Review of "Shakespeare for the Terrified (or Rusty)" - a talk by Julia Pritchard

Having avoided Shakespeare since secondary school, I was both terrified and rusty when I arrived for this Everybody’s Reading event.

At the beginning of her talk, Julia Pritchard assured us that we are already familiar with Shakespeare’s writing by pointing out that many phrases from his work that are still in common use today. ‘It’s Greek to me’, ‘a fool’s paradise’, and ‘the long and the short of it’ are a few examples. We were also reminded that Shakespeare’s plays continue to be relevant today because they deal with universal themes, and include the ever-appealing elements of magic, sex, and violence.

The next step in our gentle introduction to was to learn a little about the theatre. In Shakespeare’s day theatres were not considered respectable places and so were situated outside of the City of London along with bull-baiting arenas and brothels. Day-time performances, standing audiences, the lack of toilets, and the sale of fruit and ale made the theatre a noisy and foul-smelling place. Perhaps it’s just as well that both The Globe and The Rose theatres were open-air!

Moving on to his plays, those new to Shakespeare were advised to start by a reading a summary and perhaps watching a film or stage version before reading one act of a play at a time. Books with the playscript and explanatory notes on opposite pages are particularly helpful. 

We read the original prologue to Romeo and Juliet along with a modern version, and this provided a brief outline of the play, the characters and the setting. Although the play is set in Verona, there is no evidence that Shakespeare travelled to Italy. During such a turbulent period of history, it was less controversial, and safer, for writers to set their plays in the past or overseas. 

We then watched two very different versions of the opening scene: the 1968 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, and the 1996 interpretation set in contemporary America with Leonardo DiCaprio cast as Romeo. I expected to prefer the 1996 version but, based on the scene we watched, the earlier film was more appealing. I think that means I’m a little less terrified now!

About the reviewer
Karen Powell is studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. Her poetry has been published in various anthologies and magazines including Welcome to Leicester: poems about the city, The Interpreter’s House and Silver Birch Press.

Review of Pirates of New Walk Museum

Ruth Fraser

A band of pirates took over New Walk Museum at the weekend to present a great family event.

Armed with a skull and crossbones flag, we began by following the trail to Treasure Island. We solved clues about pirates around the world, and pirate-related fiction. My grandchildren, aged 9 and 7, were fascinated to learn about Mary Read and Anne Bonny - they'd previously believed that all pirates were men. On reaching Treasure Island we found our next challenge was to build a pirate ship to take home or to launch in the ‘sea’ around Treasure Island. Lots of experts were on hand to help with any construction problems. After all that hard work, we enjoyed some quiet time in the reading area where there were plenty of pirate books to share.  

A highlight of our visit was the storytelling session with Ruth Fraser. Ruth told stories about real-life pirate, Grace O’Malley. We heard how Grace, aged 9, dressed as a boy and secretly joined her father’s ship. Once her father realised how skilful and hardworking she was, he allowed her to continue to sail with his ship until she was sixteen. In later years, as queen of the O’Malley clan, Grace was granted a private meeting with Elizabeth I at the Palace of Greenwich. Grace successfully negotiated the release of her son and the return of her lands in return for supporting England in battles abroad.

This was a lovely family event, and has inspired my grandchildren to find out more about real-life pirates.

About the reviewer

Karen Powell is a grandmother of two, an ex-primary teacher, and is studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester.

Review by Alexandros Plasatis of the “Muslim, Feminist & Proud” event

This event was part of Everybody’s Reading Festival and took place on Sunday 1^st October in Phoenix Arts Centre. The room was packed, almost all women, which makes sense in a way, as this event was a discussion about what it means to be female, Muslim and feminist, but I thought it was a shame that not many men turned up. We ought to know more about the lives of women.

In the first part, Rabiha Hannan of New Horizons told us the story of Islam, focusing on the position of women throughout Islam’s history. She told the story like a fairytale, she took us back to the beginning of Islam, and I thought it was nice to learn these things. I wished I would have been taught about different religions as a boy, not in a preachy way, but in a sweet storytelling way, the way Rabiha talked. I learnt about the hijab, honour, polygamy, segregation, full face veil, the Prophet and, amongst many other Muslim women, about Khadijah, who was a very successful and wealthy merchant, and Mohammed’s first wife, with whom the Prophet was monogamously married for 25 years. It helps to learn about other religions, you understand more of what you see happening around you, and religions might divide people, but they can also bring us closer.

As promised in the Festival’s booklet, this was a lively event. In the second part, there was interaction from the audience, and Rabiha was asked so many questions that we stayed well over the one and a half hour the event was supposed to last.

About the reviewer

Alexandros Plasatis is an immigrant ethnographer who writes fiction in English, his second language. His work has appeared in UK and American anthologies and magazines. He is a volunteer at Leicester City of Sanctuary, where he helps find and develop new creative talent within the refugee and asylum seeker community. He lives in Leicester. 

Review by Karol Valderrama of the "Reading the Body" event by Lydia Towsey and Scott Brigwood at Attenborough Arts Centre

Everybody’s Reading Festival 2015
26th September – 4th October

Reading the Body:
Attenborough Arts Centre
10am-3:30pm

When I first considered joining this event, I felt attracted by its main topic and the dynamism the programme offered.  However, I must confess I was concerned when I decided to attend, and also when I realised drawing was going to be an alternative but demanding way to interpret and read a female body.

My concern increased when I arrived, as I found out that this was a class with people who have had experience in drawing, even though I could define myself as skilled to do basic traces.  Fortunately, both Lydia Towsey and Scott Brigwood (leading artists of the event) made of the experience something welcoming, simple and significant, even before starting the workshop.  After going into the room, I was invited to grab a drawing board (the first one in my life), some graphite sticks, charcoal, chalk pastels and markers, and so explore a whole new world through white sheets of paper.

Based on Scott’s words, this was an experience of mark-making which aimed to discover the meaning of our drawings and going beyond conventional techniques.  People who attended this event had the opportunity to create a unique signature no matter the background each one of us had.  Several suggestions were given, beginning with the most valuable, I would say: obliterating preconceptions to guarantee the best “babies” ever (which was the name given to our artistic creations by Lydia).

With materials at hand, general recommendations and a naked model in front of us, the main task was simple: look at the model and draw.  It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But again, this experience was not just about conventional drawing; not just because it was NOT focused on developing a common or traditional drawing style, but also because it was NOT just about images: It was about an interesting mixture of words and images at the same time. 

Later on, instructions were given clearly and we were all ready to start.  Nevertheless, every new sheet that was taken on the board was becoming progressively more challenging, aiming to change styles, to break paradigms and to contribute from a new individual perspective.  A white sheet was not just a white sheet; it was an experience that led to feelings of freedom or chaotic emotions at the moment of completing every new drawing.  Again, this was not just drawing, as words were coming up, supplementing graphical expression; they were saying something together, so words were images, and images were sentences.

With regards to the model, her natural shape contrasted with some exaggerated poses she gave us at every stage.  What did they really aim to?  Certainly, the physical and aesthetic analysis of her, moved towards a more subjective and original reading of her movement or inactivity; a reading resulting of what she performed, combining our beliefs, multiple contexts and the way we used the given tools.  For instance, the graphite stick enhanced our drawings and it was there as the magic tool to discover what the woman in front really meant… not necessarily nudity… but multiple features or traits within our realities.  This finally became a process of extreme consciousness regarding the female representation and our unconscious ways of examining female bodies.

As it was mentioned in the information given prior to the event, it was indeed a different way to read, write and draw the female body.  Expected or not, these creations ended up being an additional way to understand ourselves via original images, as a consequence of the willingness everyone had to move further on within the experience.  Indeed, no experience was necessary; the key was to strongly believe what both artists mentioned at the beginning: Starting without preconceptions and allowing the mark-making experience to consequently see transformations at the moment of reading.

Now that the workshop is over, several questions come to my mind.  First, how did we, participants, finally understand the body we read during those hours?  How did we depict it?  Did our backgrounds and beliefs contribute to have a different or similar reading among us?  After this, I also thought and asked myself what “reading the body” means today, based on the experience.  Multiple answers could appear, for sure, and much more when visual memories swim through social networks in the current days. 

“Choose the events that might make a difference,” the festival Coordinator, Juliet Martin, stated in the foreword of the brochure.  Clearly, I did not hesitate in following her invitation and focused my attention on this particular one, identifying this as an opportunity to make a multifaceted reading, writing and representation of the female body in one same moment.  Evidently, this experience allowed us to be all readers and mark-makers with no exclusion of gender or creed, to consequently analyse this type of art freely.  We were not more than ten participants, just a few indeed, but enough people to replicate this alternative way of reading humanity in modern times. 


About the reviewer
Karol Valderrama is an English/Spanish teacher from Colombia who lives in Leicester.  She has worked in an interdisciplinary level, completing an MA in Film and Film Cultures.  Additionally, Karol is a PhD Candidate in Modern Languages at the University of Leicester focusing on Latin American cinema and gender studies.

Review by Alexandros Plasatis of a scary event at Fosse Public Library

I slowed down as I cycled along Tudor Road so I could take in what I saw, and I saw people standing outside their front doors, some holding a can of beer or a spliff, it was a lively road, and I wondered if Everybody’s Reading Festival was good enough to reach out to those people, not only the ones that see themselves as book lovers or whatever - that would be too easy - but those ones, those with the hard lines on their faces. And, down down down then left and right, I reached Fosse Library.

It was a tiny library, and the children’s section was set for the event with spider webs here and there, on the wall a dark castle surrounded by bats, witches’ hats all over the floor, and 15 or so children, some of them dressed in scary costumes. Some parents were there too. A boy was on the floor, underneath blankets, pretending to be asleep. I heard some kids talking about me, saying, “We have never seen this man before, who is this man?” and I didn’t say anything, I was looking mean, because I wanted to add to the atmosphere, because I am mysterious anyway.

A young female library staff member was hanging about in the children’s area, and after a while she said, “Are you prepared to be scared?” and someone switched off the lights. She stood in the middle of the children’s section, in the semi-darkness, all about her the scary decorations, and said: “Close your eyes and switch on your imagination,” and the kids sat on the floor, around her, circling her, and closed their eyes. Some parents closed their eyes too, but I was a bit suspicious of all that and kept my eyes open, just in case. A little girl stood up: “Wake up!” she said, and gave a threatening glance to us all: “I’ll tell you a story and you won’t be able to sleep. Ever again.” I thought, “Oh you mean little thing, I will sleep like a log.” Then the library girl ordered the children to make scary noises and the children went bonkers, they screamed screamed screamed, they were mad.

We were going to hear stories now, the library girl said, written by the children, especially for the occasion. One by one, the children stood up and read their stories, they read them out loud, and I heard about the ghost of Fosse Library, a strange creature called “Zozo” who ate two girls in the Library’s toilets the other day; about the training witch who wanted to transform a TV into a dog but unfortunately it came out as a sausage roll that tasted really bad; about radiators who bubble and gargle maliciously; about spiders who follow us. They all told their stories, and when they felt self-conscious as it can happen sometimes, they glanced at the library girl who encouraged them with a smile or a scary face.

Then a male member of staff took over and read out a scary poem, which was fine, but his real expertise showed straight after that, when he told us the story of Cold Johnny and Mean Morgan and some other chap whose name I didn’t catch. The guy was a natural storyteller, he narrated without reading from the book, and his performance was flawless, professional and impressive.

Back to the library girl, she ordered the kids to make scary faces and noises and they went mad again. Then she asked all of us to come closer (of course I didn’t), and those who dared formed a circle, and they had to keep on jumping because, apparently, a big scary hairy ball was after them: they jumped and laughed and they had fun and I laughed too. Meanwhile, I noticed (because I’m a very observant guy) that the boy who was pretending to be asleep earlier, had slipped out of the blankets and crept outside the library. He moved from window to window now, making scary faces at us, turning reality into fiction, living the fiction, but I got worried because no-one else seemed to notice him; I was wondering if he was real or if I was slightly influenced by the whole thing.

The children stood in a line, having a creative task to complete: the first one was supposed to come up with a sentence, the second would continue it, and eventually we would hear a scary story, but the first child was so excited that told us a whole scary story in one very long sentence.                   

And I sat back, thinking what a pleasure it was to listen to their stories, how much effort and love the library staff put into this event, how they had ignited the kids’ creativity, what great things happen in tiny public libraries like this one in this urban neighbourhood: in other words, I was lost in kind thoughts, when... “Boo!” three silly girls came behind me and made me jump.

“Now we will hear the Fosse Singers,” said the library girl: “Music, please,” and a lovely piano tune began (good coordination with the person who pressed “Play”, I thought), and the children’s lovely voices sang a scary scary song, and then another one, and it felt good, I liked it.

The library staff thanked the participants and the audience, and asked for a goodbye tune and the piano tune began, and as I turned to make my way out, I encountered my last surprise as I saw this chap right behind me playing the keyboard, waving his musical goodbye.  

About the reviewer
Alexandros Plasatis lives in Leicester and had short stories published in Overheard: Stories to Read Aloud (2012), Unthology 6 (2015), and Crystal Voices: Ten Years of Crystal Clear Creators (2015).