Our writer, Nick Hennegan had the pleasure of meeting the Pogues frontman, Shane MacGowan - punk, traditionalist and perceived hell-raiser - who has passed away. They met in Soho, London. This is Nick's personal tribute on Bohemian Britain. Join us every Saturday on the Literary Pub Crawl at 5pm for a 'Rainy Night In Soho' and a 'Fairytale of New York... sorry... Soho!'

www.BohemianBritain.com

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From www.BohemianBritain.com 

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As you know, we're writers and artists ourselves and crazy about our little bit of England and its literature. We've a books list on this website, but we really loved this blog in The Conversation by Heather Green, a PhD Candidate, Literary Heritage at Nottingham Trent University, who works for Wirksworth Heritage Centre.

Some books can really bring to life the place in which they’re set. Their words knit together in such a way that whole landscapes or entire floorplans of buildings you’ve...

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In these troubled times, I thought these books, suggested by Pam Lock, a Lecturer in English Literature (Specialist in Victorian Literature and Alcohol) from the University of Bristol, in the Conversation, might be of interest.

The evolution of the novel and short story in the 19th century brought us one of the greatest human sources of comfort, besides food and a nice hot bath. When someone tells me they are planning to “curl up with a good book”, I am filled with a sense of peace on thei...

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(Amy Anderson and Kizzy Dunn in Nick Hennegan's Romeo and Juliet)

Apologies if you've been trying to book tickets to come on the London Literary Pub Crawl in August.  We obviously love to see you and by supporting us you are supporting a new generation of artists.  But we're nearly all at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - the biggest open arts festival in the world - and it means we're a bit short handed during August!  The GREAT news is that both of our acclaimed productions - P.A.L.S. and Rome...
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It looks like the UK might be exiting the European Union - So a British Exit - Brexit! I love the wordplay, if not the concept.  I won't get into the politics here (nah, I don't think it's a great idea to leave, and I do remember when I was a kid we were known as the 'poor man of Europe' hence us joining the EEC, but...!) however, we have people from around the world come on our literary pub celebration, and one or two people have mentioned they'd heard stories of rationing and hoarding and w...
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For a writer, I've not been writing on here very much!  Mainly due to the creative madness that is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.  I actually had THREE productions I’d written and directed at the festival this year - A Christmas Carol, Henry V - Lion of England and Hamlet - Horatio’s Tale.  Yes, it was a hectic, but a glorious and intense experience.  Adapting Shakespeare’s Hamlet almost sent me as mad as the gloomy Dane himself. (Or was he mad? Or gloomy?  Or just pretending.  How mad ...

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Happy Valentine' Day.

I think Anthony Burgess, a writer we feature in our show, summed up the day perfectly in 'The Paris Review.'  He wrote, "The world has so much solace to offer: love, food, music, the immense variety of race and language, literature, the pleasure of artistic creation." 

Yep!

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Dylan Day - a celebration of the work of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas - is a great idea for a number of reasons.  Firstly it's always a good idea to celebrate art and literature.  In a world full of Trump, May, Brexit, Syria and conflict, it's a very good idea to remind ourselves of the real reason we are all really here.  For the sweet, satisfied moments of family, friendship, kindness, vision and imagination.  I can’t remember who said a civilised society is only measured by the success of it...

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It’s been great being involved with the new International Dylan Day. 14 May each year has been designated Dylan Day to mark the first time his play for voices ‘Under Milk Wood’ was performed in public in the USA. It’s a direct lift from Blooms Day, an annual event inspired by one of the lead characters in Ulysses, by James Joyce. We're going to celebrate it this year with an extra tour and extra Dylan content.  Book now for 13th May - the Saturday before the day.  We also have some id...

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So the clocks have gone back in the UK, marking the end of British Summer Time. It used to depress me a bit - the long dark nights and lack of sunshine. But actually, London takes on a different quality in the winter. But it is still quality! It's a good time for walks around some of our fantastic parks and heaths and pub wise there's a few little gems to check out.

Favourites have got to include The Dove on the riverside in Hammersmith in West London. You will have seen this pub if you've eve...

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We were all a bit surprised when Bob Dylan was awarded his Nobel prize for literature.  Our Charles Dickens Christmas Crawl stops at the very pub where Bob Dylan gave his first ever public performance outside the USA!  This is what Richard Brown, Reader in Modern Literature at the University of Leeds thought about it.

To the surprise of many, Bob Dylan has become the first singer-songwriter to win the Nobel prize in literature.

As the news broke, I was in the middle of teaching James Joyce to s...

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1.  Brexit is a word that has become used as a shorthand way of saying the UK leaving the EU - merging the words Britain and exit to get Brexit, in a same way as a Greek exit from the EU was dubbed Grexit in the past.  A referendum took place in the UK on Thursday 23rd June, 2016.  Everyone in the UK (almost) was eligible to vote, just like in a general election. But on the ballot paper were just two questions.  Should the UK leave the EU or remain in the EU.

2. The E.U. - short for the Euro...

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Having just celebrated the second Dylan Thomas day, we came across this on Facebook.  Written by Josh Brown, it's self-explanatory.  Nick Hennegan, our writer, really liked it and Josh gave us permission to repost it, so here it is.  Thanks Josh!

 

 
Brown's Hotel, Laugharne, Wales.

 

I have meant to post about my visit to Laugharne in the 70's since joining the [Dylan Thomas Facebook] group. Here it is........

 

I was born in a snowstorm in 1947, 6 years before Dylan died. My mo...

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It's the New Year and you should come and visit us in London as soon as you can. Outside of town, check out some of the Literary Festivals we host in the UK.

There are now literary festivals throughout the year in most areas of the country. The largest ones include:

The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, at the end of March
The Hay Festival, in late May
Edinburgh International Book Festival, in August (Hear Nick Hennegan at the 2015 Festival on our podcast page)
Cheltenham Festival of Literatu...
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As you know, life in the arts here in Soho is a constant financial struggle and I’ve been looking at an author Crowdfunding platform called Unbound as a way of helping out.  As I have both Charles Dickens AND William Shakespeare lined up to provide an introduction to my next book - more about that later perhaps - I’m thinking of using the service, if they’ll have me.
I was checking them out and came across this, from Raymond Briggs’ pitch of a book he’s hosting on the platform.  For ...
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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 ...
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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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She's the Queen of Kings at the moment - the star of Henry V - Lion of England at The Wheatsheaf Pub in Fitzrovia, London W1.  Produced by our theatre company Maverick, and written by our writer Nick Hennegan, we asked Simon Plant to go talk to star, Eleanor Dillon-Reams about being Shakespeare's most famous King.


Eleanor Dillon-Reams.

Henry V is one of Shakespeare’s biggest plays.  How come you are the only actor?

The piece has been partly rewritten, edited and chopped up to a short and snap...

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An Evening at The Wheatsheaf Pub, Rathbone Place, London, W1. 8pm

Dylan's Day is a celebration of Dylan Thomas.  14 May has been chosen because marks the day Under Milk Wood was first read in public.

We hope you can join us for what will be a memorable night. As you know, we produced Under Milk Wood on the 60th anniversary of Dylan's death and we were involved in Griff Rhys Jones' Dylan Thomas in Fitzrovia Festival, so I feel very close to the Welsh Wizard!  We're planning music, poetry and a r...
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Forgive my indulgence. This post isn't really anything directly to do with The London Literary Pub Crawl, other than the fact I wrote the tour and the journal/diary I wrote in 1997 (How To Make a Crisis Out Of A Drama) is being released by Maverick Theatre to celebrate its 21st Birthday. Although booze plays a part, because this is about the first time I got drunk!  And Neville Owen died last month and I went to his funeral, so I wanted to mark his passing. I wrote this in 1997 and I hope it ...
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Bummer!  We had the rights to perform George Orwell's Animal Farm for all of 8 weeks, till the 'principle agent' changed their mind and decided to cancel our license.  It probably means a commercial theatre producer has decided to try a production. Which is good for us fans of Orwell, but not so good for WE fans of Orwell.  



A bit like when we performed 'Under Milk Wood' in the Wheatsheaf in Fitzrovia, London, the pub where Dylan Thomas met his wife.  It was commercially stupid to mount such a...
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We started 2014 in the shadow of the previous year.

My experiment with theatre in a pub, as opposed to Pub Theatre as it's understood in London, had proved very successful in 2013.  I managed to get the rights to produce Under Milk Wood on the 60th anniversary of Dylan Thomas' death.  It proved a success in a number of ways, but mainly though conversations with the excellent veteran theatre director John Adams.  John was not available to direct, but he recommended a former student of his who ...

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Thursday, 2 October 2014

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It's me birthday!  Thanks!  Feel free to send cards. Or cash... :-)

Birthdays are often a time for reflection.  When I first got the idea for the London Literary Pub Crawl, it was because I was taking my M.A. and I was flat broke.  In spite of never having received a grant for education, for reasons known only to the Education Dept I had to fund everything myself.  It was tough - not only the fees, but living in one of the most expensive cities in the world.  But I don't think we'd have done t...
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Or at least the final blog of this particular production. What can I say! We’ve just finished and I’ve just got back from the last night.  And the consumption of a few drinks with the cast makes this not the best time to write this, perhaps! But it became a big deal for me. As you may have gathered from the previous blogs, I had a number of concerns with this production. Although small in scale it was large in ambition and my first toe in the West End water.  I only actually got to watch ...
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This week has been quite interesting in terms of Under Milk Wood.  The decision to do it as a fundraiser has been quite liberating.  It means we're all in the same boat and anybody who wants to be involved with the project will be doing it for the love of the piece and the experience rather than any hard financial reward. Any funds we do raise will go to Maverick in the hope we might be able to resurrect the youth group or The Peoples' Company.

After my last blog I had a Facebook comment tha...

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I love the image above we are using for Under Milk Wood.  It has a wistful quality to it and that is how I feel about some of our writers - especially Dylan Thomas, who was taken from us so tragically early. I also love Wales, and this image kind of sums up my schoolboy holidays in out-of-season seaside towns. This bench has seen a lot, you can just tell.  And it quietly waits for the next joyful - or maybe melancholy - experience. 

But enough wooden bench and more Milk Wood.  He was a smart c...
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Seamus Heaney died yesterday. It's a loss in so many ways. Probably the finest Irish poet since Yeats, he was sometimes known as "Famous Seamus" because unlike many poets and writers, he wasn't particularly shy and retiring. He was something of a celebrity from an early age and was prepared to stick his head over the parapet to make a comment.



But I identify with Heaney the farm-boy. My folks are from the peat-bogs of Co. Mayo - he was from a Mossbawn farmhouse in County Derry, although he res...

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I had the pleasure of spending a week in Wales last month. A beautiful country and the home of my childhood holidays. Most of our time had been spent around Aberdyfi and Corris, but this time we moved a little further south and rediscovered New Quay.  And as I walked into town, I was greeted by an image of the boyo himself. Yep, New Quay has a Dylan Thomas Trail!



Dylan lived in many places and he is most generally associated with his Boathouse in Laugharne even further to the South, but he and...
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Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas

£ 15 Friday 8th November 2013 at 7.30pm Saturday 9th November, 2013 at 2.30pm The Wheatsheaf Pub, Rathbone Street, London, W1T 1JB   A rare, fund-raising performance of the "play for voices' given on the very day Dylan died sixty years ago. The Maverick Theatre Company and the Literary Pub Crawl Company present this stunning vocal masterpiece in the same pub where Dylan Thomas drank and met his wife, Caitlan.   A unique, not-to-be-missed event celebrating the genius o...

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We've been set up by the not-for-profit Maverick Theatre Company. Nick Hennegan, who created our tour, often Audio Boo's.  So have a listen here - http://audioboo.fm/MaverickTheatre
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If you're coming to see us over the summer, the chances are you might meet one of this talented bunch of actors. If you've already been on the London Literary Pub Crawl, you may recognise the alleyway next to the Newman's Arms, George Orwell's local.
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One of the pubs we visit on the tour is The Newman Arms. It's a great pub and unusual in that it's one of very few pubs in the area still owned outright by a family, rather than a brewery. I'll go into more detail about the pub in a later post, but I love the place. And it's appeared in some famous films. But perhaps most famously it's where George Orwell used to drink and is widely believed to be the template for the Proles pub in his novel 1984. You can hear some of his description of the p...
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 Quaintish seafront shops. Closed, of course. But it was Sunday.

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Thanks for your enquiries and keep them coming. We're currently looking for new performers in London and we're looking at raising some finance through the issue of shares in the company. So if you have any interest in either of those area, then please contact us. 
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Well, what a year 2012 has been.  The Silver Jubilee, the Olympics and more importantly (to us anyway) the launch of the London Literary Pub Crawl.  It's because we are a not-for-profit charity with no budget that the critical and audience acclaim we've received early on has been so important and so crucial... and so moving.  Partly inspired by the Olympics coming to London, I felt a desire - perhaps a passion - to share what I'd found out about the struggle some of the worlds most famous wri...

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We had a query this week from someone wondering what preparation they should make for the tour. Well, it is written assuming no previous knowledge, but works covered on the tour include A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, 1984 by George Orwell, A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf and various Charles Dickens works. We've also some new work from the niece of Brendan Behan and we get to meet all the above, plus William Blake, Francis Bacon, Jeffrey Barnard a...
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If you've been on the tour, you'll know that the Fitzrovia leg is more theatrical than the Soho leg. We enact various scenes, including Anthony Burgess (Clockwork Orange, etc) meeting a knife gang in the Duke and Dylan Thomas meeting his wife at the Wheatsheaf. But then Soho becomes a more 'traditional' tour. That's about to change very soon. I've written a number of pieces around our Soho artists and writers and I hope its going to transform what we already have.

I'm very pleased with critica...
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