You have your copy of Litro; now we go beyond the page with a round of events to tantalise the grey matter. We’re warming up for spring and a well-earned round of lyrical escapism to power us out of the bleak mid-winter. We have an exclusive reading by one of the UK’s most loved contemporary authors, words that inspired film and some of the naughtiest tales ever to be told in the capital. Let us guide you through events that’ll give your soul a spring clean – edited by Alex James.
Up to 7th March, Jewish Book Week (www.jewishbookweek.com) holds events around London and beyond, including not one but two discussions with Litro favourite short story-man Etgar Keret. JBW celebrates the culture’s rich literary offerings in the run-up to the reopening of the Jewish Museum, London, on 17th March. A £10 million transformation has created a landmark museum that celebrates Jewish life and cultural diversity. www.jewishmuseum.org.uk
4th – 9th March, East Festival
East is a six-day festival that celebrates the rich creative mix of East London. Curated by the Mayor of London and delivered in partnership with key cultural organisations across East London, the festival will feature around 100 events inspired by the themes of architecture, minimalism, the Asian sub-continent and travel. www.visitlondon.com/events/east
7th March to 1st April, London Word Festival
London’s pioneering celebration of words, text and language returns for a third year, playing host to the most adventurous programme yet. Having scoured the country and beyond, the organisers bring “the finest array of artists working with words” to venues all over the city. www.londonwordfestival.com
10th March, Keats House, 7pm: Poetry at the Movies
With the recent success of Bright Star, Keats House celebrates the world of poetry in film. With poems by Wordsworth, Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, Frost, and of course John Keats, see: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk
11th March, 6pm, The Gallery at Foyles, Charing Cross Road WC2
Hanif Kureishi reads from his new collection of stories and discusses his literary career in this exclusive London appearance. Kureishi’s provocative short fiction portrays a society stretched to breaking point by political tensions and examines the forces they exert on people’s everyday lives. www.foyles.co.uk
12th March, AVANT! NOIR
Music from Led Bib & Get The Blessing Dark; fiction from Toby Litt, Cathi Unsworth, Courttia Newland & Ray Banks, Toynbee Theatre £10 / £12 from 7pm. A night of criminal fiction, comic art and music of a darker hue. Enter a world where murder smells like honeysuckle in Toynbee Theatre’s art deco, velvet auditorium. Four authors present bleeding-edge crime stories intercut with animated chapters of online, collaborative comic strip Huzzah!! Noir. Illicit jazz comes from 2009 Mercury-nominated ensemble Led Bib with a suitably hard-boiled soundtrack. see: www.toynbeehall.org.uk
15th March, Memory and Imagination, 7pm
William Fiennes, Maggie Gee and Candia McWilliam, chaired by Piers Plowright. What happened when Proust’s narrator dipped the madeleine into his tea? How does memory work and when does imagination take over? If poetry is ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’, is recollection then a literary technique – and how far is it possible, or necessary, for memoirs to tell the truth? Find out at the Royal Society of Literature; see: www.rslit.org
17th and 18th March, Tales of Naughtiness for the Not So Prudish
40 Winks. ‘Bedtime Story Nights’ at 40 Winks have been included in the Sunday Times Travel Magazine’s ‘14 Most Amazing Things To Do in the World’, which is quite an accolade. These delightfully different evenings will continue throughout 2010. In an atmosphere of dreamy decadence, guests are plied with cocktails and nibbles before being taken on a magical journey back in time to rediscover the wonder and curiosity they often left behind in childhood.
Email: info40@winks.org
23rd March, Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad and A Pint for the Ghost by Helen Mort, Jamboree, Cable Street Studios, £8 adv, 7.30pm
Over a century after they were first published, the ghost stories of M.R. James retain their power to terrify and amuse. Following his critically acclaimed one-man show A Pleasing Terror, Robert Lloyd Parry brings James’ classic spine-chillers back to life. A Pint for the Ghost has been nominated for the Ted Hughes award for public contribution to poetry. See: www.myspace.com/jamboreemembersclub
24th March, Tim Turnbull, Laura Dockrill, Luke Kennard, Instructions for Heartbreak by Francesca Millican-Slater. Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club | £6.50 adv / £8 door | 7pm
The cream of contemporary live poetry join forces for a night of surreal storytelling and darkly witty wordplay. A century on from the rise of modernism, hilarious Tim Turnbull offers a satirical survey of our new cultural landscape in a performance featuring poems from his 2009 collection Caligula on Ice and Other Poems (Donut Press). Drawing on popular entertainments such as the ballad, pulp ghost story, folk song and music hall skit, he lampoons human endeavour in all its fields and forms. See: www.londonfestival.com
31st March, The Art of Storytelling. Terry Saunders’ ‘Six and a Half Loves’; Matthew Robin; the Chip Shop Poem; the Tree of Lost Things, St Leonard’s Church | £8 adv, £10 door |7pm
They say the art of a story is in the telling. But a little help from friends can help! A coterie of skilled and acclaimed yarn-spinners augment their narratives with puppets, cartoons, gift-tags from the audience and a live printing press. See www.stkinternational.co.uk
