Literature – A London Journal

Sport in History Podcast 52 – BSSH Conference 2020 Round Table on the Future of Sports History

The final podcast from the BSSH 2020 Conference with a round table discussion on the future of Sports History. On the panel are Dr Christienna Fryar of Goldsmiths, University of London, Dr Geoff Levett, editor of the Sport in History podcast, Dr Carol Osborne of Sporting Heritage and Prof Kay Schiller, the Editor-in-Chief of the BSSH's journal Sport in History.

The four panellists give brief opening remarks on future directions for research areas in British sports history, as well as thinking through how historians of sport can use new methodologies, and develop partnerships to increase their reach among the wider public.

The greater part of the session is then handed over to the delegates to make comments on the panellists' presentations and discuss their own ideas on the position of Sports History now and reflect on how we can advance the cause of our discipline within the academy.

Sport in History Podcast 51 – BSSH Conference 2020 Sporting Inequalities

Sporting Inequalities in the fifth instalment from the BSSH 2020 Conference with a panel chaired by Dr Lisa Taylor which features three young researchers looking into women's sport, representations of women, and disability sport.

Sport in History Podcast 50 – BSSH Conference 2020 Keynote with Prashant Kidambi

It's the keynote in the fourth instalment from the BSSH 2020 Conference as we hear previous podcast guest Dr Prashant Kidambi deliver a wide-ranging Sir Derek Birley Memorial lecture on the writing of sports history. Informed by CLR James's classic text Beyond the Boundary Prashant discusses the boundary in sports history - both as a literal dividing line and as a metaphor for ways of thinking about sports relationship to wider events.

Sport in History Podcast 49 – The Writing of History at the BSSH Conference 2020

The Writing of HIstory is the subject of the third panel from the BSSH's 2020 Conference, chaired by Dr Nick Piercey, with a wide ranging discussion between scholars researching in a variety of fields.

In A ‘better attendance than usual’: Deconstructing the History of Sport and Recreation at Port Sunlight Samuel Clevenger of Towson University questions the benevolence of model communities and whether workers engaged in organised recreation as much as is assumed by conventional narratives.

Dr Alex Jackson, in The uses of nostalgia and reminiscence in English football writing during WW1, interrogates the way in which nostalgia and 'reminuisance' (!) is a phenomenon of times of crisis, including our own.

Sarah Hardstaff of the University of Cambridge looks at Identity, Representation and Coming-of-Age in Football Fiction for Children and the way in which representations of footballers influenced, and influences, who can be conceived of as footballers in the public imagination.

Uncle Vanya at Hope Theatre

Chekhov as it should be done - intimate, emotional, moving. And funny!

Musset update!

A quick post with the file for 'A Door (Must Be Open or Shut)'

The Crouch End Festival and Alfred de Musset

A fun part of the production has been assembling props - a 40s Woodbine astray, an old-fashioned bottle of scotch, a cigarette case and a whiff of 40s in the costume of the characters. And the cast - Anna Rogers, Matt Griffin and Ruari Johnson - have been extraordinarily successful at bringing Musset's characters to life in a faux-Fitzrovian setting.

Translating Musset

Part of the fun of staging a period piece is assembling (and drinking) the props! A short post on my new theatre production for the Crouch End Festival.

Crouch End Festival 2018

Now that A Midsummer Night's Dream has finished it's time to flag up my own next production with the Crouch End Players as part of the Crouch End Festival. As part of an evening of new writing I'm directing a new translation of the French classic, A Door (Should Be Either Open Or Shut).

A short guide to the London Library

A post in praise of a unique London institution.

A London Journal

Category: Literature