Headingley LitFest: Flamenco in Mint Café

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Flamenco in Mint Café

Ana Luisa Muñoz

Monday 24 March - partnership event
Mint Café North Lane - Flamenco Diez

Richard Wilcocks writes:
There is a theory that all poets should be able to sing their work - or at least get somebody with a good voice to do it for them. What are a poet's words but notes, and what are notes but an excuse to play music? Didn't Homer and the performers who learned his lines sing about Troy and Odysseus? I bet they didn't clutch little scraps of papyrus in front of them as they mumbled tonelessly! I agreed with everything I've just written on Monday, when I was crammed into Mint Café, which was exotically warm for our gypsy romances and where the thrilling voice of Ana Luisa Muñoz affected everybody so much that they clapped ecstatically.

It was all in Spanish, mind, but that didn't matter in the least. What lyrics, what emotion! Some of those present might have been reminded of García Lorca, Spain's most revered poet, who was featured in the Headingley LitFest two years ago in both Spanish and English, and who was present again in spirit on Monday - Verde que te quiero verde...

Look out for this group. They are back soon!

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LITERARY HEADINGLEY

Headingley is just the place for it! Don't expect a big circus with marquees, though: we're not at that stage yet. We're all volunteers as well.

Our venues include the HEART Centre on Bennett Road, the New Headingley Club on St Michael's Road, friendly cafés, historic local cinemas, Headingley Library, people's houses and the historic Leeds Library in Commercial Street, city centre.

Headingley's Literary Links

Headingley has strong connections with many writers:

Arthur Ransome was born in Headingley, J R R Tolkien lived at 5 Holly Bank and also at 2 Darnley Road, West Park when he was reader in English Language at the University of Leeds 1920 - 25, Alan Bennett lived over a butcher's shop opposite the Three Horseshoes, now Royale Dry Cleaners.

Lucy Newlyn has published poetry about her early life in Headingley, George Orwell stayed at 21 Estcourt Avenue with his sister Marjorie and her husband Humphrey 'Humpy' Dakin (with whom he visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth), T S Eliot used to visit his mother-in-law in Weetwood Lane, William Fryer Harvey was brought up in Spring Bank, Trevor Griffiths lived just off Victoria Road on Winstanley Terrace, Jon Silkin's first office of STAND magazine was his flat at 144 Otley Road, Sir Geoffrey Hill lived in Shire Oak Road, Peter Redgrove lived in Headingley between 1962 and 1965 when he was Gregory Fellow of Poetry at the University of Leeds, and playwright Kay Mellor still lives near The Hollies in Far Headingley.

Wilson Barrett, the charismatic first manager of the Grand Theatre, Leeds (a prolific playwright as well), lived in Beech Grove Terrace, Woodhouse in the 1870s. His house was a meeting place for many writers, artists and visitors to Leeds - such as W. S. Gilbert, George Grossmith and Atkinson Grimshaw.

Headingley LitFest 2020 was the thirteenth. The fourteenth will take place from March 2021 and will be adapted to the rules of the Covid pandemic. We are now a proud part of the annual Leeds Lit Fest.