Darryl Marsden’s cultural highlights

Darryl Marsden is an emerging writer and DJ, originally from Lincolnshire and now based in Liverpool. He has degrees in philosophy and political theory and works for a charity supporting refugees. He is currently interested in thinking about the relationship between sport and identity, and race and nationalism in rural Britain.

Novel: The Wall (1963) by Marlen Haushofer

How would you live if you were the sole surviving human, restricted to a small area of the world? This question shapes this astonishing novel. During a visit to her cousin’s family at their alpine hunting lodge, the unnamed narrator wakes one morning to find herself alone. An invisible wall has mysteriously appeared overnight, and everything behind it seems to have died. She must now learn to make her way with only a dog, a cat, and a cow for company, growing beans and potatoes to survive. This novel is her urgent report of how she lives her narrowed existence, a piece she must write to hold on to her reason. It reads like a feminist version of Thoreau’s Walden, a strangely liberating meditation on the unforeseen lightness of forced isolation.

https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/the-wall-a-novel-from-the-vintage-earth-collection-marlen-haushofer

Restaurant: Bundobust

Bundobust combines two of life’s greatest consolations: vegetarian Indian food and craft beer. Since opening in 2014 in Leeds, ‘Bundo’ has become a northern institution, having expanded into Manchester and Liverpool. Liverpool is my local, and it’s my go-to scran spot for dates with my love and catch-ups with friends. The restaurant sits on a second floor with large windows overlooking busy Bold Street and is arranged in the style of a canteen. The pastel pink, green and yellow decor, the Bollywood posters lining the walls, and the disco-not-disco soundtrack combine to make it feel unashamedly modern, and the staff are the friendliest folk in hospitality. Right now is a hot time to visit as they have just added 16 fresh dishes. Classic selection: Bundo Chaat. New hit: Gunpowder Potatoes.

https://bundobust.com/

Night Out: Otra (3-4 parties a year)

The dancefloor, at its best, is a space where the coordinates we use to make sense of the world begin to dissolve. A space of earthly transcendence, cosmopolitan promises. Otra, an intimate loft party in Liverpool, is one of those dancefloors. It sits in a lineage of parties where house, disco, jazz, Latin, Afrobeat – and all the in-betweens – meld in harmony. The night works because the format is simple. Resident DJs, Robasca and Dharma Collective, unfurl an extensive warm-up set, before their thoughtfully curated headliner plays until close. Their previous guestlist includes eclectic selectors such as Lakuti, Musclecars and Suze Ijó. My peak Otra experience was when Ruby Savage played Machine’s 1979 squelchy, disco-funk workout, ‘There But For The Grace of God Go I’, igniting limb-writhing rapture from the floor. Magical mystery stuff.

https://www.instagram.com/otraliverpool?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

Sport: The Magic Weekend (4-5 July 2026)

I suspect many WritersMosaic readers are not familiar with the sport of rugby league. But hopefully a few more of you are now, since the rebel code of rugby, formed by primarily working-class northern teams in 1895 after a pay-related schism, was featured in Lanre Bakare’s excellent book, We Were There, last year. The game is dynamic, skilful and tough, and has a proud history of promoting black talent. I have been enthralled ever since five-year-old me first saw Jason Robinson whizzing down the wing at Wigan. ‘The Magic Weekend’ is league’s annual carnival, where three games take place each day, and established fans and newcomers come together for a good-natured revel in celebration of our sport. I am made up that this year’s carnival is coming to Liverpool. Shouts of ‘Get ‘em onside!’ mandatory.

https://www.superleague.co.uk/tickets/magic-weekend

Essay: ‘The Great Moving Right Show’ (1979) by Stuart Hall

Whilst studying philosophy and politics, I was never formally assigned any readings by Stuart Hall. I sensed that he was significant, but though we grappled with several of his abiding themes – class, identity, the political functions of art – my encounters with him came mainly through footnotes. This year, I resolved to deepen my understanding of his thought, turning first to his famous essay on Thatcherism, in which he provides a prescient formulation of the forces shaping post-war Britain’s murky rightward shift. The essay offers perhaps the most concise example of his signature method of ‘conjunctural analysis’, and almost 50 years on, its descriptions of the ways in which folk devils and warped forms of populist common sense were being forged still echo into our also rather murky present. Hall, always guided by Marx, held an unflinching commitment to both understanding the world and to changing it. He offers us a model of how to do both with uncompromising seriousness, tempering wit and a generous spirit.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/selected-political-writings

Favourite WritersMosaic writer: Gary Younge

I admire the way that Gary writes and speaks with supreme moral and political clarity, whilst also being comfortable with self-deprecation and edging it close to the line. Like Hall, he shows us how to think seriously without getting too sure of ourselves.

Darryl Marsden

Darryl Marsden is an emerging writer and DJ, originally from Lincolnshire and now based in Liverpool.