Events Calendar

February 2012


What the Dickens? A Mutual Friend launches in Reading

Sunday 12nd February

What the Dickens? A Mutual Friend launches in ReadingAn opportunity to enjoy a Dickensian Sunday lunchtime, in the library at the Great Expectations Hotel & Bar, where the great novelist himself once gave a reading.

To celebrate 200 years of Charles Dickens, come along to the launch of A Mutual Friend: Poems for Charles Dickens, edited by Peter Robinson. Readings from Jane Draycott, John Greening, Lesley Saunders, Susan Utting, A. F. Harrold, Derek Beavan, Adrian Blamires, and Kate Noakes.

Sunday 12th February, Great Expectations Hotel & Bar, 33 London Street, Reading, RG1 4PS. All welcome.

May 2012


Martin Rowson and Andy Croft: Limericks and Sonnets in Stockton

Tuesday 22nd May

Martin Rowson and Andy Croft: Limericks and Sonnets in StocktonThe Teesside launch of two collaborations between cartoonist Martin Rowson and poet Andy Croft.

Martin Rowson reads from The Limerickiad (published by Smokestack Books). Combining bad jokes, dodgy rhymes and hilarious cartoons, The Limerickiad does for Literature what 1066 and All That did for History, by re-telling the world’s best-loved classics – from Gilgamesh to Shakespeare – in limericks.

Andy Croft reads from 1948 (illustrated by Martin Rowson) a comic novel set during the post-War London Olympics. Starring Russian spies, London gangsters and useless poets, 1948 is part Cold War film-noir and part Ealing comedy – in Pushkin sonnets.

Martin Rowson’s cartoons appear regularly in The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, The Daily Mirror and The Morning Star. His books include graphic adaptations of The Waste Land, Tristram Shandy and Gulliver's Travels. Among his other books are Snatches, The Dog Allusion, F*ck and Stuff. Andy Croft’s books of poetry include Nowhere Special, Just as Blue, Great North, Comrade Laughter, Ghost Writer, Sticky and Three Men on the Metro.

Tuesday 22nd May, The Arc, Dovecot Street, Stockton on Tees, TS18 1LL, 7:45pm. Tickets £5/£4.