For more information and booking details:
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Charles Dickens London

“Played in Britain has a reputation for thoroughness and insight… editor Simon Inglis deserves credit for the clarity of his vision.”
-John Burnett, Folk Life: Journal of Ethnological Studies

Find out more about Played in Britain, their books and their authors

Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year – Category: Poetry

Frome Festival Short Story Competition 2 – Category: Fiction

Pearl Short Story Prize – Category: Fiction

Pint-Sized Plays – Category: Scripts

Segora Short Story – Category: Fiction

Sheldon Currie Fiction Prize – Category: Fiction

Short Fic. Comp. – Category: Fiction

Wolfe Pack’s Black Orchid Novella Award – Category: Fiction

Yeovil Literary Prize – Category: Fiction

First Page Competition 2012 – Category: Fiction

The Stringybark Seven Deadly Sins Award – Category: Fiction

Whether you’re taking a break at work, relaxing at home or on the move with your mobile device, sit back for five minutes and enjoy the latest review from the Brick Lane Book Group members.

You can read book club member Julian Charatan’s review of Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey: A Novel here.

This week saw the recording of episode 2 of Big Reads: Ulysses. After three chapters, we at last got to meet Leopold Bloom, and found ourselves, by the end of the recording, craving a nice kidney (relish optional).

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As you know, we’re working our way through James Joyce’s masterpiece over the course of 2012, hoping to get under the surface by researching around the themes of the book, debating Joyce’s experimental techniques, and feeding in comments and influences from outside the group.

We’re getting ready to record episode 2, which should be available online a week or so into April. If you’re thinking about reading along in real time, that means you need to catch up with us! Episode 1 available to listen here, covers the first three chapters of the book in which Stephen Dedalus’ day begins. In episode 2, we’ll be tackling the first two chapters of Leopold Bloom’s day, the chapters known as Calypso and Lotus Eaters. In the meantime we’d love to hear your thoughts about the first three parts, and on the podcast itself. If there’s something you’d like us to be including or focusing on just drop us via bigreads@nquentinwoolf.co.uk and let us know. Questions that arose from episode 1 included Joyce’s relationship with ancient mythology, the nature of Irishness, and whether the copious notes that accompany the 1922 text are a bar to enjoyment.

Thanks for taking the time to check the project out.

February saw the start of two new critique groups for writers, built using the principles that have made Writers’ Mutual Brick Lane such an enduring success. The new workshops, one near Sloane Square, the other on the South Bank, overlooking the river, are facilitated using the feedback system I have developed over a number of years working with groups of writers in and around London. The groups offer a secret weapon for any serious writer; besides a structured and nurturing platform for works of all lengths to be shared and discussed, with the intentions of the writer uppermost, they provide a spur to keep producing, as well as an opportunity to meet and share experience with other writers. Each meeting is carefully managed to bring out the best in the text, and in the feedback. Testimonials can be found here. The Sloane Square group meets on Tuesdays at 11am, details here; meetings on the South Bank are on Sunday mornings at 10.30am, further details here. If you are interested in attending one of these London writing workshops and have a question please drop me a line at critique@nquentinwoolf.co.uk

March 4th, 2012

you and yours with the choir with no name

Over the last few months, the Choir With No Name has been rehearsing hard for a pretty gruelling series of gigs around the country. I’ve been following their progress for You and Yours on Radio 4 (there’s a link to the first instalment of my report below), in particular two of the soloists, Adel and David. It’s no mean feat to stand on stage in front of a packed arena without feeling one’s knees knock; to do so without any professional training whatsoever is all the more remarkable. Whenever I’ve interviewed them, the choir members have been invariably positive and confident; I suspect part of their positivity has been because they’ve got an incredibly dynamic group of people behind them, many of whom have come through some very tough challenges in life already. Most have experienced homelessness, besides other serious problems. David, for example, was brain-damaged when he was hit by a car. Adel went through substance abuse issues, bereavement and massive financial vulnerability. Yes, perhaps perspective plays a part.

Among the performances were a meeting of the London Choir with their new Birmingham chapter; a show at Wembley for the Saracens Rugby Club; and the jewel in the crown: Voices Now, a live show on Radio 3 at which choirs of all stripes convened and sang in a day’s worth of great music.

The venue was the Roundhouse, in Chalk Farm. It’s a place with a character all of its own (I recently met an aerial performer who said it’s one of her favourite places to hang forty feet off the ground from two ribbons). Aled Jones was the Master of Ceremonies, and the audience in the main hall was treated to a tapas of delicious aural dishes, among them a Georgian choir (the country, not the period) whose wailing, soaring vowels were plaintive and beautiful; the BBC singers, and the Ifield Community College Choir singing glorious African songs. In the midst of it all came The Choir With No Name, combining the Beatles with Queen, and, for a second, even funkier number, getting the audience on their feet and clapping – a move that, according to the show’s stage manager, fucked the Radio 3 producers right off. Live broadcast and all that, you see. You can hear Aled’s awkwardness in the following link – one gets the impression that anarchy has been barely contained.

David and Adel were, simply put, brilliant. Each of them owned their moment under the spotlight, each one passionate, each man exploring the full range of his voice. The choir as a whole was typically exuberant, and the post-show analysis from all concerned was positive. Ed the Grand Pianist spoke particularly warmly about the experience as we waited for the second performance of the day: the more informal barside set late in the evening, which included yet more Queen. Where would the good times be without We Are The Champions?

The second of my Radio 4 reports is tabled to be out on You and Yours around the time of Sport Relief; you can hear my interview with the Choir With No Name’s founder and leader Marie Benton on my Londonist Out Loud show from March 12th (check the radio category on this site).

A final word, on the Ifield CC Choir – astonishing. Their train song showcased young vocalists whose self-assured performances – strong, gutsy, effortlessly crafted – left me feeling like I’d spent the duration of the song floating about the Roundhouse’s rafters on waves of sound, vexing the Radio 3 crowd still further, and annoying any dangling aerial artistes by spoiling their view.

To listen to the first of NQW’s Radio 4 reports on the choir, click here.