29th February at 7pm in Bridge House Theatre…..

We are very lucky that Professor Danny Dorling one of our foremost social commentators and geographers is coming to Warwick on Wednesday February 29th to talk about his recent book ‘So You Think You Know About Britain’.

We don’t live in the country we thought we live in anymore; it has changed because we have changed. When it comes to immigration, the population explosion, the collapse of the family, the north-south divide, or the death of the countryside, common wisdom tells us that we are in trouble; however, this is far from the truth. In this anatomy of contemporary Britain, Danny Dorling dissects the nation and reveals unexpected truths about the way we live today, contrary to what you might read in the news. Exploring the key issues that make the headlines, this book will change the way you think about our country and explain just why you should feel positive about the future. He examines

• Why there are more young women in London than men
• Why the North/South Divide is moving southwards
• Why we need more immigrants rather than less
• Why the population time bomb is a myth
• Why there are more divorced people in Blackpool than anywhere else
• Why young black people don’t vote

Whilst sometimes, by the very nature of the important things he is talking about, controversial,  Danny is also well known for being transparent. For his very latest book ‘Fair Play’ all the background data is accessible on-line in great detail but in a very easy-to-follow format. And wonderful, fascinating reading it makes too. Pity all commentators and academics aren’t as open. All of Danny’s books are worth reading that’s for sure, and he is responsible for my very favourite reference book of all time ‘Atlas of The Real World’ which is full of mind-bending and innovative charts which show information as we’ve never seen it before. I really look forward to this talk….don’t miss it!

Tickets available from Warwick Books, Kenilworth Books, or the Bridge House Box Office ( 01926 776438, email boxoffice@warwickschool.org ).

You can catch Danny on Radio 4 at the moment on Wednesdays where he is talking about the Domesday Reloaded project….

“As we reach the end of the Domesday Reloaded project, Prof Danny Dorling compares the 2011 and 1986 views of the UK to give a unique insight into how the country has changed in the last 25 years.

Since March 27th 2011, the public have been updating a repository of 24,000 photographs, taken for the BBC’s Domesday project in 1986. Danny picks four areas in which to explore the transformations of the UK. He visits these places and talks to the individuals who have updated the squares about their lives and experience of the way that their locality has changed.

One theme Danny explores is the disappearance of an industrial landscape since the 1980s. He looks at Sheffield, where he is Professor of Human Geography, to explore how this once steel town has benefitted from the expansion of higher education to become a centre of student life.

He also looks at aspects of life that haven’t changed in a quarter of a century, such as the pantomime in the Scottish village of Buchlyvie. The residents were keen contributors to the 1986 Domesday project and they have updated their square in 2011…….”

Victoria Lamb will be talking about her new book

“The Queen’s Secret” at the Stables in Kenilworth Castle

on Thursday 1st March at 7.00pm

This will be a free event to launch the book which is set in

Kenilworth during the Royal Progress of Elizabeth 1st.

The publisher Transworld are providing ticket holders with

a glass of wine to celebrate the launch.

“The Queen’s Secret” is an historical novel by  author Victoria Lamb.  It is set during the visit to Kenilworth Castle by Queen Elizabeth when  Robert Dudley was fully expecting Elisabeth to become betrothed to him.  During the visit, Elizabeth realises that Robert is possibly having an affair with the wife of the Earl of Essex.  The book examines this and other possible reasons for Elizabeth deciding not to marry at all.  Shakespeare has a walk-on part (as a young boy), and we meet the girl who may have inspired his “Dark Lady”.
Skillfully weaving fact and fiction, Victoria Lamb builds a wonderful picture of the Elizabethan Court on the move, and the fact that the event is being held actually in the castle where all the threads of the story spin out will make it a wonderful occasion not to be missed…

At 7pm on Wednesday 2nd May at

Lord Leycester’s Hospital

Harriett Castor will be talking about our ‘Book Of The Year’ for 2011 ‘VIII’

and Nicola Shulman will be talking about her book on Sir Thomas Wyatt

We are delighted to welcome to Warwick two wonderful Tudor authors. Harriett Castor’s ‘VIII’ is the story of Hal: a young, handsome, gifted warrior, who believes he has been chosen to lead his people. But he is plagued by the ghosts of his family’s violent past and, once he rises to power, he himself turns to murder and rapacious cruelty. He is…….. Henry VIII. The Tudors have always captured the popular imagination, but in ‘VIII’, Henry is presented in a totally different light. It is Henry’s story as told by himself. It’s a wonderful, wonderful novel based on the meticulous research of a genuine Historian, written for teenagers but definitely for adults too. Here is Frances’ review……”I have never really been a huge fan of historical fiction. Although a lot of it, surprisingly, is written by real historians, it tends not to be very convincing. This however is different. Harriett is a first-class historian (her sister Helen is too) and the amount of research she did for the novel really shines through. Not just along historical lines either…she consulted psychoanalysts and in particular the Jungian analyst Matthew Harwood, as well as clothing experts, martial arts gurus,experts on the Italian Wars and anything else you can think of. So the first criterion for an historical novel – that it is believable – is met in spades.
But it is, as other reviwers have said, a real page turner. You just don’t want to put it down. The unique view point from which it is written, inside Henry’s own head, helps it enormously and gives an immediacy which is brilliant. Breathtaking. And it really does give us an opportunity to re-assess what we think of Henry, and take a different view on him than that provided by the portraits with which we are so familiar…the ogre who thinks nothing of executing wives or friends, or the gross, obese tyrant totally self-centred, vain and dictatorial.
It is without doubt the best book I have read this year, the most exciting, the most thoughtful, and one I would recommend without resrvation to teens or adults. Do read it.”

H. M. Castor has been obsessed with the Tudors since primary school. She studied Tudor History at Cambridge University, and despite spending time after that doing a variety of jobs – including teaching English in Prague, the Tudors have never lost their hold on her. In particular she has been fascinated by the story of Henry VIII. I’ve read a great deal about his life, she says, but still a huge question has remained: just how does this extraordinary boy become one of the most villainous kings in British history? He is hugely talented, has astonishing warrior skills, and is said to be a model of virtue. So what turns him into a monster? In writing’ VIII’ I’ve set out to answer that question.

Nicola Shulman is herself a modern Marchioness, although she’s certainly not one to play up that aspect of her life. However it does perhaps resonate in her writing and in ‘Graven With Diamonds’ a book both intriguing and amusing  she tells the story of Henry VIII, – his court, his victims and his Queens – from the perspective of a powerful but little-discussed influence in the lives of those involved: poetry. Learned divines despised it, sober heads ignored it, but for Henry, the beau ideal of chivalry, poetry made things happen. It affected his wars, his diplomacy and his many marriages.

It was at the root of his fatal attraction to Anne Boleyn, the source of her power and it was the means of her destruction. In this witty and accessible account, Nicola Shulman interweaves the bloody events of Henry’s reign with the story of English love poetry and the life of its first master, Henry’s most glamorous and enigmatic subject: Sir Thomas Wyatt. Courtier, spy, wit, diplomat, assassin, lover of Anne Boleyn, and favourite both of Henry and his sinister minister Thomas Cromwell, the brilliant Wyatt was admired and envied in equal measure.

His love poetry began as an elite and risque entertainment for the group of ambitious men and women at the slippery top of the court. But when the axe began to fall among this group, and Henry’s laws made his subjects fall silent in terror, Wyatt’s poetic skills became a way to survive. He saw that a love poem was a place where secrets could hide.

From its first appearance Nicola’s book has received rave reviews

“This glitteringly brilliant book… dazzles in its scope, its scholarship and its originality… As a biography it is exceptionally accomplished, as an illumination of the function of literature under tyranny it is extraordinarily modern. Everyone who cares anything for poetry should read this vivid, dynamic and exhilarating account of how and why words matter”. –Times Literary Supplement, Book of the Year

“Masterly… the best work of history this year” –AN Wilson, Book of the Year – Evening Standard

Book group meeting Wednesday 23rd November at the “Old Punchbowl Inn” in Warwick.

The book we were discussing at this meeting is “The Book of Human Skin” which definitely divided the group into two clear camps. Some people found the subject matter and the main character so repulsive that they felt they could not carry on reading. Those who finished the book found it fascinating and thoroughly enjoyed it. Quite a few of the group had not quite finished the book, but the period is fascinating, characters cleverly drawn, with the main, evil character being about the most repulsive person imaginable, and there is also a touch of humour to lighten even the most grotesque passages

“The Book of Human Skin” is a large volume with many pages of villainy writ upon it. There are people who are a disease, you know. 13 May, 1784, Venice: Minguillo Fasan, heir to the decaying, gothic Palazzo Espagnol, is born. Yet Minguillo is no ordinary child: he is strange, devious and all those who come near him are fearful. Twelve years later Minguillo is faced with an unexpected threat to his inheritance: a newborn sister, Marcella. His untempered jealousy will condemn his sister to a series of fates as a cripple, a madwoman and a nun. But in his insatiable quest to destroy her, he may have underestimated his sister’s ferocious determination, and her unlikely allies who will go to extraordinary lengths to save her…”

Despite the divisions, most of the group would recommend this book to a friend…..

There will be no meeting in December, so the next meeting is on Wednesday 18^th January at 6.00pm at the Puchbowl Inn in Warwick. We will be discussing a recommendation by Maureen: “The Missing” by Tim Gautreaux isbn 9780340977958. Set in Louisiana and featuring a slow trip up the Mississippi, this is the story of a kidnapped child and the man trying to find her. ‘Gautreaux writes with sustained grace and creates memorable characters . . . What really sets ‘The Missing’ apart, though, is his remarkable ability to realise the period . . . a rare and rather uncanny achievement: a novel about the South in the early Twenties that reads as though it was actually written there and then’ (John Dugdale, Literary Review )

‘Full of vivid evocations of the sights, sounds and smells of the South. As Simoneaux pursues his morally driven detective mission the scent of the steaming mud of the cypress swamps and the sound of 1920s New Orleans jazz rise off the page’ (Claire Prentice, Scotsman )

Writing Radio Drama with Peter Leslie Wild

A series of four one-day workshops

31 March, 28 April, 26 May, 30 June (10am – 4pm)

The Friends’ Meeting House, 39 High Street, Warwick, CV34 1AX

Radio Drama is the biggest commercial market for dramatists in the world. For many years the preserve of the BBC, audio plays are now cropping up on websites, as podcasts and via other digital outlets. So what makes a good radio/audio play? How is a radio script different from a screenplay or a theatre script? How do you begin to write a radio play?

These four entertaining and informative workshops will help the participants to analyse in depth what makes a good radio play, using examples from recently broadcast dramas. We will look closely at existing scripts and examine what makes them work in terms of audio production. Above all, we will look at how to translate a good idea into a workable, engaging and marketable radio drama script.

Participants will have the chance to develop their own scripts, and will be challenged to come up with a workable radio drama.

Over the four weeks there will be opportunities for participants to hear their work read aloud, and for members to exchange feedback with fellow course members and the Course Leader.

As well as looking at BBC Radio Dramas, we will also be examining the expanding market for audio drama on the internet, and seeking strategies for marketing plays beyond the obvious and traditional routes.

This is a hands-on series of workshops, aimed at writers of all levels who are serious about developing their skills in writing drama for radio.

Peter Leslie Wild is a freelance audio and theatre director, producer and script editor. He was Senior Producer for BBC Radio Drama for 16 years, and his work includes five series of Lindsey Davis’s Falco, plays by Stephen Poliakoff, Steve Waters and David Edgar, the Classic Serial version of Robinson Crusoe (all BBC Radio 4), three sci-fi series and several episodes of The Man in Black for BBC Radio 4 Extra. He has also directed many episodes of The Archers. Peter’s work has twice won the prestigious Prix Marulic.

Peter has recently written and produced a creative audio tour of the birthplace of Thomas Andrews, the designer of the Titanic, as part of the centenary commemorations in Northern Ireland. He has also recently run workshops in Nairobi for the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, for Birmingham University, Aberystwyth University and de Montfort University at undergraduate and post-graduate level. His podcasts for Monty Funk Productions are available online. In the theatre he recently directed The Wicked Lady for Birmingham University, and is Artistic Director of the 2013 Chester Mystery Cycle in Chester Cathedral.

To book/for further details contact jeanette-sheppard@ntlworld.com

Total price for the course is £160 and is payable at the time of booking. Please note it is not possible to book the days separately. Lunch is not included. There are only 10 places available.