'Men of Honour' assassinate Caesar

Caesar Must Die – ‘Films at Heart’ partnership event

Tuesday 11^th March

Sally Bavage writes:

For our inaugural partnership event with Films at Heart we couldn’t get a Tuesday film night much closer to the Ides of March on the 15^th of this month!  As we know, Caesar didn’t survive the literal cut and thrust of political and personal ambition; nor did democracy.  The assassination created the conditions for transition from republic to empire, from democracy to despotism, but  for Caesar’s adopted son Octavius a surviving role as the emperor Augustus.

The film focuses on wannabe amateur actors - in reality, lifers and long-termers in the high security section of Rome’s tough Rebibbia Prison - enacting the theme of surviving through the medium of Shakespeare’s message.   As they are introduced you realise that many came from Sicily or the Naples area, and were incarcerated for drug trafficking (the Mafia is Europe’s biggest drugs trader by far) or for being part of organised crime (Mafia again).  Mafiosi are described as ‘men of honour’ in those parts.

After the plotting and eventual assassination, the conspirators make their case in the ‘forum’ of the exercise yard.  They justify their deeds to the onlooking prisoners watching from the serried rows of cell windows.  Anthony was Caesar’s right-hand-man and they expect trouble and vilification.  However, he describes them as “all, all honourable men.”  Men of honour in art too - though of course Anthony doesn’t mean it and dishonours his pledges.

What the prisoners learn from exploring the motives and the emotions within the play is both profound and sad.  You are very quickly drawn into the plot to kill the ambitious consul, and forget they are amdram until drawn up short by rehearsals extemporised in other areas of the prison with an audience of fellow inmates.  They inhabit the parts they play with great skill and brio and you are left to pity many of them for the lives they led that led to the lives they lead.

The last line comes from the actor who played Caesar: “Since I got to find art, this cell has become a prison” he says, as he is once again banged up behind locked heavy double doors. Surviving his life sentence is both more challenging and less ordinary.

Comments from the 50-strong audience include:

Great movie, friendly atmosphere, good opportunity for university students interested in applied theatre, please ask the café to stay open for cake!

Tense and dramatic. Enjoyed the stagecraft.

Very good film – good idea to incorporate this form of film in LitFest.

Wonderful to get the chance to see this gem …Powerful and moving.

Brilliant film – well chosen. My first time – I will certainly come back.

… and a number of Films at Heart regulars had not seen LitFest brochures before and were tempted by some of the other many and varied events we have on offer over the coming weeks.  Once again a new partnership finds fertile ground.

Noah or Mad Max in a future dystopia?

Dr Tim Foxon        Photo: Sally Bavage

Sally Bavage writes:
A new partnership with Café Scientifique this year saw an appreciative audience of Café and LitFest regulars explore some key issues around surviving the delivery of our future energy needs at the same time as reducing carbon emissions.  Introduced by Dr Tim Foxon, Reader in Sustainability & Innovation in the Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, the session provoked some lively debate.

We all know the main scientific facts concerning the relentless rise in global carbon dioxide emissions, the projected temperature rise of between 2 to 5 degrees Centigrade by the turn of the century and our ever-increasing demand for energy. Mix this with some more information on the developing economies, the role positive feedback could play in an exponential further rise and the extreme weather becoming, well, even more extreme. More often.  Very few scientists of international standing deny the figures; interpretation is a more subjective and emotive issue.

Tim gave us a factual run-through of key considerations in our energy needs, then posed the question: Who will decide?  The Markets?  Central governments?  Or communities?  The Thousand Flowers strand of thinking (Let a thousand flowers bloom is a common misquotation of Chairman Mao Zedong's Let a hundred flowers blossom) but signifies that the answer may lie in a diversity of approaches.  We need to use our scientific, technological, political and social skills to change the habits of a lifetime before the life becomes shortened and unstable. There seem few scenarios with a soft landing.

Fire and flood?  Drought and pestilence.  Mass migration and resource wars. Fleeting images of Noah or Mad Max in a dystopian future are called to mind.  Politicians will not be pouring oil on troubled waters but burning the oil and stealing the water.  The price of carbon may turn out to be one that mankind can’t afford to pay.  A more positive future is possible, but humankind will probably need to overcome its collective addiction to consumption and economic growth to achieve this.

A sobering thought as the audience filed out to the bar.  

From the audience:

Very enjoyable and some food for thought.

Great to link Café Scientifique with LitFest, to increase involvement with both.

A very clear exposition of crucial issues looking forward to 2050 and beyond.

I wonder what Headingley LitFest will be like by then?

'Wounded' shortlisted!

Emily Mayhew is appearing at 7pm in Headingley Library on Tuesday 18 March to read from and talk about Wounded. From Battlefield to Blighty.

This has now been shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize - see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookprizes/10660055/Wellcome-Book-Prize-shortlist-announced.html

Gillian Clarke on 20 March

Tales from the Wood

James Nash                        Photo: Sally Bavage

… Ireland Wood, to be precise.  Wednesday 26 February saw the last school in our current group of primary schools complete their writing of poems and stories with a performance assembly.  ‘LitFest: Surviving’ once again harnessed the talents of local writer/poet James Nash (“the best poet”, it said on the birthday card the year 6 youngsters joyfully presented to him).

We had excerpts read to us of some beginnings, some middles and some cliffhanger endings of the poems and stories they had crafted with the support and guidance of a professional artist for whom class teacher Adrienne Amos had nothing but the highest of praise.  We even had one of the stories that Heather had been inspired to write, along with others, for the Radio Two 500-word story competition.  

Their work was displayed across the whole of the assembly hall for all children in the school to see, a fantastic model for others to follow. Three whole afternoons of writing were not enough, said one youngster shyly and the young man in the wheelchair threw up his arms with joy when he had read his contribution out to the audience. The clay head used by James to inspire the budding writers worked its magic once again.     (Sally Bavage)

Exhibition of historic photos of the wartime hospital.

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Photo by Theo Wilcocks

Photo by Sally Bavage

Thanks to all of you who climbed up the stairs to the Ridge Room in the Headingley Heart Centre yesterday evening. I hope to see you again at one of the LitFest events, soon. The exhibition is there for six weeks, so anybody using that room for a class or a meeting will get a chance to study the photos. Isn't that long 1917 panorama amazing! Have you noticed how nearly all the people in it (about five hundred of them) are either squinting, screwing up their eyes or looking down at their knees because the summer sun came out just as the shutter clicked. And why were five members of the kitchen staff, wearing white linen pancakes on their heads, placed right in front of the high-ups like Lt-Col Harry Littlewood and Matron-in-Chief Euphemia Innes?