The London Literary Pub Crawl

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Autumn Events in London. And Spreadsheets. Our Friends.

October 2, 2015
I should be writing here more often, but to be honest, running the London Literary Pub Crawl takes a chunk of time.  We've done incredibly well over our first year or so, but I've decided we could do much better, so we're looking to raise £30k for marketing.  It'll make us a real attraction in London and my Chinese actors stand poised, ready to go.

But we're writers, not accountants.  Fortunately I've found a brilliant accountant who is able to frame my terms of reference in accounting speak and if the banks don't want to play ball our financials look strong enough to attract private investors.  I have to keep reminding myself.  "Spreadsheets are my friends. Spreadsheets are my friends..." Repeat often.

That aside, if you are in London at the moment, you picked a good time.  Head over to The South Bank for their Literary Festival.  This year’s festival will include a four-day live reading of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1-4 Oct). The first ever live reading of the novel in the UK, the reading is presented by The Special Relationship and Southbank Centre specially for this year’s festival. The event will feature 160 ten minute readings by actors, writers, comedians and special guests including Melville’s great, great, great granddaughter and novelist Liza Klaussmann, Chibundu Onuzo and A L Kennedy.

Another exclusive event will include the world premiere of The Hollow of the Hand, the début collaborative book by the Grammy Award and Mercury Prize winning PJ Harvey and celebrated photographer Seamus Murphy. Featuring words and images collected during a series of journeys to Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Washington D.C. between 2011 and 2014, the event will present poetry readings and new songs performed by PJ Harvey alongside images and a short film by Seamus Murphy (9 & 10 October).

The event I'm most excited about though, is Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam in conversation with a special guest (to be announced) (7 Oct). Discussing Terry’s life, career, art and the broader question of creativity, the event will focus on Terry’s latest memoir, Gilliamesque: A Pre-Posthumous Memoir, which is due to be published this October. Terry’s only book appearance in the UK this year, the event will track his vivid and unorthodox career from Monty Python to his role directing English National Opera’s Faust in 2011.  I grew up watching Monty Python.  I'm going to see if I can get Terry on my radio show Literary London every Friday on Resonance 104.4FM and Podcast on this site.  But he's a bit of a hero and you know what they say about meeting heroes.  I did once nearly tread on Terry Jones' foot at a party though, so maybe I'm qualified.

Never mind heroes.  Spreadsheets are my friend.


 

A book for any occasion. The perfect holiday mini-library.

August 24, 2015

With our writer, Nick Hennegan, taking 2 weeks in Wales to write, we thought this article from The Conversation by Andrew Tate, Reader in English at Lancaster University, might be appropriate.

Hell is not, as Sartre suggested, other people – it’s a holiday without books. Holidays, with their promise of carefree pleasure seeking, might seem like the most materialistic of activities. Yet the name has sacred roots: the holy day suggests a time set apart from the ordinary flow of life.

I can to...


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Summer.

August 20, 2015

It’s all a bit relative really.  Especially given our typical English weather. But we finished our one-woman ‘Henry V - Lion of England’ to great acclaim in June and August should be the month of slowing down, taking things easy and recharging the batteries for the winter.

Virtually impossible if you’re working in the arts, of course. And if you are, you might be interested in this book.  We’re re-releasing it with lots of photos and posters, reviews and raves and, mainly, a reprint ...


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Defying the norm? Hardly, the Edinburgh Fringe defines it.

August 9, 2015
This is interesting if you are performing or considering visiting the Edinburgh Festival.  We personally love it, but understand the sentiment expressed here, by Stephen Greer, Lecturer of Theatre Practices at Glasgow University.  Reprinted from The Conversation, with permission.


This year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe slogan – “defying the norm since 1947” – might make for good marketing. But it hardly reflects the role of the world’s largest arts festival accurately. Far from suppo...

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We've moved! The Fitzroy Tavern closes!

July 17, 2015
The roots of the Literary Pub Crawl lie in the Fitzroy Tavern. I was doing my Masters at the University of London and looking for a cheap pint.  My mate from Birmingham, filmmaker Andy Bloom, suggested I could get a cheaper pint at the Fitzroy, as the pub was run by the Sam Smiths Brewery and they were considerably cheaper than other pubs in the area.  He also told me about the Writers and Artists Bar at the pub, which certainly appealed.

So I was nursing my cheap pint downstairs and couldn't ...
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About Us


Nick Hennegan Hello. I'm Nick Hennegan and I started the London Literary Pub Crawl. Most of the blogs on here will be by me. I've always written but my first theatrical success was an adaptation of Shakespeare's 'Henry V' (www.HenryVPlay.com) I founded Maverick Theatre in 1994. (www.MaverickTheatreCompany.com) This pub crawl is really more a promenade theatre performance than a tour and I'm running it with a bunch of enthusiastic local actors and writers. I love sharing my passion for the area and the artists. I also present a weekly radio show, 'Literary London' on Resonance 104.4fm - London's Arts Station and a podcast on our site. If you haven't visited us in London yet, I hope you'll come soon. Have a look at my new site, www.BohemianBritain.com. And feel free to leave comments or email me at nick @ LondonLiteraryPubCrawl.com - I reply to them all and I love to hear from you.

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