All aboard! London Book & Screen Week announces Crime, Christie & Cream tea bus tour amongst final line-up for 2018
With one month to go until London Book & Screen Week (9-15 April), the festival has today unveiled a Christie themed cream tea amongst its final line-up for 2018. Taking place on board a classic Routemaster bus, the one-off tour will take in sights from Christie’s London and include talks from celebrated crime writer TP Fielden, whose popular Miss Dimont mysteries pay tribute to the Queen of Crime, and Lucy Foley, whose Christie-inspired thriller The Hunting Party publishes early next year.
A Bear Called Paddington was first published in October 1958, with exquisite illustrations by Peggy Fortnum, and went on to become one of the best-known children’s books of all time. To celebrate 60 Years of our favourite marmalade-loving friend, London Book & Screen Week will collaborate with Book Fairies, in partnership with Harper Collins, to distribute Paddington books across the capital - look out for the little bear around London on Sunday 15th April!
Confirming updates to existing events, the festival has also announced gal-dem contributor and host of the popular Mostly Lit podcast Raifa Rafiq, and ordained Anglican Priest, Duty Chaplain of Westminster Abbey and novelist Marie-Elsa Bragg (Towards Mellbreak, Penguin) will join Dr Helen Pankhurst (Deeds Not Words, Hodder & Stoughton) for an event marking 100 years since the women’s vote. The panel will discuss the women’s movement then and now, followed by a screening of 2015 blockbuster Suffragette.
London’s multi-award winning LGBT Salon, Polari, has also revealed the line-up for its London Book & Screen Week special. The event will feature performances and readings from Welsh poet and conceptual artist RJ Arkhipov (Visceral, Zuleika), author and stand-up comedian VG Lee (Mr Oliver’s Object of Desire, Ward Wood Publishing), journalist and author Tony Ortega (The Unbreakable Miss Lovely, Silvertail Books) and writer and performer Karen McLeod (In Search of the Missing Eyelash, Jonathan Cape).
These additions will join an already outstanding programme featuring Fiona Sampson and Nick Harkaway who will discuss 200 years of Frankenstein in popular culture, chaired by Kim Newman; London Book & Screen Week Ambassador Jojo Moyes who will speak to The Pool’s Sam Baker ahead of a screening of Me Before You; and a supercalifragilistic sing-along screening of Mary Poppins.
Produced by The London Book Fair, London Book & Screen Week is the capital’s biggest ever celebration of books and the films, TV programmes and virtual worlds they inspire. Returning for its fourth year in 2018, it brings together avid readers, writers, game, film and TV fans for a whole host of events taking place in London - the creative capital of the world.
For all media enquires please contact Ashton Bainbridge and Stephanie Speight at FMcM Associates on +44 207 405 7422 or email ashtonb@fmcm.co.uk / stephanies@fmcm.co.uk
To find out more, and book event tickets, visit www.londonbookandscreenweek.co.uk
PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS
MONDAY 9 APRIL
POLARI LITERARY SALON
Venue: The Light Lounge, Soho
London's award-winning LGBT literary salon returns once again to The Light Lounge for a London Book & Screen Week special. Curated and hosted by Paul Burston, the evening will include readings and performances from RJ Arkhipov, VG Lee, Tony Ortega and Karen McLeod.
Tickets: £5.83 | http://bit.ly/2Ddf8Sb
TUESDAY 10 APRIL
FRANKENSTEIN: THE REINCARNATIONS
Venue: Soho House, 17:30- 21:00
Join us for a themed evening to celebrate 200 years of Frankenstein in popular culture. Written by Mary Shelley, the novel first published in 1818 when the author was just 20 years old and has since become a cult classic, inspiring countless adaptations for both stage and screen. Biographer Fiona Sampson will be in conversation with novelist Nick Harkaway to discuss Mary Shelley and her ground-breaking book, regarded by many as the first work of science fiction. The event will be chaired by novelist, critic and broadcaster Kim Newman and will be followed by a screening of Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 film featuring Robert de Niro, Tom Hulce, Helena Bonham Carter and John Cleese.
Fiona Sampson is a prize-winning poet, and author of In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein (Profile, February 2018). She has been published in more than thirty languages and received an MBE for services to literature. Sampson is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature, and the recipient of a number of national and international honours for her poetry. She has worked as an editor, translator, and university professor as well as a violinist.
Nick Harkaway was born in Cornwall in 1972. Author of the novels Gnomon (Guardian Book of the Year 2017), The Gone-Away World, Angelmaker and Tigerman, he lives in London with his wife and two children.
Kim Newman is a novelist, critic and broadcaster. His fiction includes the Anno Dracula series, Life’s Lottery, Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D’Urbervilles, An English Ghost Story, The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School and Angels of Music; his non-fiction includes Nightmare Movies, Kim Newman’s Video Dungeon and BFI Classics studies of Cat People and Quatermass and the Pit. He is a contributing editor to Sight & Sound and Empire magazines. He has also written comics and plays for the radio and the stage.
Ticket: £25 / Two books & ticket: £50 | http://bit.ly/2Buv55M
WEDNESDAY 11 APRIL
ME BEFORE YOU: A SPECIAL SCREENING WITH JOJO MOYES
Venue: Soho House, 17:45- 21:00
Join us for a special screening of Me Before You, the heart-warming box office hit starring Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games) and Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), based on the bestselling novel by Jojo Moyes. The sumptuous one-off screening will be accompanied by an in-conversation with Jojo who will discuss her experience bringing the book to screen with The Pool's Sam Baker.
Young and quirky Louisa "Lou" Clark (Emilia Clarke) moves from one job to the next to help her family make ends meet. Her cheerful attitude is put to the test when she becomes a caregiver for Will Traynor (Sam Claflin), a wealthy young banker left paralyzed from an accident two years earlier. Will's cynical outlook starts to change when Louisa shows him that life is worth living. As their bond deepens, their lives and hearts change in ways neither one could have imagined.
Jojo Moyes worked as a journalist for ten years and has been a full time novelist since 2002, when her first book, Sheltering Rain was published. Since then she has written a further eleven novels, all of which have been widely critically acclaimed. She has won the Romantic Novelist’s Award twice, and Me Before You was nominated for Book of the Year at the UK Galaxy Book Awards. Me Before You has since gone on to sell over 12 million copies worldwide. Jojo wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Me Before You starring Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke. It was released in June 2016 and was a huge box-office success, grossing over $200M worldwide.
Ticket: £25 / Book & ticket: £35 | http://bit.ly/2rDkiGy
THURSDAY 12 APRIL
MARY POPPINS: A SUPERCALIFRAGILISTIC SING-ALONG
Venue: Soho House, 18:00- 21:00
Join us at an exclusive Soho screening room for a supercalifragilistic screening of Mary Poppins, the childhood classic adapted from the novel by P.L Travers. Raise a glass to the iconic nanny and questionably cockney chimney sweep Bert as you join in with a song or two or seven.
We’ll bring the spoonfuls of sugar. You bring your singing voice. Tickets: £25 | http://bit.ly/2Bs5oCM
FRIDAY 13 APRIL
VOTES FOR WOMEN: CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
Venue: Soho House, 17:45- 21:00
Don your sash and join us to celebrate the centenary of the women’s vote. 2018 marks 100 years since the Representation of the People Act 1918, which enabled some women over the age of 30 to vote for the first time. In honour of this milestone we’re bringing together Dr Helen Pankhurst, author of Deeds Not Words and great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, gal-dem contributor and host of the popular Mostly Lit podcast Raifa Rafiq, and ordained Anglican Priest, Duty Chaplain of Westminster Abbey and novelist Marie-Elsa Bragg (Towards Mellbreak, Penguin) to discuss the women’s movement then and now, and how far we’ve come in the last 100 years.
This will be followed by a screening of 2015 blockbuster Suffragette, for which Pankhurst was a consultant. Starring Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep and Helena Bonham-Carter, the film tells the story of the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement.
Dr Helen Pankhurst is a women's rights activist and senior advisor to CARE International, based in the UK and in Ethiopia, where her work focusses on the interests and needs of women and girls.
In the UK she is a public speaker and writer on feminist issues. Helen is the great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst and granddaughter of Sylvia Pankhurst, leaders of the British suffragette movement. Her new book Deeds Not Words combines historical insight with inspiring argument to reveal how far women have come since the suffragettes, how far we still have to go, and how we might get there.
Marie-Elsa Bragg is part French, part Cumbrian, and is a writer, lecturer, ordained Anglican Priest, Jesuit Spiritual Director and a Duty Chaplain of Westminster Abbey. She is a member of The Fawcett Society, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and WATCH Parliament, a small group who work alongside parliament on women’s issues within the Church. Her debut novel Towards Mellbreak is published by Chatto & Windus (paperback, 5 April 2018).
Raifa Rafiq is a trainee solicitor at one of the leading international law firms in the UK. She is a contributor to gal-dem and hosts popular Literature and culture podcast 'Mostly Lit' which was named iTunes Best Podcast of 2016 and one of the Podcast that will blow your mind by the BBC. An avid reader and writer, Raifa is a proud Black Muslim Woman who embraces each and every one of her intersections.
Tickets: £25 / Book & ticket: £35 | http://bit.ly/2rO6pWm
SATURDAY 14TH APRIL
CRIME, CHRISTIE & CREAM TEA
Venue: BBakery Routemaster Bus. Tour starts at 20 Lower Grosvenor Road (near Victoria Station) and finishing at Victoria Embankment
Christie’s books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. Her work has been adapted for stage, screen and radio all over the world, most recently for Kenneth Branagh’s all-star adaptation Murder on the Orient Express.
Evoking the nostalgia of times gone by, jump on board a classic Routemaster bus for cream team and a tour of London sites, taking in some of the iconic locations associated with Christie’s work. We will be joined by special guests celebrated crime writer TP Fielden and acclaimed novelist Lucy Foley, who will be coming along for the ride.
TP Fielden is a leading author, broadcaster and journalist. He lives in Devon, which is the setting for his English Riviera Mysteries series of crime novels. The series, set in the 1950s, follows ace newspaperwoman and former spy Judy Dimont as she solves a series of perplexing murders in the picturesque town of Temple Regis, a dagger’s throw from Agatha Christie’s beautiful hilltop home at Dittisham.
The Miss Dimont mysteries are set immediately after the golden age of Poirot and Marple, and follow Agatha’s rules of teasing and entertaining her readers – and while never seeking to imitate or borrow from her classic tales, are TP Fielden’s devoted tribute to the Queen of Crime.
Lucy Foley studied English Literature at Durham and UCL universities. She then worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry - during which time she also wrote her first novel. Lucy now writes full-time, and has previously written three historical novels. The Hunting Party, publishing early next year, is her debut thriller and has been described as combining elements of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. She is currently working on her next book, another murder mystery.
Tickets: £55 | http://bit.ly/2FrEiSt
SUNDAY 15TH APRIL
PADDINGTON CELEBRATES 60 WITH THE BOOK FAIRIES
Venue: locations around London
A Bear Called Paddington was first published in October 1958, with exquisite illustrations by Peggy Fortnum, and went on to become one of the best-known children’s books of all time. To celebrate 60 Years of our favourite marmalade-loving friend, London Book & Screen Week will collaborate with Book Fairies, in partnership with Harper Collins, to distribute Paddington books across the capital - look out for the little bear around London on Sunday 15th April!
