www.literaryfestivals.co.uk

LONDON WORD FESTIVAL

When? 7 MARCH – 1 APRIL 2010

Where? Various locations around Londonlwf420.jpg

How much? Various

What? London’s pioneering celebration of words, text and language returns for a third year, playing host to the most adventurous programme yet.

Building on the success of 2009’s festival, with its sell-out commissioning programme that included live-Manga illustrated live-literature interpretive ‘Shakespeare in Shoreditch’ club event; Iain Sinclair’s site-specific perambulatory performance in St. Augustine’s Tower in Hackney; and the ‘The 14th Tale’, which transfers to The National Theatre this February,we return with a full selection of premieres, commissions and proudly participatory projects are brought to life on a selection of East London’s most interesting and stages and spaces.

With everything from music to stand-up, through shadow-puppetry, micro-lectures, screen-printing nuns and performance poetry, to crime-comic-jazz interpretations: this is the festival that looks way beyond the page.

Who? 2010 Highlights include:


Josie Long and her good-deed amanuenses enjoy a knees up in a home-brew museum to toast self-improvement project One Hundred Days to Make Me a Better Person; hold tight to that cheap cigars of yours as film noir sensibilities go monochrome gangbusters with Led Bib, Toby Litt, Huzzah!! Noir and more on Toynbee Hall’s suitably art-deco stage in Avant! Noir. Tuck into a bespoke word print from the Henningham Family Press at their ersatz Chip Shopscreen-printing workshop; Chris McCabe delivers a psychonavigational multimedia Docklands hymnal: Shad Thames, Broken Wharf, scored by Bartokian folk-drone composers Bleeding Heart Narrative and introduced by Iain Sinclair. Darren Hayman joins the Henningham Family Press, the Universettee, Murray Macauley and more for a hands-on mini-festival celebrating great British posters and Great British eccentricities in Keep Printing and Carry On; mish-mashed, moonshiney animation, shadow-play, puppets, poems and a hypothetical mannequin are a few tools employed by top yarn-spinners Matthew Robins and Terry Saunders who demonstrate the true Art of Storytelling. Tim Turnbull, Laura Dockrill & Luke Kennard head up a night of mischievous wit in a performance poetry best-of; Stuart Silver premieres his anecdotal world-view-shaking comic drama, You Look Like Ants. Join Robin Ince, Professor Brian Cox, Helen Keen and more to explore the cosmos in a space-craft shaped like a church full of comedians and musicians; Leafcutter John rewires Basil Bunting’s Modernist masterpiece Briggflatts; and join a creepy night of theatrical ghastliness in two ghostly performances 'Oh, Whistle and I'll Come To You, My Lad' and 'A Pint For The Ghost'. All topped off by industrial-design-meets-word-play as the Barbican Art Gallery plays host to poetic extremism and quizzical post-modernism from John Hegley and the Found in Translation poets.

“I could easily imagine Dickens, Addison or Dr Johnson doing a brilliant ‘set’ at the London Word Festival."
– Richard Morrison, The Times
“ever wonderful”
– The Independent
“London’s alternative literature festival
– The Guardian
"a gift from the linguistic gods"
– The Londonist
“the cat’s pyjamas”

Festival Website? www.londonwordfestival.com | www.twitter.com/ldnwordfestival 

FESTIVAL LINE UP:

Date

Event

Venue

7 Mar

THE CHIP SHOP
Henningham Family Press

Toynbee Studios Arts Café and Bar

10 Mar

ONE HUNDRED DAYS TO MAKE ME A BETTER PERSON with JOSIE LONG The Pictish Trail, Isy Suttie & Sara Pascoe
+ The Museum of One Hundred Days & exclusive Alex Horne ‘One Hundred Days’ film

Secret East London Venue

11 Mar

ROBIN INCE’s SCHOOL FOR GIFTED CHILDREN ‘SPACE’ SPECIAL
+ Brian Cox, Helen Keen + more tbc

St. Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch

12 Mar

AVANT! NOIR
Toby Litt, Cathi Unsworth, Courttia Newland
Music from Led Bib
Visuals from Huzzah!! Noir

Toynbee Theatre

15 Mar

STUART SILVER: YOU LOOK LIKE ANTS
+ Nathan Penlington: Uri & Me

Courtyard Theatre

18 Mar

SHAD THAMES, BROKEN WHARF
by Chris McCabe, with Bleeding Heart Narrative and
Jack Wake-Walker
+ introduced by: Iain Sinclair

Jamboree, Cable Street Studios

20 Mar

KEEP PRINTING AND CARRY ON
Henningham Family Press with Darren Hayman,
Murray Macauley + more tbc
+ The Chip Shop, Universettee lectures, ‘Sister Corita The Screen Printing Nun’ short film screening, Great British Cake Shop + more tbc

Stoke Newington International Airport

24 Mar

TIM TURNBULL 
+ Laura Dockrill + Luke Kennard + ‘Instructions for Heartbreak’ by Francesca Millican-Slater

Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club

25 Mar

'OH, WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD'
+ Helen Mort’s 'A Pint for the Ghost’

Jamboree, Cable Street Studios

28 Mar

LEAFCUTTER JOHN: BRIGGFLATTS REWIRED
+ Peter Finch + MacGillivray + Hannah Silva

Stoke Newington International Airport

31 Mar

THE ART OF STORYTELLING
Terry Saunders' ‘Six and a Half Loves’
Matthew Robins’ ‘Death of Fly Boy’ & ‘Sad Lucy: a Fish Opera’
+ Henningham Family Press’s ‘The Chip Shop Poem’ with Special Guest Poet
+ Ignore the Forecast’s The Tree of Lost Things
+ more tbc

St. Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch

1 Apr

WORD PLAY
John Hegley
+ Found in Translation (Joe Dunthorne, Ross Sutherland & Tim Clare)
+ Barbican Young Poets
+ Rough Trade DJs

Barbican Art Gallery

TICKETS:
Tickets for all shows are available from Wegottickets at: www.wegottickets.com

VENUES:


Barbican Art Gallery
Barbican Centre | Silk Street | London | EC2Y 8DS
www.barbican.org.uk

Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club
44-46 Pollard Row | Bethnal Green | London | E2 6NB
www.workersplaytime.net

The Courtyard Theatre
40 Pitfield Street | London | N1 6EU‎
www.thecourtyard.org.uk

Jamboree
Cable Street Studios | 566 Cable Street | London | E1W 3HB
www.myspace.com/jamboreemembersclub

St. Leonard’s Church
Shoreditch High St. | Shoreditch | London | E1 6JN
www.stkinternational.co.uk

Stoke Newington International Airport
Unit F | 1-15 Leswin Place | London | N16 7NJ
www.stkinternational.co.uk

Toynbee Theatre, Toynbee Studios Arts Bar & Café 
28 Commercial Street | London | E1 6AB
www.artsadmin.co.uk

PRESS INFO:
All press materials, artist images and festival information are readily available from:
Sam Hawkins London Word Festival press office:

Sam @ londonwordfestival.com
07800 500 407

 

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