Ledbury Poetry Festival: What's on Today

Sunday 1st July at the Ledbury Festival

Bernard O'Donoghue and Theo Dorgan
Burgage Hall 12.15pm – 1.15pm £8
Bernard O’Donoghue, a very fine poet and reader, won the Whitbread Prize for the second of his five collections. His most recent work, a verse translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, has received glowing reviews.
Theo Dorgan is a poet, broadcaster, translator, editor and documentary scriptwriter; his Jason and The Argonauts, to music by Howard Goodall, was commissioned by and premiered in the Royal Albert Hall in 2004.
Sponsored by Magma Poetry Magazine & Culture Ireland

The Gaelic Note: Poetry and Music
Burgage Hall 2.00pm – 3.00pm £6
Join Theo Dorgan and others for a celebration of Gaelic- poems, translations and music. The line-up will include Paddy Bushe and Ciaran Carson, for a feast of writing and music-making in the great tradition of Irish Gaelic, a language made for poetry and song.

Jilly Cooper's Desert Island Poems
Community Hall 2.00pm – 3.00pm £8
The best-selling media superstar and author of The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, Rivals, Riders, Polo, romance novels like Octavia and most recently, Wicked!, appears at Lebury to chat about her favourite poems. Readers of Wicked! will know that it is dotted with poems by poets like Robert Frost and Matthew Arnold. This event is bound to throw up some surprises and lots to interest, amuse and inspire.
Sponsored by The Friends of The Ledbury Poetry Festival

Micheal O'Siadhail and Nigel McLoughlin
Burgage Hall 3.45pm – 4.45pm £8
Micheal O’Siadhail is the author of 11 poetry collections, most recently Globe. Deeply rooted in Ireland, he is at home in the European and American traditions and exemplifies the breadth of modern Irish poetry.
Nigel McLoughlin is Course Leader for Creative Writing and Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Gloucestershire. His books include Songs for No Voices and Blood. Nigel has kindly stepped in to replace Medbh McGuckian.

Ciaran Carson and Sinead Morrissey
Burgage Hall 5.30pm – 6.30pm £8
An unmissable event with two outstanding writers from Belfast. Ciaran Carson has won the Irish Times Literature Prize, the T S Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize for Breaking News in 2003.
Sinead Morrissey is the youngest ever recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Award; short-listed for the T S Eliot and a winner of the Michael Hartnett Award in 2005 for her latest, the excellent The State of the Prisons.
Sponsored by PN Review

For tickets, maps, venue information etc, visit www.poetry-festival.com

Peter Wyton performs at Ledbury: Monday July 2nd

Peter Wyton at the LEDBURY POETRY FESTIVAL

‘A BRIEF & POETICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND’
Monday July 2nd
8pm to 10pm
Ther Market Theatre, Ledbury
(Event 24)

"18 historically based poems composed by Peter Wyton will be presented, linked by sketches devised by John Burns, the Festival’s founder. In the hands of these two alone, the programme might be expected to descend into unseemly farce, but this fate has been deftly avoided by the inclusion of locally based Lucy Chalkley, a consummately skilled actress whose professionalism adds more than a touch of class to the proceedings. Notwithstanding her gallant efforts, amongst the delights on offer along the via from Roman occupation to the present day, the audience will encounter Boadicea’s estranged husband going on about her driving, King Ethelred will be revealed as more Unsteady than Unready, chastity belts will be plugged as the new must-have fashion accessory, Oliver Cromwell squares up to a Health & Safety inspector and Beatrix Potter is introduced to rap culture. There will be an Olde English Grammar lesson, a revealing kiss-and-tell episode involving Flora Macdonald & Bonnie Prince Charlie, Elizabeth Tudor appears on ‘Blind Date’ and Disraeli and Gladstone go head to head with Queen Vic as referee.

Not everybody and everything gets sent up. Hereward the Wake, Scott of the Antarctic, the bandmaster of the Titanic and the Old Contemptibles are all examples of persons who will be treated with due respect."

Tickets are available from the Festival Box Office, 0845 4581743

Ledbury Festival 2007: Friday 29th June

Ledbury Poetry Festival 2007

Opening events on Friday 29th June
See www.poetry-festival.com for venue map, booking information & more events

James Fenton on The New Faber Book of Love Poems
The Community Hall 5.30pm - 6.30pm £8
An evening of love poetry as James Fenton reads from and talks about The New Faber Book of Love Poems, which he edited. One of the great poets of our time, James Fenton is truly a renaissance man: political journalist, drama critic, book reviewer, war correspondent, foreign correspondent and columnist. Come and hear the classics and favourites, alongside blues lyrics, American folk poetry, Elizabethan lyrics and Broadway songs. A charismatic performer, James Fenton will entrance you with some of the most engaging and emotive lyric poems ever written.


Simon Armitage on Gawain
The Community Hall 7.15pm - 8.15pm £8
Six hundred years after the first edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a second northern poet, Simon Armitage, sets out on the same journey, telling the story of this dramatic and mysterious quest. Best-selling poet and novelist, Simon Armitage will also read from his T S Eliot shortlisted Tyrannosaurus Rex versus the Corduroy Kid, "his wittiest most alertly combative and impassioned collection to date".
If you are interested in this, how about trying this : Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as told by Bernard O'Donoghue on Sunday 1st July.
Sponsored by Simon and Margaret Payton

Murray Lachlan Young's Cautionary Tales for Adults
Market Theatre 8.30pm - 10.30pm £6 Bar available
Poet, satirist, raconteur Murray Lachlan Young rocketed to fame in 1997 after signing a million pound deal with EMI records. A decade later he is back, older and possibly wiser, wowing audiences with his improvisational prowess on Saturday Live for Radio 4. Murray Lachlan Young is a brilliantly unique performer who combines the predatory humour of the Victorian cautionary tale and the pointed whimsy of Noel Coward with a B-movie sensibility.
Sponsored by Orme Dykes & Yates

Peter Wyton performs at Ledbury: Monday July 2nd

Peter Wyton at the LEDBURY POETRY FESTIVAL

‘A BRIEF & POETICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND’
Monday July 2nd
8pm to 10pm
Ther Market Theatre, Ledbury
(Event 24)

"18 historically based poems composed by Peter Wyton will be presented, linked by sketches devised by John Burns, the Festival’s founder. In the hands of these two alone, the programme might be expected to descend into unseemly farce, but this fate has been deftly avoided by the inclusion of locally based Lucy Chalkley, a consummately skilled actress whose professionalism adds more than a touch of class to the proceedings. Notwithstanding her gallant efforts, amongst the delights on offer along the via from Roman occupation to the present day, the audience will encounter Boadicea’s estranged husband going on about her driving, King Ethelred will be revealed as more Unsteady than Unready, chastity belts will be plugged as the new must-have fashion accessory, Oliver Cromwell squares up to a Health & Safety inspector and Beatrix Potter is introduced to rap culture. There will be an Olde English Grammar lesson, a revealing kiss-and-tell episode involving Flora Macdonald & Bonnie Prince Charlie, Elizabeth Tudor appears on ‘Blind Date’ and Disraeli and Gladstone go head to head with Queen Vic as referee.

Not everybody and everything gets sent up. Hereward the Wake, Scott of the Antarctic, the bandmaster of the Titanic and the Old Contemptibles are all examples of persons who will be treated with due respect."

Tickets are available from the Festival Box Office, 0845 4581743