The garden is freezing

After a quiet summer, The School of Night had a busy time celebrating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s Plays (The ‘First Folio’). We took over Birmingham Central Library with a dazzling array of original materials we could actually pick up! (though Birmigham’s Folio itself stayed firmly in its glass box in the corner); in Leeds we celebrated with the British Library, and I got to improvise a ‘fitt’ (or section) of verse in the style of the Gawain poet in front of the Poet Laureate, as well as a cracking outdoor gig for Slung Low; and in Aldeburgh we entertained the great and the good to conclude Jenny Hall’s Shakefest. Then, to end the year, I was back in Leeds for The Gifting, an epic storytelling show at Versa Studios to conclude Leeds 2023’s amazing self-motivated year of culture. Next, as the heavy frosts continue even here on the south coast, writing continues: an adaptation of a children’s book for a tour, a one-man show for me (still under wraps) and then, who knows…