Herbert van Thal and Robert Aickman - An Unsettled Relationship
Talk by Johnny Mains, Online via Google Meet
Thursday 3rd December, 7pm-8:30pm
Tickets £9.38 from https://www.eventbrite.com/e/robert-aickman-and-herbert-van-thal-an-unsettled-relationship-tickets-2000965002186

When Robert Aickman first approached Herbert van Thal in 1954, he was rejected, with van Thal finding Aickman's stories "not outstanding enough for a one-man show". The truth was that van Thal was up to his eyeballs with a serious court case where he was charged with publishing obscene material.

It wouldn't be until March 1963 that the two men were next in contact, and so began a tentative relationship that saw van Thal becoming Aickman's agent, and van Thal really went to bat for him, until it all came crashing down in 1978.

Johnny Mains, Herbert van Thal's official biographer, will talk about their often thorny relationship, and how Robert's musings that van Thal wasn't doing enough for him was wrong - it was just becoming an increasingly difficult market in which to place his work.