William Blake's 250th Anniversary

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Blake, the poet and artist, Radio 4 is broadcasting a series of programmes. All are available with the Listen Again facility.

On Poetry Please Roger McGough introduced some of Blake's lesser known poetical works like the short and lusty 'Are not the joys of morning sweeter' and his tirade 'O for a Voice Like Thunder'. The readers are Samuel West, Janet Suzman and David Collins.

The Afternoon Readings for the week of 26th - 30th November, was a series of short stories entitled Blake's Doors of Perception. The first No Trumpet Needed, written and read by Michael Morpurgo tells the story of the friendship between a cameraman filming on the West Bank and a shepherd boy. The last was May Malone by David Almond, which tells the story of May who keeps a monster in her house and invites young Norman Trench in to see her monster which he has heard by pressing his ear to May's back wall.

The Friday Play was The Tyger Hunt by Lavinia Murray. It imagines a surreal day in the life of the young William Blake. With a runaway tiger on the loose, William is out with his sketch pad to capture the magic of a truly enchanting and extraordinary afternoon.

On Book at Bedtime you can hear Burning Bright by Tracey Chevalier which has been abridged into 10 episodes and tells the story of what happened when Jem Kellaway and his family move from their Dorset home to Lambeth in London, and find themselves living next door to the eccentric but welcoming couple called Blake.

Finally, in The Poet of Albion, historian and biographer Jenny Uglow used William Blake's work to explore the idea that he was a political artist deeply at odds with his country, whose ideas were formed by the turbulent history of the time.

Art meets literature

At the turn of the C20th, a new generation of artist-illustrators brought fresh life to the written word and captured the public's imagination. A new exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery which opens on 28th November and runs to 17th February 2008 The Age of Enchantment explores the magic conjured by the likes of Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen and Charles Robinson (brother of William Heath Robinson). Rodney Engen has written a book to accompany the exhibition he has curated which tells the story of the illustrated gift book which became big business, selling to the wealthy Edwardian middle classes.

The exhibition, like all the recent shows at the Dulwich Picture Gallery has been widely reviewed and should appeal to audiences of all ages. See the Dulwich Picture Gallery website for details of opening times.

Alleyn's Boy Actor

Carol Chillington Rutter from the University of Warwick is lecturing tonight Wednesday 14th November 2007 at Shakespeare's Globe on Pyg, Moth and Little William: Parts for Boys on Shakespeare’s Stage. John Pyg (also spelt Pike or Pigge) was Alleyn's boy actor from his company and also his page. Carol Rutter is the editor of Documents of the Rose Playhouse (Manchester University Press, 1999) and has done research in the Archives at Dulwich College; the Rose was one of the three theatres owned and run by Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn.

Tickets (at £15 or £10 for concessions) for the lecture are available from the Box Office at Shakespeare's Globe online or by telephone on 020 7401 9919.

Posy Simmonds at the Dulwich Picture Gallery

The writier and cartoonist Posy Simmonds will be talking about her latest work Tamara Drewe on Thursday 15th November at 7.30pm in the Linbury Room, Dulwich Picture Gallery. Tickets are £10 or £8 (concessions) you can order them via the website http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/ in person or on the telephone 020 8299 1859

Shakespeare on Silver Street

It is probably just as well that Charles Nicholl did not come to the Archives at Dulwich College to research for his latest book The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street as he might have been sadly misled by the forgeries left by John Payne Collier in the nineteenth century. Payne Collier, a Shakespeare scholar of some repute and standing was very frustrated by the lack of documentary evidence concerning Shakespeare and the Henslowe-Alleyn Theatre Papers at Dulwich proved too much of a temptation. He inserted Shakespeare's name on two lists of residents on Bankside and made a false reference to King Lear on the Costume List.

Charles Nicholl's new book, published by Allen Lane deals with a much more reliable source, a record from the May 1612 Court of Requests, in which Shakespeare is a witness. From this one document Nicholl has woven a whole book about Shakespeare's life while lodging in a house in Silver Street, now destroyed, which ran east of Aldgate and north of Cheapside in early C17th London.