This could be fun and there’s still time to enter. 

This Saturday June 24th the Ferndown Pram Race is back. Bigger and better than ever. So if you don’t want to miss out on this fun packed event you need to be quick.  If you can get a team of 5 together, 4 pushers and a baby please get in touch with Pete Thornton.  Obviously you’ll need a pram too and dressing up is essential!

We’ve got an exciting line up of prams and some of them have already had an outing at New Milton Carnival. (See above)

If you feel like you are up for the challenge phone Pete Thornton today on 07792121645.

This event is part of the Ferndown Fete on the Field and will be raising funds solely for the John Thornton Young Achievers Foundation.

To find out more about Fete on the Field please visit their website at:

www.ferndownfotf.org/

It’s so hard for any aspiring writers to become visible so to hear of competitions which might bring that about is exciting, and something to drive towards. At the very least you reach a deadline and to win is even better.

It is the inaugural year of The Mercury Playwriting Prize and one might expect entry numbers to be low, but not a bit of it: over 160 entries were received.

It has been announced that Oliver Bennett is the winner with  Europe After the Rain, a noir, surreal exploration of the world we live in now. It offers up a mirror to the concerns of contemporary Britain: immigration, enfranchisement, globalisation, loss and love.

The runners-up are Berri George for her play Shadow Kingdoms, and Phil Tong for his play The Furrow. Entries from University of Essex students were simultaneously entered for the student prize of £200, and this year’s winner is Ryan Cogman for his play Floodgate.

So who is Oliver Bennett? Oliver Bennett trained as an actor at RADA, and has collaborated with the Belarus Free Theatre, whose work he has found inspirational. He has worked frequently with Howard Barker, Edward Bond, performing at Southwark Playhouse, Arcola, The Print Room, and in ‘Backbeat’ in the West End, Canada and LA.

Dan Sherer (Associate for New Work and one of the Mercury Playwriting Prize judges) said:

“Europe After The Rain is a tremendous script – a worthy winner of the Mercury Playwriting Prize 2017 Oliver Bennett has written something timely, beautifully layered, and highly theatrical. We are delighted to be able to work with Oliver over the coming year as an Associate Artist, as part of our absolute commitment to nurturing new work and emerging artists at The Mercury Theatre.”

Berri George is a writer and a performer, and graduate of both the Belgrade Theatre’s Critical Mass and The Royal Court Theatre invitation playwriting schemes. She is 2014 alumni for the Orange Tree Theatre’s invitation writers group, and made the Old Vic 12 shortlist for 2016. Her work has been staged by a range of the UK’s leading new writing venues; Manchester Royal Exchange, Bolton Octagon Theatre, Theatre 503, High Tide, The Space, Talawa, Old Red Lion, and the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Phil Tong was Director of Drama at the City of London Freemen’s School until 2014, at which point he made a decision to stop teaching and to concentrate full time on his work as a playwright. He has had nine plays premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe since 2000 and his plays for young people’s theatre are published on Treepress. His work has also been performed in London, Paris and Milan.

Artistic Director Daniel Buckroyd  said:

“The Mercury is committed to supporting emerging artists and providing a platform on which upcoming theatre-makers can develop their work, and so it’s been fantastic to see just how many writers have engaged with this opportunity and the sheer quality of this year’s entries. Our upcoming New Talent Festival is a real showcase of the many skilled artists working in our region, and I would encourage anyone with a passion for new theatre to come along. You won’t be disappointed.”

Prize-winner  Oliver Bennett will receive £2000, a year-long attachment to The Mercury Theatre  Colchester as an Associate Artist, and will be supported to stage a production of his winning play in the Mercury’s Studio Theatre. Local residents can hear rehearsed readings of Bennett, George, Tong and Cogman’s plays, as well as last year’s Essex Playwriting Competition winner – Kenny Emson’s The Piscator – as part of our 2017 New Talent Festival.

Bravo! We need more of the competitions.

Tickets for the rehearsed readings are free but must be booked in advance.

For more information about this work, or other Make It opportunities, visit: www.mercurytheatre.co.uk/make-it

Or call 01206 573948.

Audrey Reimann has woven a very readable saga about life in Scotland and Canada before and after the Second World War. Following the discovery of Sir Gordon Campbell’s drowned body the story unfolds.

Orphaned Flora MacDonald escapes from the cruel reform school she has been sent to. Her future seems set to change when she meets Andrew Stewart on shore leave from the Royal Navy. At last happiness seems set for Flora and Andrew only to be taken away by the outbreak of war.

Pregnant and desperate for help Flora travels to Andrew’s home, Ingersley House. Unfortunately, Flora is met by Ruth, a scheming and selfish woman who turns Flora’s misfortune to her own greedy advantage.

This story is very readable and will have you eagerly following its clever twists and turns – read and enjoy.

Audrey Reimann was brought up in Macclesfield and attended Macclesfield Grammar School for Girls. She now lives in East Lothian with her husband; they have 3 children and 10 grandchildren.   Audrey had a varied career as bank clerk, nurse, teacher and foster mother but her main love is story telling – she recently appeared on My Life in Books on BBC Two with Anne Robinson .

Flora’s War Published by Ebury Press on 18^th May 2017 in paperback  £5.99  e- book £3.99

I Missed the Spring  by Katherine Rubin

A Roller Coaster Ride Through A Bipolar Life

This year in the UK mental illness is at last being talked about, and Katherine Rubin’s memoir of an adult life dominated by her bipolar condition is a frank and searing, but gentle exploration, of a life lived alongside delusion, suffering and huge manic heights until at last peace, or as Rubin prefers, a re-awakening, restores both creativity and balance.

It is a book for everyone, as we – those ‘outside’ – muse, ponder and are finally able to empathise and understand the lives of those involved in mental issues. Not just the sufferer but the family, and friends in the path of the whirlwind.

The life of London born Kaila is told in the first person, from her birth, to her arrival in Israel to work on a kibbutz and her meeting with David, which leads to marriage and settlement in Israel. The height of delight one might think, but which, in fact,  created a geographical separation from her family. This somehow triggers the mood disorder. But why?

Slowly the mystery is unravelled, the past is explored, until many years later she reaches a plateau of balance, and her long suppressed creativity – Rubins is a fine poet, writing in English and Hebrew, is restored.

Over the years of therapy, and medication David is her rock, and remains so, right from the moment Rubins wakes in England where they have returned for their wedding, on her bridal bed proclaiming she has conceived the Child of Peace that she is a prophet and privy to the reality of Universal Peace. After months in a psychiatric hospital suffering from extreme mood swings, David takes his bride home to Israel, a broken vessel on mind-numbing medication to treat manic-depression.

This is the start of the journey. Read and learn. The journey takes courage, patience and seems never ending, but it does end.

Her son, Shai provides her with a stepping stone to a creative future and thus restores the springtime of her life. Over the next decade, Kaila becomes a prolific poet and tells her story in verse in a book of poems entitled ‘Back from Beyond,’ about her bipolar disorder, the reawakening and her new-found joy in life, in her loving partner and in nature.

She writes a journal, documenting her daily life and creative work. It soon becomes a means of self analysis, uncovering the horrors of her early years and provides the material for her memoir, I Missed the Spring.

It’s a memoir we should all read. Bravo, to the courage of those who live, endure and often find their way to sanctuary.

About Katherine Rubin, by Katherine: People talk about coming out of the closet, but I literally emerged from a pill box to write this book. In deep despair, with a daily regimen of a dozen pills to combat psychiatric, psychosomatic and age-related conditions, a glimmer of insight led to my first poem, “The Pill Box.” I realized that the drugs were suppressing my poetry and the natural rhythm of my daily life.
Women performing domestic tasks seemed to have the energetic rhythm of a healthy mind that looks positively to the chores ahead, whereas I was always full of dread. When I dispensed with the pill box and replaced it with daily sport, healthy nutrition and poetry, I finally found my rhythm in the juxtaposition of domestic activity and creative endeavour. For me, the one generates energy for the other. Finally, in my sixties, I reclaimed glowing health, joy and clarity and published four books of poetry. With this book, ‘I Missed the Spring,’ I am finally telling the story I have always wanted to share.

I Missed the Spring by Katherine Rubin.   Amazon Pb £8.06

It’s  the single malt that was my dad’s absolute favourite. He would savour the moment, sipping it from one of his cut glass tumblers, just as it was, no ice, no water.

The extraordinary thing was that after decades, his son from a previous relationship found him. Young Bill he was called because though my dad’s name was Ron, his surname was Williams, and therefore, as a wartime spitfire pilot he was called Bill.

Young Bill was yonks older than us, and the spitting image of my dad, he even wore similar clothes, but would they bond? We were agog.

He sat down, Dad said,

‘Have a drink. What’s your favourite tipple?’

Sure enough, it was the same as Dad’s. So it’s all in the genes. All was well, I can still picture them both, running their forefingers down the glass – two peas in a pod. Sniffing the aroma, then relaxing, sipping, the shoulders going down. Time to catch up.

The pair of them are long gone, but my son is a chip off the old block – a great Glenlivet fan.

So to all you out there, looking for something special for Sunday 18^th June, do consider this Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve. I’d buy it for my dad, to honour his parenting and guidance, not to mention sense of mischief.

In Gaelic, Glenlivet means ‘valley of the smooth-flowing one’ and whisky from Livet Valley has been known for exceptional quality since the 19th Century. The Glenlivet has created an expression to honour the original vision of its pioneering founder George Smith; The Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve pays tribute to the uniquely smooth and fruity taste Smith first envisioned in 1824, but with a contemporary twist.

A few details with which to impress your dad: skilful selection of casks enhances the signature fruity flavours of The Glenlivet, while whisky taken from traditional oak casks is complemented by the selective use of American first-fill casks to give a hint of creamy sweetness. The result is a whisky with delicious aromas of citrus fruit and notes of oranges and pears and hints of toffee apples and candy, while the long, creamy, smooth finish makes this a deliciously satisfying dram.

Well, Dad wouldn’t know about that, but he knew what he liked, and so did Young Bill, so too my son. It will slip down a treat.

Go on, your dad deserves it, you know he does.

The Glenlivet, Founder’s Reserve is available RRP £34.15. Stockists include Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Morrisons, ASDA, www.thewhiskyexchange.com and all specialist retailers.

@TheGlenlivet

www.TheGlenlivet.com

* Milly Adams’ latest book, At long Last Love is published by Arrow on 15^th June.

Trafalgar Studios 2, London

“It always brings a smile to my face when I hear Bix Beiderbecke”

It always brings a smile to my face when I hear Bix Beiderbecke. His music is playing as we enter the studio, so I know the setting is either between the wars or we’re in a comedy thriller in 1980s Yorkshire.

It happens to be the former as we are confronted by a single bed, placed centre-stage atop a bright orange carpet. The mirrored walls at the back turn this claustrophobic space almost into a theatre-in-the-round scenario. The characters have nowhere to hide, their emotions naked for all to see.

This is a play primarily about sex. Our need for it, our hopes and fears about it, our concern that it is simply a physical act that somehow gets intertwined with the psychological and knowing the fine line leading to love is never far away. It has transferred from Hampstead Downstairs and is the latest penned by Richard Bean: Made In Dagenham, Great Britain and One Man, Two Guvnors being his biggest three successes.

[Claire Lams and Ben Lloyd-Hughes

image courtesy of Robert Day]

Around Georgia Lowe’s simple and efficiently designed bedroom of 1929, the audience watch like voyeurs in a seedy Soho club as the widowed Stephanie demands sex from the young stud Dennis. She is lonely and, although seeking companionship and love, wants a child so desperately that she is willing to join the long list of women hoping that a one-off sexual encounter with an unknown man will do the trick.

Stephanie is played by Claire Lams, fragile and scared, full of hope for the future and seeking a means to leave the darkness and sadness of the war just gone. Worried that she is over thirty and this is her final chance to have a child, she is willing to face the single-mother stigma because her heart yearns so.

Ben Lloyd-Hughes’ Dennis is cocky and matter-of-fact. It’s like a job for him. His mission, to impregnate as many women as is required. He is good at it too, revealing an implausibly high success rate.

Director Anna Ledwich doesn’t have much to go on with this static two-hander. Moving the couple smoothly around a small space is the task at hand here and she succeeds in dragging every nuance from the script, every look, every doubt.

This is quite a funny play but it is somehow unsatisfying. Lloyd-Hughes appears a tad cautious and uncomfortable. It felt like a long seventy minutes, too. There is little action and the jokes aren’t often or good enough to drive the characters to their inevitable climax. Kiss Me is not a comedy, yet I felt the drama was under-developed. It finishes prematurely without really succeeding in delving into some of the weighty issues it raises.

There is much to like about the two disparate characters and Lams carries the punchlines to perfection, but I found the play not funny or tragic enough to sustain the frustrations on show. More of an over-long sketch than a short play, almost like playwright Bean is just going through the motions rather than seducing me with the passion of his convictions.

[Ben Lloyd-Hughes and Claire Lams

image courtesy of Robert Day]

Running Time: 70 minutes (no interval)

Running until Saturday 8th July

Performances: Monday – Saturday at 7.45pm

3pm Matinees on Thursday and Saturday

Tickets: Trafalgar Studios Box Office and www.atgtickets.com

0844 871 7632

Twitter: @TrafStudios, #KissMe

Production photographs © Robert Day

Michael Rowan does time at a new play ‘Held’ set in a contemporary Prison somewhere in the UK.

Tristan Bates Theatre, Covent Garden.

The play presented in two acts, where a simple set recreates the physical and mental claustrophobia suffered by prison inmates.

This play refuses to pull any punches; drugs, male rape and self – harm all feature and with strong dialogue delivered at full volume, the pace of both pieces is often frenetic.

Over the course of the play the characters reveal that which has damaged them but perhaps the relentless misery robbed them of the opportunity to show a more nuanced side, which would have made me feel their fate more keenly.

In the first act the young naïve Jamie played by Jack Brett Anderson is given a crash course in the harsh realities of prison life by the older and more worldly wise Sleat (Anthony Taylor), who exposes the damage to both of them in an act of betrayal.

Act 2 provides the context to a scene that takes place off stage during act one and with the same actor playing a lead role in each; it was at first difficult to tell if this was a completely new character, or the original character transformed by his prison experience. All doubt soon disappeared due to the quality of the acting.

Three actors played the five roles, but special mention must go to Jack Brett Anderson for his clever portrayal of Flynn, in the aptly subtitled ‘Dog City.’ Flynn, the ‘abused puppy’, uses his good looks to gain what passes for affection at any cost in a destructive relationship with muscled, Cal (Darren Fulton Brown)

Ultimately the play is about betrayal and the fruitless search for loyalty cruelly denied by a system that can only brutalise those in its care.

Held: www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk

6th – 17th June

Tristan Bates Theatre
1A Tower St, Covent Garden
WC2H 9NP

Our final ‘closer look’ at our Independent Author Book Award winners:

Special Category. The Children’s picture Books.

We gathered together a group of eager beaver readers and listeners under 10 years of age because the WforW team felt it impossible to compare the children’s picture book entries with the others. It was huge fun working with the children, and let me tell you, they know their onions. The decisions were unanimous.

Keep an eye on Frost Magazine and www,wordsforthewounded.co.uk as summer ends to hear our exciting ideas which will provide even  more opportunities for aspiring writers, and help veterans in need at the same time.

1^st Place: Ruby’s Story – (Ruby the Routemaster Series) Text by Christophe Dupuy Illustrations by Tim Duke

Ruby’s Story – (Ruby the Routemaster series)

Judges’ Comments:

Right from the start this glorious book draws in the reader. ‘London, one of the busiest cities in the world, is a place that never sleeps.’

Immediately it promises excitement. What’s more it’s historically accurate. We want to know all about the bus called Ruby who lives in a London bus garage, and travels with her driver, Dave, and Clive, her conductor (remember those?)

We drive along in Ruby doing what she loves but then – a crisis, the first of several. She learns that the Routemaster buses are to be replaced by modern buses. Is it the end for Ruby? She learns she has been sold to a bus company in Scotland, and must drive to her new name. Does she ever arrive?

There is excitement, adventure, disappointment until one day a bloke called Christophe Dupuy arrives and takes Ruby to Somerset to live with him and Kim. (And he really did do this. Perhaps one day he’ll tell us why?)

Lovely story, immaculately told with intricate illustrations that are a rich visual feast. The Routemaster buses live on.

Our children’s reading team agreed it should come first.

Chris Dupuy

Although I was born in Paris, I lived most of my childhood years in South East London and from a very early age I spent a great deal of my time going off on adventures exploring London and all the amazing sights it has to offer. By far the easiest way to get around was on London’s public transport system. In particular was the trusty Routemaster bus. With over 4000 on the road in the nation’s capital, it was always easy to hop on and off once you arrived at the desired destination. They would run every ten minutes or so, and sitting on the long bench seat by the conductors vantage point, I always felt very safe and looked after. This was in contrast to my dysfunctional home life and one could argue that at the tender age of six this was a very risky thing to do. The sad thing is that in reality i was safer in the big bad world than I was in my own home. That in itself is another story to maybe tell another day.

Runner Up: Little Hoglet’s Egg Race   by Richard Middleton

Judges’ Comments:

Who doesn’t love a story about a hedgehog?

Richard Middleton has been clever with this one. The delicious illustrations don’t merely reflect the story, but progress it – something that the children particularly noticed.

You see, as fast as a mother says her eggs won’t want to join in, the illustrations show them doing just that, in spite of mum. So there is tension between the text and the visual images, and a naughtiness that the children loved.

Richard Middleton is the writer and illustrator of the Little Hoglet’s Magical Year series, with Little Hoglet’s Christmas and Little Hoglet’s Egg Race already available, and Little Hoglet’s Bonfire Night coming soon. The seasonal series will be completed with Little Hoglet’s Summer Holiday.  Richard’s other published picture book is The Stinky Hippobottomus, which has been described as “utterly delightful” even though poo is mentioned in the book several times. Richard is a Certified Microsoft Innovative Educator and speaks to schoolchildren all over the world about creative writing. He is also the author of the Wyrm Saga series, a series of fantasy thrillers for older children and beyond. The series currently includes the novels The Wyrm Conspiracy and Wyrm Gold, and the chapbooks Arran, Joney and the Goblinensis Flatulata and Gods Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.  In his spare time Richard and his family are taken for walks by their dogs Ellie and Lincoln, who are both trying to learn human speech.

www.wordsforthewounded.co.uk