Dylan Thomas Festival 2013

26 October - 9 November

Welcome

Dylan Thomas Centre

Welcome to the sixteenth annual Dylan Thomas Festival. This year’s festival is certainly going to be full of excitement in the lead up to Dylan Thomas’ centenary in 2014.

Highlights include our launch of a centenary commission from Gillian Clarke, and there’s a day packed with talks, special guests, workshops and Daleks as we celebrate Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary.

Poet, broadcaster and children’s author Roger McGough reads from his new collection of poetry to launch the festival.

We host an evening based on the popular Danish drama, The Killing, featuring crime and mystery novelist David Hewson, who has adapted series one and two as novels, and actor, writer and television presenter Emma Kennedy, author of The Killing Handbook.

Football journalists from The Guardian will be recording their Football Weekly podcast looking at the South Wales Derby and the Festival goes on the road with an evening of readings from Dylan’s work in his old local, The Uplands Tavern.

We’re joining forces with the Bluestocking Lounge to present ‘Wordy Shapes of Women’, a night where burlesque collides with Dylan’s poetry.

It’s with great pleasure that we welcome our impressive range of talented guests to the 2013 Festival.

Further information and booking details will be available at www.dylanthomas.com

www.dylanthomas.com

Roger McGough

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Saturday 26 October, 7.30pm

Sunday 27 October, 10am-12pm

Roger McGough The Killing

‘Empathy and Character’: Workshop with Stevie Davies

A new book of poems by Roger McGough is always an event and As Far As I Know is truly a cause for celebration. Hilarious and surreal, he is a poet of many voices. Menace and melancholy there may be, but with plenty of McGough’s characteristic wit and wordplay too. Roger is also a patron of the 2014 Dylan Thomas 100 celebrations.

Tickets S £12, C £9

Empathetic awareness is a foundation of realist fiction.

But how can we abdicate our own agendas to see through other – sometimes alien – eyes?

Through discussion and exercises, our workshop will explore techniques of characterisation and perspective.

Tickets S £10, C £8

Tickets S Standard C Concessions PTL Passport To Leisure Dylan Thomas Centre Somerset Place Swansea SA1 1RR (01792 463980 Stevie Davies

www.dylanthomas.com

Emma Kennedy

Rob Gittins

Tuesday 29 October, 7.30pm

Wednesday 30 October, 7.30pm

Tishani Doshi & Cynan Jones - Tales from the Mabinogion

Rob Gittins – ‘Investigating Mr Thomas’

Writer, poet and dancer Tishani Doshi discusses her new novel, Fountainville, the latest title in Seren’s Tales from the Mabinogion series. She will be joined by Cynan Jones, author of a previous Mabinogion title, Bird, Blood, Snow, and of the novels The Long Dry and Everything I Found on the Beach.

Tickets S £6, C £4.20, PTL £2.40

The author of The Last Days of Dylan Thomas, and a radio play, Investigating Mr Thomas, discusses Dylan’s time in New York. Rob Gittins is a prolific screenwriter, who has written for many shows, including Casualty, The Bill, Pobol Y Cwm, Stella, Eastenders, and over one hundred episodes of The Archers Tickets S £5, C £3.50, PTL £1.60 Thursday 31 October 2-4.30pm

‘Elements of Surprise’: workshop with Mario Petrucci

Louise Jameson

“No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader” (Robert Frost). Mario accesses those deeper strata of writing process that launch the imagination into fresh realms on the back of an invigorating, incisive language.

Tickets S £9, C £7, and includes ticket to evening event.

www.dylanthomas.com

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Thursday 31 October, 7.30pm

Saturday 2 November

Mario Petrucci and Charles Bennett

Doctor Who Day

Mario Petrucci is a poet of international standing and recipient of major literary prizes.

His poem on Chernobyl, Heavy Water won the Arvon Prize.

Charles Bennett’s award-winning poetry has been published to wide acclaim. He has collaborated with many artists and has seen his work translated into German and Spanish.

Tickets S £6, C £4.20, PTL £2.40

To celebrate Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary, experts and aficionados of the series discuss its history and its future, with an art workshop, a writers’ panel, and a visit from the Daleks.

Featuring Louise Jameson, Peter Miles, Mike Collins, Simon Guerrier, Alwyn Turner, Matthew Kilburn, Una McCormack, Phil Parsons, Phil Ford, Joe Lidster, David Llewellyn and James Moran.

All day tickets available.

Friday 1 November, 7.30pm

The Killing An evening on the hit Danish drama, The Killing, featuring two of the biggest names writing about it: crime and mystery novelist David Hewson, who has adapted series one and two as novels, and actor, writer and television presenter Emma Kennedy, author of The Killing Handbook.

Tickets S £6, C £4.20, PTL £2.40

David Hewson

Christine Kinsey Sunday 3 November, 11am-1pm

Guided Tour Dylan’s Swansea Fluellen Theatre Co.’s entertaining performance-based guided tour of Dylan’s central Swansea starts from the Dylan Thomas Centre.

It also includes Dylan Thomas Square, The Three Lamps, the site of the Kardomah, Castle Square and ends in the No Sign Wine Bar. Tickets S £10, C £7 Sunday 3 November, 2pm

Monday 4 November, 12.30pm

Christine Kinsey - Truth, Lies and Alibis: A Journey

Guardian Football Weekly – The South Wales Derby

Christine Kinsey has developed a group of female characters who inhabit her paintings and drawings, who follow the narrative line of a journey that began during her childhood in Pont-ymoel. She will show and discuss her work, and screen her ACW and Queen’s Hall supported film, Taith /A Journey. In association with the Friends of the Glynn Vivian.

Tickets S £6, C £4.20, PTL £2.40

The Guardian Football Weekly Podcast is taking its show on the road! Come and join James Richardson, Barry Glendenning, Raphael Honigstein and James Horncastle as they record their show at the Dylan Thomas Centre. The panel will bring you puns and punditry as they tackle the first South Wales Derby in the Barclays Premier League.

All tickets £3.50

www.dylanthomas.com

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Ivy Alvarez

Monday 4 November, 7pm

Wednesday 6 November, 7.30pm

Professor John Goodby: The Poetry of Dylan Thomas: Under the Spelling Wall

Kirpal Singh and Ivy Alvarez

Swansea University-based Dylan Thomas scholar and poet, Professor John Goodby, discusses his new landmark critical study of Dylan Thomas’ poetry, The Poetry of Dylan Thomas: Under the Spelling Wall, published this year

by University of Liverpool Press.

Tickets S £5, C £3.50, PTL £1.60 Tuesday 5 November, 7.30pm

Rebecca’s Daughters Fluellen present a work-inprogress of their new stage production of Dylan Thomas’ Rebecca’s Daughters, a lyrical and witty adventure based on the Rebecca Riots. Adapted by Francis Hardy, it will run at the Grand Theatre in 2015, and we welcome audience feedback on tonight’s performance to help develop it further.

Tickets S £6, C £4.20, PTL £2.40

Singapore’s leading poet, Kirpal Singh, reads from his work alongside Ivy Alvarez. Singh is a poet, fiction writer and cultural critic, who was the first Asian Director of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Alvarez, whose work has been widely published and translated, tonight celebrates the release of her latest collection, Disturbance, from Seren.

Tickets S £6, C £4.20, PTL £2.40 Thursday 7 November, 8pm

DTC@Uplands Tavern: The Garage Players A night of Dylan Thomas readings in Dylan’s former local, presented

by Swansea ensemble, The Garage Players. It will include some of Dylan’s lesser known short stories and poems.

Tickets Free.

Bluestocking Lounge Friday 8 November, 8pm

Saturday 9 November, 7.30pm

Bluestocking Lounge and the Dylan Thomas Festival Present “Wordy Shapes of Women”

Gillian Clarke launches The Christmas Box

We join forces with South Wales’ premier burlesque night, Bluestocking Lounge to present a show in which the work of one of Wales’ greatest wordsmiths and burlesque collide. There’ll be a free burlesque-inspired poetry writing pre-show workshop with Primrose Proper.

All tickets: £7 includes entry to workshop at 6pm (spaces limited - please book ahead).

Photo credits: © Ivy Alvarez

by Rachael Duncan, David Hewson © Mark Bothwell, Roger McGough © Norman McBeath.

National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke reads from and discusses her response to Dylan’s magical A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

This new piece of work has been commissioned by the Dylan Thomas Centre for readings and performances throughout Dylan’s centenary year and beyond.

Tickets S £6, C £4.20, PTL £2.40

Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the details of this programme are accurate, the City & County of Swansea reserve the right to alter any part of the programme without notice.

Supported by:

www.dylanthomas.com

Gillian Clarke

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Dylan Thomas 2014 2014 will mark the centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas in Swansea and a series of events are being planned to commemorate one of the world’s greatest poets. There’ll be a year-long large-scale celebration with the focal point being the established Dylan Thomas Festival, which runs from 27 October to 9 November 2014.

The centenary celebrations will take place all over Swansea and will feature literature, special events and other art forms. The Dylan Thomas Centre will be the hub of activity, particularly when it hosts a special exhibition that brings Dylan Thomas’ Notebooks back to the UK for the first time since their sale in the 1940s.

For more information on Dylan Thomas visit www.dylanthomas.com

www.dylanthomas.com

Tishani Doshi

Events at a glance 26 October: Roger McGough 27 October: Stevie Davies workshop: ‘Empathy and Character’ 29 October: Tishani Doshi and Cynan Jones:

Tales from the Mabinogion 30 October: Rob Gittins: Investigating Mr Thomas 31 October: Mario Petrucci workshop: ‘Elements of Surprise.’

31 October: Mario Petrucci and Charles Bennett 1 November: The Killing: David Hewson and Emma Kennedy 2 November: Doctor Who Day 3 November: Guided Tour: Dylan’s Swansea 3 November: Christine Kinsey: Truth, Lies and Alibis: A Journey 4 November: Guardian Football Weekly: The South Wales Derby 4 November: Professor John Goodby:

The Poetry of Dylan Thomas 5 November: Rebecca’s Daughters 6 November: Kirpal Singh and Ivy Alvarez 7 November: The Garage Players at the Uplands Tavern 8 November: Burlesque and Poetry workshop with Primrose Proper 8 November: “Wordy Shapes of Women” Burlesque Performance 9 November: Gillian Clarke launches A Christmas Box