Broadway and Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature have
joined forces to revive Nottingham's International Crime, Mystery and Thriller
Festival, Shots in the Dark.
Capturing the spirit of the original festival Shots in the
Dark 2018 presents four days of films, talks, and special events. In the 1990s Nottingham hosted an international festival for
fans of the crime genre. Broadway Cinema organised the festival and called it Shots
In The Dark. Britain’s first major crime writing festival came out of Shots and attracted top authors including Sara Paretsky, James Crumley and
Evan Hunter (AKA Ed McBain).
Taking place between Thursday 28 June and Sunday 1 July,
Shots In The Dark 2018 has a cracking programme of special events which can be
viewed in full HERE.
There are a couple of literary themed events with a local connection on the Sunday (1st
July) that should appeal to crime writing fans:
AT 2PM:
MICHAEL EATON: CHARLIE PEACE – HIS AMAZING LIFE AND ASTOUNDING
LEGEND This illustrated talk charts the evolution of a
Sheffield-born Victorian master burglar and murderer from truth to legend,
using rare sources and illustrations. From how his crimes were reported in The
Illustrated Police News to the growth of the legend and folk hero in Penny
Dreadfuls, popular theatre, waxworks and early cinema, this is a fascinating
blend of true crime and 19th-century history. Charlie Peace has associations
with Nottingham, especially the Narrow Marsh Area. Michael Eaton, one of Nottingham’s most engaging speakers,
is the author of Charlie Peace – His Amazing
Life and Astounding Legend. The event includes a screening of THE CASE OF CHARLES PEACE
(PG), a 1949 film directed by Norman Lee. A biopic of the notorious Victorian
burglar who became a killer, while leading a respectable public life until he
was held to account for his crimes.
AT 8.15PM:
CJ TUDOR IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN BAIRD.
Shots In The Dark are delighted to welcome novelist CJ
Tudorwhose debut novel sparked a
furious bidding war. 'The Chalk Man' is a creepy, claustrophobic thriller about
a group of children who get caught up in a dangerous game. CJ Tudor’s love of
writing, especially the dark and macabre, started young. When her peers were
reading Judy Blume, she was devouring Stephen King and James Herbert. Over the
years she has had a variety of jobs, including trainee reporter, dog walker,
radio scriptwriter, voiceover artist, television presenter, copywriter and now
author.
CJ Tudor will discuss her own novel, the incredible
popularity of the psychological thriller, and the kind of novels she reads for
inspiration. The author will be in conversation with John Baird from Nottingham
UNESCO City of Literature. Baird is a member of the Crime Writers’ Association
and the editor of Crime Thriller Hound.
Duration: approx. 60m
For more information about these events please visit the Broadway’s website.
The final Saturday of the Lowdham Book Festival is always
one of the highlights of Nottinghamshire’s literary calendar. This year’s line-up
of free talks and readings is especially strong. The only problem is deciding
which talk to attend. Take a look at the order of play:
11am Lost Nottingham
– A city in pictures, an illustrated talk by Ian Rotherham. Methodist Chapel,
Main Street.
11am Skeletons,
with Jan Zalasiewicz. Women’s Institute, Main Sreet.
11am Writing About
Neuroscience, with Jonathan Taylor. Committee Room, Village Hall.
11am The Afterlives
of Dr Gachet, with Sam Meekings. Marquee behind the Village Hall.
12.30pm The Piano
Room, with Jaroslav Melnik. Methodist Chapel, Main Street.
Jaroslav Melnik
(Jaroslavas Melnikas) is a celebrated Ukrainian/Lithuanian writer, and winner
of the BBC Ukrainian Service Book of the Year Award. He will be reading in
English and discussing East European fiction with Stephan Collishaw of Noir Press.
12.30pm Pandemic,
1918 – An illustrated talk, with Catharine Arnold. Women’s Institute, Main
Street.
12.30pm How to Read
the English Landscape, with Andrew Bibby. Committee Room, Village Hall.
12.30pm New Irish
Writing, with Deirdre O’Byrne. Marquee behind the Village Hall.
2pm The Welbeck Atlas
– An illustrated talk, by Steph Mastoris. Methodist Chapel, Main Street.
2pm Women in Science
Fiction and Fantasy Panel, with Dr Teika Bellamy. Women’s Institute, Main
Street.
2pm The Shoestring
Poetry Hour, with Jonathan Taylor and Robert Etty. Committee Room, Village
Hall.
2pm The Boy with the
Perpetual Nervousness, with Graham Caveney. Marquee behind the Village
Hall.
3.30pm In Transit –
poems about travel, with Sarah Jackson and Tim Youngs. Methodist Chapel, Main
Street.
3.30pm Viking
Nottinghamshire – An illustrated talk, by Rebecca Gregory. Women’s
Institute, Main Street.
3.30pm Words Best
Sung, with Lee Stuart Evans. Committee Room, Village Hall.
Lee Stuart Evans
is a comedy writer, for the likes of Stephen Fry, Frank Skinner and Jimmy Carr.
He will be discussing his novel Words Best Sung, a sixties set coming of age
story set in North Notts, Skeggy and London.
3.30pm Crime fiction,
with Roz Watkins. Marquee behind the Village Hall.
From the series featured on the Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature website (every Thursday)
1920
Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence (1920)
Privately printed in 1920 (published commercially in 1921),
Women in Love was considered by Lawrence to be his masterpiece but it was met
with disgust upon its release. A sequel to The Rainbow, we continue to follow
the stories of Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen. Their love lives and emotions are
used to prompt much philosophical discussion about emotion, as the meaning and
value of relationships is explored through Lawrence’s experimental techniques
in a story that resembles a Greek tragedy. Critics at the time failed to see
Women in Love as it was, a sharp response to a culture and world in crisis at
the hands of 'progress'.
When Constance Penswick Smith (1878–1938) learned of the
American Anne Jarvis's plans to introduce Mother's Day into the UK, she was
alarmed. Smith felt that this would detract from the religious significance of
the tradition of Mothering Sunday and so devoted the rest of her life to
campaigning for the re-establishment of the more traditional observance. Smith
founded the ‘The Society for the Observance of Mothering Sunday’ and, in 1920,
she published The Revival of Mothering Sunday.
1921
An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English by Ernest
Weekley (1921)
Ernest Weekley (see 1912-14) had a dictionary published in
this year. It was published for lovers of our language and those with ‘an
intelligent curiosity as to words origins and earlier senses.’ From the point
of view of vocabulary, it was the most complete etymological dictionary in
existence. By the author’s own concession, dictionaries are out of date within
a month of publication but with many slang words and expressions historically
explained it’s a worthy addition to any bookshelf.
One of our grandest cinemas opened in 1921, The Elite
Cinema, designed by Adamson & Kinns of London. It opened with the Mary
Pickford film Pollyanna. One of the first of Nottingham’s ‘super-cinemas’ the
exterior and interior were equally as stunning, plus there was a grand concert
organ and a full orchestra, a Georgian Tea Room, a French Cafe (in Louis XVI
style), a restaurant and a large ballroom. The first ‘talkie’ in Nottingham was
shown here on Upper Parliament Street, Lucky Boy starring George Jessel. It
closed as a picture house in 1977; the last film to appear being the ‘X’
certificate Take an Easy Ride. The building now has a Grade II listing.
1922
The Rainbow Cat and Other Stories by Rose Fyleman (1922)
The story of a fairy cat with a violet nose, indigo eyes,
pale blue ears, green front legs, a yellow body, orange black legs and a red
tail, thus it is known as the rainbow cat and it lives in fairyland where it
has lots of adventures. The Princess Who Could Not Cry, Why Pigs Have Curly
Tails, Mellidora, A Goblin Lives in Our House and other short stories make up
this fantasy collection for children.
In 1922 work began on the new University College buildings
(the University of Nottingham’s present University Park campus) on land donated
by Sir Jesse Boot who had purchased the Highfields Estate two years earlier.
The plan for the East Midlands University included a new road system and
parkland setting to the south.
1923
Kangaroo by D. H. Lawrence (1923)
Lawrence wrote the first draft of Kangaroo in 1922, during
forty-five days of living near Sydney, and it was first published a year later.
Set in Australia, the work describes the country’s physical landscape, making
political reflections and interpretations. Loosely based on the real people and
events Lawrence witnessed, it’s mainly an account of a visit to New South Wales
by the English writer Richard Lovat Somers and his German wife Harriet.
‘Kangaroo’ is the fictional nickname of the character Benjamin Cooley,
ex-soldier, lawyer and leader of a secretive, fascist organisation.
Highfields Park opened in 1923. The Grade II listed park was
opened by businessman and philanthropist Sir Jesse Boot and was one of the
first manmade, large-scale parks of the 20th century. Later in the decade,
after the University had moved to its current University Park campus, D. H.
Lawrence wrote a somewhat sardonic poem entitled Nottingham's New University to
‘commemorate’ the occasion.
1924
Byron and Greece by George Gordon Byron, Harold M. Spender
(1924)
To mark the centenary of Byron’s death, there were several
republications of the poet’s work, including The Works of Lord Byron (Volume
1-6), The Selected Poems of Lord Byron and Byron and Greece, the latter being
an adopted text of the great classical edition of Byron's works, with chosen
letters from his correspondence. The occasion also inspired Charles Richard Cammell
to write a poem addressed to the Fathers of the Armenian Mekhitarist Convent
(at the Isle of S. Lazzaro near Venice), which ended with these lines:
If England holds his body, Greece his heart,
You surely of his spirit hold a part,
Perhaps the highest, for with you remain
The Friendship and the Peace, but no the pain.
A. H. 'Henry' Whipple was appointed Nottingham's first
Director of Education in this year having held a similar post in Blackburn. He
re-organised the city's education system by dividing the schools into three
classes: Infant (up to 7 or 8 years), Junior (with boys or girls from 7 or 8 to
11 years) and Senior (11 and up), and the city into 16 districts. Whipple was
also a strong advocate for the education of women. The appointment had a hidden
benefit for Nottingham as the director’s wife, Dorothy Whipple (1893-1966),
wrote several bestselling books whilst living in Mapperley Park. Between the
world wars Dorothy Whipple was Nottingham’s best-known novelist, and the ‘Jane
Austen of the 20th Century’, according to J. B. Priestley.
1925
Thus Far by J. C. Snaith (1925)
Nottingham born John Collis Snaith (1876-1936) wrote a
varied collection of novels, from whimsical comedy to poignant satire.
Published by D. Appleton and Company (and Hodder and Stoughton), Thus Far
depicts the creation of an enormously powerful, amoral, telepathic superman,
created with rays, chemicals and elements from the ‘missing link’ in our
evolution from apes. It questions whether or not science has gone too far,
becoming dangerous.
Graham Greene began at the Nottingham Journal in November of
1925, working as a trainee in the evenings. He later said, “It was the furthest
north I had ever been, the first strange city in which I had made home, alone,
without friends.” He wasn’t quite alone (he lived with an aging, sickly dog),
or friendless (he was pally with Cecil Roberts), but it’s fair to say that
Greene didn’t see Nottingham at its best, with polluted air and freezing
temperatures commonplace during his four month stay. It was, however, a hugely
important period. It was at this time that Greene converted to Catholicism, and
from his digs and landlady, to the sights and sounds he witnessed here, Nottingham
can point to many influences on his writing. “I don’t know why a certain wry
love of Nottingham lodged in my imagination,” wrote Greene, who later set a
novel in a version of the city.
1926
The Plumed Serpent by D. H. Lawrence (1926)
Kate Leslie, the widow of an Irish revolutionary, discovers
the intrigues, passions, and pagan rituals of Mexico in this imaginative and
unsettling novel. Set in Mexico at a time of political post-revolution turmoil,
it features a revolutionary mission, to revive the old religion and rid Mexico
of capitalism and Christianity. First titled Quetzalcoatl, after one of the
gods the movement wanted to revive, its main theme is the colonialist
eradication of indigenous religion.
Lawrence’s wife, Frieda, said of the novel, “All of Lawrence
is in that book. Two years he spent writing it, one winter in Chapala and the
next winter in Oaxaca.”
Your gods are ready to return to you. Quetzalcoatl and
Tlaloc, the old gods, are minded to come back to you. Be quiet, don’t let them
find you crying and complaining. (from The Plumed Serpent)
Lord Byron’s 1821 epic poem Don Juan inspired an American
romantic adventure film in 1926. The first feature-length film to utilize the
Vitaphone sound-on-disc sound system - with a synchronized musical score and
sound effects - it stars John Barrymore in the title role and is reputed to
have the most kisses in film history, 127 of them.
1927
A Princess Comes to Our Town by Rose Fyleman (1927)
In this Nottingham fairy-tale, The Fairy King and Queen have
chosen the man they want their daughter to marry, but Princess Finestra doesn’t
want the prince, not yet anyway, life would be far too boring, she wants to
have real adventures first. To that end, the princess’ godmother has her
transported to real-life Nottingham’s Market-place. Many adventures ensue
including the bringing to life of our (then) statue of Queen Victoria.
It was in 1927 that the Nottingham Writers' Club was founded
at a meeting at the Black Boy Hotel in Long Row. The grand hotel has been
replaced by what’s now a less grand Primark but the writers’ club is still
going strong. Among the founding members was the published writer Arthur E.
Ashley, who wrote under the pen name Francis Vivian, author of the Brother Ignatius
and Inspector Knollis series’. It’s well-known former members include Alan
Sillitoe (born a year after the club opened) and Helen Cresswell.
1928
Goose Fair by Cecil Roberts (1928)
Cecil Roberts’ novel Goose Fair was first published in the
USA in 1928 (also published in England as David and Diana, after the main
characters).
Every first Thursday in October, following the custom of
centuries, the good people of the city whose Sheriff was so soundly abused by
Robin Hood, take leave of their senses. (From Goose Fair)
D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was privately
published in Florence in 1928. The last of his full-length novels it was
famously banned in the UK for more than 30 years due its sexually explicit
nature and profane language. The history of its many publications became
befitting of a plot in itself.
The year also witnessed the birth of Alan Sillitoe, “…in the
front bedroom of a red-bricked council house on the outskirts of
Nottingham." Alan was the second of five children all growing up in
poverty. He failed his eleven-plus twice and gained much education from reading
books whilst recovering from TB with the RAF in Malaya. One of Nottingham’s
greatest authors, Sillitoe is best remembered for his first two books. He was,
however, a prolific writer who remained committed to political causes and
social justice throughout his life.
1929
By Dancing Streams by Douglas McCraith (1929)
Sir Douglas McCraith was appointed a Justice of the Peace in
1928 and President of the Nottingham Incorporated Law Society in 1930. He later
served as Chairman of the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee for Nottingham
and was Chairman of the Nottingham Bench. In 1929 he published the novel By
Dancing Streams, which was followed by Dancing Streams in Many Lands in 1946
(published by Bromley Press). McCraith was born in Nottingham on New Year's Day
1878. The solicitor, Conservative politician and sportsperson, was educated at
Harrow and Cambridge.
Sapper’s character Bulldog Drummond, a World War I veteran
who advertised for excitement and adventure, came to Nottingham in 1929. The stage
version of Bulldog Drummond played at the Theatre Royal, with the Irish actor
Hamilton Deane in the title role. Deane is famous for adapting Bram Stoker’s
Dracula for the stage, re-imagining the Count as someone that could plausibly
enter society and coming up with the idea of his tuxedo, stand-up collar and
flowing cape.
