Or Autumn, as we call it in London. We're obviously often busy in the summer, but the Autumn is a great time in London. The leaves start turning colour and falling and there's no better time to retreat to a cosy British Pub... often by a fire.


Richard, our current writer/guide LOVES our literary Pubs. To the point where it's probably best to plan to spend the whole evening with us! Even after the pubs have closed, we are friendly with some of the private members clubs in Soho. So the night can...
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Apr 21 2023

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Nick Hennegan was at the 14th Chiswick Book Festival, at the local author's party, where the writers have 2 minutes against the clock to talk about their books - or get ‘horned’ off! This is the final part. And we hear from the founders of The Space UK - enterprising venues at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Listen at BohemianBritain.com
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Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the theatre... oh, sorry... that should be water. Jaws analogies abound with the lovely little production that was postponed when Covid hit. Now they're back! See what our writer, Nick Hennegan thought about it on BohemianBritain.com


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We hope we'll see you in 2019.  The highlights of 2018?  Without doubt, presenting three classic plays at the Edinbugh Festival.  Nick Hennegan's version of A Christmas Carol with Guy Masterson wowing the UK on tour.  And this review from the Sunday Telegraph... 

"WE DRIFT OFF INTO THE SOHO EVENING, COMFORTED THAT A VIVID APPROACH TO THE LIFE'S WORK OF SOME OF THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS AUTHORS SHOWS THAT THERE IS AS MUCH TO BE LEARNT IN THEIR PUBS AS THEIR PAGES."  SUNDAY TELEGRAPH.

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Sorry... I mean the SHOW must go on!  And it is.  We've had snow in London!  It doesn't really happen very often and so when it does, we're not really prepared for it.  I think the last time the snow settled here was around five years ago.  Our cold spell only lasted about a week, which was quite long enough, thank you very much!  But now the weather has warmed up and it feels properly like Spring.  The daffodils are already out.  And I'm pleased to report, that in spite of the weather, the L...
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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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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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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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It's exciting being back in Birmingham at the Old Joint Stock Pub and Theatre. And last years London sellout version of my A Christmas Carol has done just that again - this time in Birmingham. Here's what I wrote for the theatre programme. 

We all know Charles Dickens' remarkable Christmas story. He wrote it in 1843, just as his fame and success as a writer was fading. The novella has not been out of print since! I first came across the book as a boy. I borrowed a children's version of the sto...

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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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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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This just in....

• The Young Vic’s A View From The Bridge takes home Best Revival, Best Actor for Mark Strong and Best Director for Ivo Van Hove.
• Hampstead Theatre’s West End transfer of Sunny Afternoon wins the most awards for any single production and is crowned MasterCard Best New Musical 
• Dame Angela Lansbury receives her first Olivier for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Blithe Spirit and Penelope Wilton is named Best Actress for Taken At Midnight 
• Mike Bartlett takes home two prizes ...

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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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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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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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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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