but with a more decadent feel.

This book is full of beautiful descriptions of Hydra and the Greek islands with at times you being able to feel the breeze rustle though the olive trees as the sun warms you skin.

In A Theatre for Dreamers we learn about one summer of hedonistic living through the eyes of our narrator, Erica, a seventeen-year-old outsider, who in a bid to escape has traveled to Greece with her brother and boyfriend to stay with an old friend of her mothers. Although a steadying influence on the community she inhabits she still manages to indulge her own hedonistic side.
Hydra in the 1960's in this book is portrayed as a place full of writer's and artists living life on their own terms full of drinking eating and sleeping with each other. This book has plenty of love triangles.

The audio narrator being Polly Samson, the author, adds a lovey element to listening to this version as she is able to put her own feeling through writing the book into her delivery.

Thank you the publishers and Netgalley for a free Audio copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

I absolutely adored the prose and the concept but struggled to connect with the characters. I think this is one I will pick back up physically in the future, to better relate to them. The audio narration was still wonderful however and I especially loved the odd added sound effect.

I want to begin by saying that this was kindly given to me for, um ARL(advanced reader listen!) in audiobook form and I am very grateful to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to review it.

The reason that I wanted to mention that first was that because it was an audiobook there was nothing to indicate that it was a novel and not an autobiography and in the time between request and listen I had forgotten. This is relevant because I actually reduced the rating in that if nothing much happens in your life you can’t really do much about it, however the same is obviously not true if a novel.

So to start with the good. It’s beautifully written, with a tremendous sense of place and descriptions are intensely sensory. The sense of character is similarly well developed as is the time period. The claustrophobia of both the island and the expat community there are brilliantly realised.

What I liked less. The author narrating it made a great deal more sense when I thought it was an autobiography and I’m afraid that I believe that a professional actress would have made a better job of bringing the characters to life. Since it is a novel, I wish that more happened during the course of it. There is a bookend at the start and finish in which nearly all of the action of the whole novel is concentrated and it’s shoe-horned in, whilst the bulk of it meanders very slowly.

In summary, I would have loved to have the entire novel refocused on Leonard Cohen, who is the only character I really felt drawn to. His romance with Marianne seems inexplicable to me from her depiction in the novel and indeed her whole family seem shallow, selfish and narcissistic. Surely there must have been more to them since these are real people with real motives and personalities? But it did make me fall in love with Leonard and I’m now going off to ask Alexa to play me “So long, Marianne”!

A much needed dose of escapism!
With a mixture of real and fictional characters, this story is based on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s. Our narrator is Erica, a young girl who has just lost her mother and who decides to leave her angry and abusive father behind in London. A coming-of-age story, we follow Erica as she meets all the bohemian writers, artists and musicians of the 60s who will shape her future, including Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen.
This isn’t a plot driven story, but it’s a beautiful, sensual escape into another lifetime - all the hedonism of the 60s but with the added beauty of the Greek islands. There is a gentle amount of drama and tragedy, but I didn’t even need that - just listening to the descriptions of the sea, the cobbled streets and the delicious food was bliss. I’m not sure if it would have the same effect without the audio, but this was so softly spoken and enchanting that it just had me daydreaming of warmer days and summer nights. Actual score 3.5.

This audiobook is the closest thing I will get to a foreign holiday this year. Erica leaves behind her stultifying homelife in London and escapes to the island of Hydra. She is looking both for a freer kind of life and some answers about the mother she barely knew. Hydra is a paradise of sorts. It is full of people escaping from the world. The most captivating and talented of which is her mother's old friend, Charmian Clift. As it is 1960, Charmian and the other women on the island spend most of their time stroking male egos. It reads as a retelling of the greek myths. There are great temptations, lives lost and scenes of beauty with the most beautiful people. It's a must.

This was such a beautiful audiobook with both occasional atmospheric background noises and music in between chapters. This had a lovely exploration of the Grecian environment and culture, although I wish it were a little faster paced. If you like dark academia, plants and just a little bit of feminism then I think you’ll enjoy this.

I really didn’t know what to expect from this book, but I was very happily surprised. The beautiful descriptions and details about each character is fabulous. I think this book reads like a grown up version of the Durrells. I was lucky enough to get a copy of the audio version of this story from Netgalley. This was a real treat, the little background noises and end of chapter musical interludes were rather special. The narrator was perfect, she really mastered different voices for different characters and read at just the right pace.
This Is a wonderful story about someone trying to follow their dreams and find some answers about the past. It is such an entertaining coming of age type plot.