Sillitoe Trail: Then and Now

Sillitoe Trail: Then and now

PRESS RELEASE

“For it was Saturday night, the best and bingiest glad-time of the week, one of the fifty-two holidays in the slow-turning Big Wheel of the year, a violent preamble to a prostrate Sabbath. Piled-up passions were exploded on Saturday night, and the effect of a week’s monotonous graft in the factory was swilled out of your system in a burst of goodwill.”

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958).

The Alan Sillitoe Committee is one of fifty-three organisations selected to produce content for The Space, an experimental digital arts platform funded by Arts Council England in collaboration with the BBC. We are the only literature organisation outside of London and stand proudly next to the London Review of Books and Faber and Faber.

Other contributors to The Space include Shakespeare Globe, Sadlers Wells, The Tate Gallery and The John Peel Foundation for Creative Arts.

From 1 May to 31 October we will be developing a virtual tour of Sillitoe’s seminal novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning which follows the adventures of Arthur Seaton, a hard-grafting Raleigh factory worker out for a good time. Our objective is to re-imagine Sillitoe’s novel in as many forms as possible so that it can reach newer audiences. We believe the themes raised in the novel are as relevant now as they were then. We have commissioned several leading contemporary writers to produce work based on the themes expressed in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

WEB-BASED TRAIL

Highlights from the Sillitoe Trail will be featured on The Space website and made accessible on PC, tablet, smartphone, and connected TV (HD Freeview Channel 117).

We will be encouraging the public to get involved at www.sillitoetrail.com and via our social media channels on Facebook, and Twitter. Pictures can be submitted to the sillitoetrail group via the photo-sharing site Flickr.

We will also be including rare photographs from the BFI, Nottinghamshire County Archives, Picture-the-Past and other archive sources.

The Sillitoe Trail will feature illustrations produced by students from New College Nottingham as part of their Foundation in Design coursework and podcasts of commissioned writers recorded by sound technology students at Confetti studios.

MOBILE APP

Alan Sillitoe loved maps and creating a GPS-based mobile trail seems a most fitting way to pay tribute to a writer who firmly established Nottingham within the literary landscape.

This year also sees the 125th anniversary of the Raleigh Cycle company which forms the backdrop to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. We will be challenging local cycling groups to see who can develop the best route for the Sillitoe Trail with the idea of establishing a regular cycling event.

The mobile trail will explore key locations from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and users will be able to navigate either from the perspective of the two 'Swaddies' chasing Arthur Seaton around the city or that of a modern day Seaton in 2012.

FREE iPHONE APP

We plan to release a free downloadable iPhone App at a Sillitoe Day to be held on 27th October at Nottingham Contemporary. The iPhone App will provide rich-media content for visitors and local storytellers and will be integrated with social media feeds and the sillitoetrail.com website to continue what we hope will form a lasting legacy.

THE BOOK WITH A DIGITAL HEART

We are compiling material for an authentic, 1950s style cycle manual that details the literary trail. We’re calling it a ‘physical book with a digital heart’ as it will literally write itself as the project unfolds. The book will include content generated for The Space by commissioned writers and artists, and by members of the public through social media channels and the Sillitoetrail.com website. The book will use QR-codes to trigger playback of audio and video content on mobile devices.

FIVE SPACES AND THEMES

We will take visitors on a virtual tour around Sillitoe’s Nottingham by focussing on five key locations from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

Each location will have a specific theme, and quotes taken from the novel will be explored by commissioned writers, creative practitioners and members of the public.

LOCATION 1: Old Market Square

Theme: ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down’
Writer: Derrick Buttress, Christy Fearn

LOCATION 2: The White Horse

Theme: The loss of the British pub and community
Writer: Al Needham

LOCATION 3: Raleigh

Theme: What is the modern day lathe?
Writer: Pete Davis

LOCATION 4: Trent Embankment

Theme: Solitude: Is it possible in the digital age?
Writer: MulletProofPoet and James Walker

LOCATION 5: The Goose Fair

Theme: Reality TV: The modern day freak show?
Writer: Ann Featherstone

ARTHUR SEATON

The main protagonist of the novel will be joining us on the Sillitoe Trail, popping up at the end of each featured location to offer his own interpretations of the writers’ work, ensuring that nobody takes themselves too seriously. This will be read by Tom Keeling, who played Arthur in the recent musical adaption of the novel. You can also Follow Arthur Seaton as he 'sounds off' on Twitter @TheSpaceLathe and on the Official Sillitoe Trail Website: www.sillitoetrail.com

MEDIA CONTACTS

Content Editor: James Walker
james@jameskwalker.co.uk

Digital Editor: Paul Fillingham

paul@thinkamigo.com

WEBSITES

The Space - The Arts - live, free and on demand: www.thespace.org.uk
The Official Sillitoe Trail Website: www.sillitoetrail.com

SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sillitoetrail
Official Twitter feed: @sillitoetrail

Arthur's Twitter feed: @thespacelathe