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Wordless Wednesday
Category: Theatre
My Mind is Free
I remove the scrunched up hair band from its hiding place. In all this time they’d never found it and it is now my only link back to my family.
I’d been taken, ripped away from Shona as I was plaiting her hair. My six year old sister’s screams keep me awake at night but her hairband keeps me grounded. Reminds me who I am and that Shona is waiting for me.
I decide that this is the day I begin my journey home. They will come soon but just one will be left. I’d loosened a bar in the bedstead and the lengths of rags I’ve been saving are tied together. I know their pattern. They will wait out back, dragging on those repulsive cigarettes. But the passage will be empty.
I slip the band around my wrist.
The lock clicks.
Wordless Wednesday
Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games
From the Paganesque opening and the appearance of the Borg like Dark Lord, you knew this wasn’t going to be a completely traditional Irish experience. Continue reading
Wordless Wednesday
Rochester Literature Festival 2014: Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know
We’re delighted to be opening this year with an hilarious and heart-warming one woman show with actress Sunny Ormonde – the outrageous Lilian Bellamy from BBC Radio 4’s The Archers, the world’s longest running soap.
Over the course of the next ten days, we’ll be joined by as-seen-on-tv-off-his-trolley comic genius Phil Kay, master of freeform performance and storytelling, and notorious Australian, Trenton Oldfield – who served six months at her Majesty’s Pleasure for disrupting the 2012 Boat Race in a protest against elitism.
We will be hosting two wonderful authors who’ll fascinate you with insights and anecdotes from their latest books: Angela Buckley introduces us to The Real Sherlock Holmes – Detective Jerome Caminada, whose methodologies mimicked Conan Doyle’s genius, and Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, who will discuss the impact of reality on fiction. While No One Was Watching is set against the backdrop of the Kennedy assassination and the abduction of a young girl from the grassy knoll on that fateful day.
Sadly, we have to announce the postponement of one of our family events,Assassin, due to technical issues. Featuring the fantastic Joe Craig reading extracts from his Jimmy Coates series – part boy, part weapon, totally deadly – and music from Jacob Bride, Graham Sykes and Jamie Godfrey, this will hopefully take place early in the new year. However, we do still have the awesome Keeper of the Realms author, Marcus Alexander, who is Charlie’s Keeper, who will entertain and inspire you with his delightfully wicked fantasy adventure series – get your read on! Waterstones in Chatham have kindly agreed to sell books in the venue on the day, if you need to complete your collection.
Our interactive story game this year is Murder in the Crypt, in which you’ll be invited to solve mysteries and puzzles with Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes and Auguste Dupin. In addition, we’re holding a Cafe Crawl, where you can sample poetry and storytelling, while Bookmark’d is a chance to buy books, swap books or just listen to books, read aloud by their authors.
Our Night at the Theatre will this year be held in conjunction with Chatham Grammar School for Boys and be presented by award winning 17% playwrights,Sam Fentiman-Hall, Sarah Hehir and Maggie Drury. The Spirit of My Dream is inspired by Byron’s poem The Dream and features new plays with a fantastical theme.
An exhibition curated by ME4Writers especially for the festival, An Assemblance of Judicious Heretics, has channelled Byron to produce work inspiring madness, badness and dangerousness in the hearts of artists. A live reading will bring the visual carnage to life!
Byron’s Teapot will be our finale – a mad mix of unusual and quirky music, poetry and theatre, featuring The James Worse Public Address Method, JP Lovecraft,Dylan Oscar Rowe and Brides of Rain.
We look forward to welcoming you to our exciting – and only slightly scary – second full length festival!
To read full details, download a copy the 2014 programme and buy tickets, please visit rochesterlitfest.com.
If you have any enquiries regarding any of the events or festival in general, please email rochesterlitfest@gmail.com or telephone 07904 643770.
We look forward to seeing you 🙂
Wordless Wednesday
Wordless Wednesday
Triffidus Corpus
The day outside was sounding wrong. Feeling wrong. Even for a Sunday, the silence was disturbingly, mysteriously different. No rumbling wheels, no roaring buses, no tramping feet. Shuffling, hesitant feet, yes. But none with purpose. No birdsong, just unintelligible wailing and sobbing close by.
He wasn’t able to see the light show played out in the skies last night. Bright green flashes; shooting stars; showering comets. A magnificent spectacle, they said. A unique phenomenon, they said. You should have seen it, they said. Rather insensitively.
The feeling of the bogey man under the bed began to creep upon him. A lifetime of being deprived of his eyes did nothing to alleviate this. Was it that famed sixth sense, becoming more heightened?
Was it his imagination? That fluttery feeling in his stomach, a prelude to something he dreaded. But what? Reaching out to touch … what? There was nothing there, nothing to feel and yet… still that persistent nagging.
What was that? A waft of air passed by his face, light as a feather. He was reminded of a fly, caught in a spider’s web. Trapped by uncertainty; perplexed by inactivity. Stilled by fear. He became aware that something was waiting …
Lurching towards him, leathery leaves rustling.
A stem whipped back and forth.
A swish and a slap.
The sting whistle slashed.
“A Triffid is in a damn sight better position to survive than a blind man. Take away our sight and our superiority to them is gone.” – John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids
I wrote this piece for The Skywatcher Investigation, our interactive alien game during the Rochester LitFest 2013 Other Worlds, Other Voices Festival. Using Wyndham’s descriptive language to capture the feel but creating a character of my own, it was performed by the multi talented Lance Philips of Physical Folk, playing a blind gardener, who succumbs to attack by a Triffid, played by the wonderful Sophie Williams. I read the piece aloud to the sound of Mozart’s requiem, Ave Verum Corpus, adjusting the text to fit the rhythm of the music.
It was a new experience for me but one I thoroughly enjoyed working on, and hope to do similar again in future.
Photo credit: Nikki Price Photography
Special visit to Jack and the Beanstalk
Guest blog by Stephen Jenner of GDS Productions.
The Kent Parent Carer Forum SEN children were special guests of Gillingham Dramatic Society Productions sell out production of Jack and the Beanstalk at the Brook Theatre during half term.
Special arrangements were made for the children and their careers to attend the Thursday Matinee, leading the chairperson of The Kent Parent Carer Forum to say: “A massive thank you to GDS Productions for making the day a success and enjoyable for the children”.
Bright and colourful costumes, amazing dancing and one-liners that appealed to all ages were just some of the lovely comments received from the public after the performances.
Madam Mayor, Cllr. Josie Iles, who attended the Friday evening show and thoroughly enjoyed herself, needed no encouragement to join in with the clapping and laughing. She particularly enjoyed the joke at Medway Council’s expense:  The Dame said “that the Beanstalk needs chopping down, so she instructed Simon to contact Medway Council and get it cut down immediately.”  To which Simon replied: “You’ll be lucky – it’s Medway Council, you’ll be waiting months!”
GDS Productions now move onto their next production which will be Hairspray, in October at the Hazlitt theatre, Maidstone. Keep up to date with them on their Facebook page.
Jaye Nolan 