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Showing Tag: "soho" (Show all posts)

Shane MacGowan - a personal tribute

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Thursday, November 30, 2023, In : Bohemian Britain 


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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52 Things To See and Do in London!

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Tuesday, July 18, 2017, In : Travelers Tips 
I've stopped my radio show for the summer and mainly as a result of emails I've had, I am going to write about a years worth of things to do in London.  Yep, 52 weekly posts. Probably on a Friday.  Although as a writer/boozer, it's a tall order and if you’ve been on our Literary Pub Crawl tour, you’ll know the trouble writer Jeffrey Bernard got into in the West End and Broadway hit, ‘Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell’ when trying to write a regular column.  Penned by fellow boozer Keith Water...

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We're all just writers and artists here!

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Sunday, June 18, 2017, In : Nick Hennegan 

It’s been a couple of months since I last posted here.  But I’m trying to sort a script and music for our national tour of A Christmas Carol later in the year.  I finally managed to get a group of international journalists together to come on the London Literary Pub Crawl, so we’re having our official opening 5 years after we started!  I’m working on a TV script; I’m trying to negotiate with a National Trust garden to present a WW1 play in November and so spending time on this blog ...


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The real Dylan Thomas?

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Sunday, January 29, 2017, In : Writers 

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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A Modern Dickensian Celebration this Christmas

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Friday, December 2, 2016, In : Nick Hennegan 
As you will know if you've been on the London Literary Pub Crawl, we are passionately enthusiastic about our unique bit of central London. Soho and Fitzrovia are arguably unique in the world. They are part city-centre, part artists enclave, part architectural delight and part hedonistic hot-spot.  




Fitzrovia, once known as East Marylebone or North Soho, is particularly attractive to us. One hundred yards from the busiest shopping street in the world I love the fact that some Saturday afternoon...

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What makes a Film Flop?

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Friday, January 8, 2016, In : Nick Hennegan 


Soho, as you many know - and you will if you've been on our Literary Pub Crawl - is the centre of many creative industries in the UK, including the film industry.  We're toying with the idea of making a feature film in 2016 and came across this blog post by Suman Ghosh. who is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Bath Spa University.


Some films succeed, others don’t. Success comes in many forms. Some films are an instant hit from the opening night, some are slower on the uptake while others ge...

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Raymond Briggs and Creative Socio-paths!

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Saturday, November 21, 2015, In : Nick Hennegan 
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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The Wind Doth Blow and the Leaves Do Fall. Lots of news.

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Thursday, October 22, 2015, In : Nick Hennegan 

If we don’t do a newsletter, Maddie, Princess of Soho, (wrong sex and too young yet to be A Queen!) will shout at Nick Hennegan. Me. So, lots to share with you.

  

If you are in London this weekend, check out The Bloomsbury Festival. Full of great stuff, they’re back after a break.  Find our podcast about it here.

 

In our Maverick Theatre/Literary Pub Crawl world, our sponsorship with the lovely Fitzrovia Partnership comes to an end this month.  We love them and we think we h...


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We've moved! The Fitzroy Tavern closes!

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Friday, July 17, 2015, In : Nick Hennegan 
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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Fangs for the memories: death of Christopher Lee draws a veil over golden years of horror

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Friday, June 12, 2015, In : Soho 

Love at first bite. Hammer Horror, CC BY-SA

HAMMER STUDIOS HAD AN OFFICE IN SOHO. 

They say your first Dracula marks you for life and that you will forever associate the Count with the actor who played him. My first experience of the most famous vampire of old time was Christopher Lee’s performance for Hammer Studios – and it has definitely stayed with me ever since.

I still remember watching his imposing on-screen figure, a mountain of a man, halfway between the quaintly aristocratic and th...


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Maverick's latest Newsletter.

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Thursday, May 29, 2014, In : Nick Hennegan 


So.

 

I was in the Twelve Bar on Denmark Street in Soho with Filmaker Andy.  He used to be MyLodger Andy, then VanDriver Andy and now he's FilmMaker Andy. Of course he was always FilmMaker Andy, it's just that none of us, including Andy, realised it for some years.

 

Then in shimmies Maddy, shaking her Soho stack at the boys in the pool room. Tonight is a charity night with some very smart comical and musical talent.  It's a fund-raiser for the uber-cool London Arts radio station, Resonance 104.4...


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Maverick Theatre's Latest Newsletter

Posted by Nick Hennegan on Friday, April 4, 2014, In : Nick Hennegan 

So.

It was a stark, dark night in Soho. I sat in the mugg of the French House nursing a small beer.  Maddy flicked her long blonde hair and fixed me with her baby-blues.
“It’s theatre, you shmuck.” She almost snarled.  “I know publishing. And I know you’ve godda do a regular newsletter. Every month, whatever happens.  It’s the only way. You godda build your brand and you godda do it NOW.  Kapish?”
“What do you know, huh?” I muttered, taking a slug of now warm beer. “Brands? Y...


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Put your (Christmas) Hands in The Air...

Posted by Simon Plant on Monday, December 17, 2012, In : Nick Hennegan 
The first of our Christmas tours took place on Saturday 15th, and a great time we had too. This was the scene at the end of the tour in our last pub in Soho. The songs were imminently singable and we're gong to make it a regular Saturday evening thing going forward.

 Happy Christmas and we hope to see you in the New Year. Here's to 2013!



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Additional Reading and writers we meet!

Posted by Simon Plant on Thursday, November 8, 2012, In : Nick Hennegan 
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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Soho Act Two nearly ready. Are you?

Posted by Simon Plant on Sunday, October 28, 2012, In : Nick Hennegan 
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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I hope I am Write...

Posted by Simon Plant on Thursday, October 11, 2012, In : Nick Hennegan 
It's such a privilege to be working on this tour, although quite scary in some ways. Although we started in July, for the Olympics - not that the Olympics had any relevance, it just seemed like a good time to start - and we had a brilliant write-up in The Guardian, we've already changed quite a lot. In fact I'm re-writing the whole thing. And it comes with some sense of responsibility. I've just written one of the final scenes with Virginia Woolf and realise that apart from the difficulty of ...
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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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