Our Literary London Blog page

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 is Hamlet?  Does he believe in the Ghost that appears?  Does he depend on his girlfriend, Ophelia?  Is it a betrayal that she obeys her father over Hamlet?  You can see the kind of summer I had, writing and directing this one.  Even with a beautiful and glorious acting talent like Kizzy Dunn!  And the beautiful and glorious voice of Sir Derek Jacobi!)

But what I went though during this summer is exactly what many of our Pub Crawl writers went through in different ways. George Orwell’s ‘Down and Out in London and Paris’ always strikes a significant note with me.  And talking of Orwell, The Newman’s Arms has reopened!  Not only is it widely known as the Proles pub from Orwell’s 1984, it’s also one of my favourite pubs on our tour.  For reasons we will explain if you join us!

In the meantime, I miss my actor Kizzy - it is very intense working with only one actor on a production.  But Edinburgh went well and I’m preparing another two shows for next years Festival.  And if you join us on the Literary Pub Crawl, I’ll tell you all about that over a pint in the new Newmans!

Cheers!