Under Milk Wood in New Headingley Club

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Trio Literati’s and Theatre of the Dales’s current production of Dylan Thomas’s beautiful, funny and moving radio play from 1954 - Under Milk Wood – is one of the best I have seen on stage, intelligently directed, with much attention to detail, and impeccably acted. Every character lived life to the full in front of the audience last night in the New Headingley Club, even the dead ones, and it did not matter that the lighting was not up to playhouse standards, because Trio Lit and Theatre of the Dales can survive very well without it if necessary: they are veterans of pub and club rooms.

The play was sliced to about half of its original length by Adrian Metcalfe and David Robertson, and all the stitching was invisible. It was a wise, if not inevitable, move to manage without costumes and set (expensive, hard to cart around) although the cast wore a variety of striped tops to bond them together. They relied on the sort of movement which can be done in a small performance space, and the usual actor’s repertoire of voice, gesture and facial expression. It worked all the time. Nothing was ever touch-and-go. 

The Welsh accents sounded authentic enough to me, nicely varied to fit each member of the population of Llareggub. To pick out individual performances in a strong ensemble piece is difficult, but I have to record how much I loved the Reverend Eli Jenkins and his prayer, Butcher Beynon with his macabre sense of humour, Mr Mog Edwards the writer of letters, Mrs Pugh, at constant risk of ingesting poison, and Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard. I was moved to tears as always by Captain Cat’s memories of his dead lover Rosie Probert, and captivated by Myfanwy Price.

The cast included all of the Trio – Maggie Mash, Jane Oakeshott and Richard Rastall – together with Theatre of the Dales founder David Robertson and Arif Javid, a terrific Nogood Boyo.

Punk Publishing with Mick McCann - House Event

Sally Bavage writes:

Just as many groups in the digital age produce and distribute their own ‘indie’ music, resisting the control of the large conglomerations, so too an increasing number of writers are taking the self-publication ‘punk’ route to having their voices heard. 

Mick McCann described for us the joys and pitfalls of ‘punk’ publishing and envisaged a future not too far off when you can call in to a coffee house, order up your book and have it printed on demand whilst you sip your latte.  He designs his own covers and organises his own help with proofreading and typesetting.  Costs are favours called in and about £50 for support from an online company with details of copyrighting and so on.  His books – Coming Out as a Bowie Fan in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, Nailed - Digital Stalking and How Leeds Changed the World are all available on Amazon and all with 5* reader ratings.  We could have heard more about self-publication but the session timed out because of other LitFest commitments.

His session was also a play upon words as he described his adoption of the punk subculture in the late 70s in Leeds.  All teenagers try to be different, but full-on make-up, spiked hair and his sister’s dresses were, well, a bit out there!  Physically very fit from his years on an early morning milk round – a two hour extreme workout every day hefting crates and running fast to keep up with the float which did not bring Benny Hill’s Ernie, the fastest milkman in the west to mind! – Mick had no fear of getting any bother from skins or other subculture groups.  He was right! He spent his teenage years as a committed Bowie fan, still able to quote every song lyric from any album, though the dresses and make-up have gone. 

Mick has always needed to write down his ideas, though he shrinks from calling himself ‘a writer’ - like nearly all wordsmiths he has a day job.  He has a lively perspective on working class life, often the least likely to get a publisher’s sweetheart deal, and which should be heard.  There will be many young people today who have a view of life not widely represented by our media and ‘punk’ publishing offers us hope that alternative voices can enter our lexicon. ‘Never Get Old’, David Bowie said – or if you do, publish the story!

Gathering Voices - House Event

Once again, Maggie Mash’s front room in Weetwood was the venue for a surpassingly satisfying house event – Gathering Voices – which was entirely appropriate for the LitFest because it took the official theme – Lingo – very seriously. The amazingly large audience was presented with a geographically-based programme which had been slotted together with admirable professional skill, and although for some individuals it might have been very slightly uncomfortable to watch and listen with someone’s knees in the back, or an elbow in the ear, for just about everyone it was a wonderfully entertaining afternoon. 

Music was wafted at us as we came in, and was introduced into every crack, provided at the start and at the finish by Ben (with guitar in photo) and by Kerry (a lovely jig), Lynn Thornton (acapella If music be the food of love, Cleo Laine) and by Lynn and Maggie together as Wordsong. Lynn and Maggie (both in photos below) did not need music for many numbers, for example a Cockney rhyming slang piece and a morsel of T S Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

To select a few items from an impressive list of performances, I particularly liked the short extract in English and French from Waiting for Godot/En attendant Godot by David, Feargal and Guillaume (photo) in bashed-up bowlers, Theresa’s song, Síle’s poem Collateral Damage, which had an uncanny ‘ancient’ feel to it, Linda’s Café Italy, the R S Thomas poem (the inbreeding bit was controversial once), and Maggie’s all-too-brief reading of some of Tolkien’s Elvish, which sounds like Welsh, and Maggie should know because she is one of the few people this side of Offa’s Dyke who knows how to pronounce Llareggub absolutely correctly.

Scriptophilia in the Heart Centre

Steve Ball writes:
What a marvellously entertaining evening Scriptophilia was at the Heart Centre, Headingley, last night! Wordsmith Peter Spafford made sure that there was a comforting and supportive atmosphere throughout the evening that complemented the intimacy of the Shire Oak Room; a lovely venue for such a showcase of talent.

Peter’s love of words was evident but the music was not left out due to the prodigious talent of multi-instrumentalist Richard Ormrod – is there any instrument he cannot play?

Helen Burke is the female equivalent of Ian McMillan, who had appeared at the LitFest on the previous evening, and her take on French cats was hilarious. There is always poignancy to her work and it was never more appropriately and eloquently displayed on St Patrick’s Night when she paid tribute to her mother and father, both born in Ireland. Helen is an inspiring poet.

Peter’s guest artistes, Seas-of-Green, raised their game and charmed the appreciative audience, most of whom had never heard of the young Leeds band. A very tight acoustic set was inventive and engaging and there is a special gift of being able to get an audience to sing along to an original song that the vast majority had not heard before. This was a performance that showed what promise they have.

Richard Ormrod is a virtuoso performer and his breadth of expertise provided an extra depth to Peter’s choice of song and poetry. It was obvious that there was a warmth and affection between Peter and Richard and this captured the audience from the off. There was humour, originality and poignancy that kept everyone enraptured through to the finale of their suite of poems set to music.

A very enjoyable evening: thank you one and all.

Helen Burke; http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/helenburkepage.html

Seas-of- Green; http://seas-of-green.com/s/Seas-Of-Green_-_Official_Website.html

Peter Spafford; http://www.peterspafford.co.uk/


Below, Helen Burke, Peter Spafford, Richard Ormrod and Seas of Green. Photos by Richard Wilcocks.

Telling stories with (funny) pictures

The cartoon workshop for children in Headingley Library on Saturday afternoon with local artist Kate Pankhurst was great fun. Kate has illustrated children's books by many very well-known authors, such as Judy Blume, Ian Whybrow, Marjorie Newman and Steve Hartley.

She began by showing some of her work and explaining a little of how the book-illustration process works. She then got her audience imagining their own weird and wonderful characters, thinking of how to illustrate strange story ideas and incidents, making funny flip-books and designing their very own comic-strips.

Everyone involved had a great time ... and also completed some highly-imaginative cartoons! As one parent said - ‘Be very happy to spend every Saturday afternoon like this.’

Below, Kate Pankhurst with Willow, Harry, Alice and Isaac. On the wall, a many-eyed alien monster.

World Story at New Headingley Club

June Diamond writes:

You are three feet tall. The room is crowded. You wrap your arms around the legs of someone in a coat like your mother’s. But it is not her. The room laughs, kindly, but you are humiliated.

Do all children have a similar experience? The group of us taking part in the world story workshop thought that we all had.

In the first workshop we explored the universals of story-telling; scars, epiphanies and transformative moments. Ice-breakers, games and props supported the experience. 'Inspiring', was the feedback.

The second workshop moved past plot (after all, Jeffrey Archer is the master of plot) to explore how moments are made vivid through language. The group turned to memory here . Perhaps not all groups would, but we did. Childhood cruelty and the tale of the solitary guineapig were the basis for some memorable story-telling. 

A terrific creative experience.