Editor Frances Macmillan discusses how the book came into being – as well as giving Jane a mention.  Michael Rosen, whose essay about his childhood experience of reading Great Expectations with his father is included in the book, and Mark Haddon also feature.

You can take a listen to the podcast on the Vintage website.

In addition to performing both in theatre and on TV as Hamlet, Tennant has performed in literature-based roles as Barty Crouch Junior in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the title character in Casanova and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Romantics.

In an interview with Lucy Fleming, the niece of Ian Fleming who wrote the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car, Tennant expressed his surprise at the fact the Child Catcher was created by Roald Dahl for the film and did not feature in the book, but could still appreciate both works.

Inspired by both the book and the film, Frank Cottrell Boyce’s 2011 follow-up to Fleming’s 1964 original sees the Tooting family restore an old camper van and fit it with a magical engine following Dad being given his marching orders at work. You can read the first chapter of the book here.

Of the new book Tennant said:

It’s clever because of the way it absolutely is loyal and very respectful of its source material..Slightly surreal…there’s a kind of macabre element to some of the things that go on in there, there’s some quite dark areas it goes into, and some very, very unexpected twists and turns. [It's] hugely readable. When I was asked to read the audiobook I sat down to read the book and flew through it, it’s just so easy and fascinating and all the things a good book should be.

In November Frank paid a vist to Liverpool Hope University as part of The Reader Organisation’s partnership with the Faculty of Education. Frank spoke to first year Education students about ‘Why Books Matter’ in a brilliant keynote lecture. You can read about his lecture here, and be sure to revisit the website for updates about the progress of the innovative Hope Reader project and other author visits to Liverpool Hope University.

You can listen to the show here.

chargelightbrigade

The Reader Organisation features strongly in the second half of this (from twenty minutes on): one of their reporters, Richard Lea, visits a north London library to join one of Paul Higgins’ Get Into Reading groups, and finds out for himself how reading aloud helps with depression and dementia; plus, editor of The Reader, and Head of School of the Arts at the University of Liverpool, Phil Davis, talks about his academic research into how Shakespeare’s linguistic inventiveness sets neurons alight.

Listen here.

Roger Phillips brought the penguin (his name’s Patrick and he comes with his Aquatic Attaché);

The University of Liverpool Chamber Choir brought the beautiful music;

Jane Davis, host for the evening, brought her enthusiasm to the whole proceedings;

Frank Cottrell Boyce brought his wonderful nativity story from Millions (who was slightly nervous that he had to follow Alexei Sayle and ‘be funny’: “it’s like going on after Led Zepplin and being told to be loud”, but of course, he didn’t fail to make us all laugh);

Mark Carney brought his theremin (it’s okay, we’d never heard of the instrument either – I can tell you now though that it’s amazing!);

Phil Davis brought us to tears in his moving reading from The Christmas Carol;

Georgina Aasgaard (Cellist) brought the rhythm (with the help of the audience, a xylophone and a cello);

The audience brought good cheer, festive spirit and an impressive singing voice!

It was certainly a good time had by all, and those are just a few highlights! In fact, this may have been the best Penny Readings yet – and I haven’t even mentioned the ‘creative’ raffle wheel – the pressure’s on for next year…

Singing 'Auld Lang Syne'

I still occasionally listen to In Our Time in the car and had the best radio pleasure of the year this week when Melvyn hosted a show about Wordsworth’s great autobiographical poem, The Prelude. It wasn’t the erudite discussion, though that was mildly interesting, nor Melvyn Bragg’s faux-naïve questioning. (Was William a big head? I loosely paraphrase). No, it was biographer Stephen Gill’s warm and measured reading of an extract from Book Two of the poem that really got me. Stephen Gill’s accent is a lovely deep black-country+Oxford don combo, and you can feel a lifetime of loving Wordsworth in the reflectively steady walking rhythm his voice gives these great lines. It’s not often you can feel love and thought coming out of your car radio but don’t take my word for it–listen to him here. Or try it yourself–read aloud but very slow and steady:

But ere the fall
Of night, when in our pinnace we return’d
Over the dusky Lake, and to the beach
Of some small Island steer’d our course with one,
The Minstrel of our troop, and left him there,
And row’d off gently, while he blew his flute
Alone upon the rock; Oh! then the calm
And dead still water lay upon my mind
Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky
Never before so beautiful, sank down
Into my heart, and held me like a dream.

Here’s the link to the In Our Time page. You can subscribe to the programme’s podcast here.

Here’s the link to Stephen Gill’s reading.

By Jane Davis

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I still occasionally listen to In Our Time in the car and had the best radio pleasure of the year this week when Melvyn hosted a show about Wordsworth’s great autobiographical poem, The Prelude. It wasn’t the erudite discussion, though that was mildly interesting, nor Melvyn Bragg’s faux-naïve questioning. (Was William a big head? I loosely paraphrase). No, it was biographer Stephen Gill’s warm and measured reading of an extract from Book Two of the poem that really got me. Stephen Gill’s accent is a lovely deep black-country+Oxford don combo, and you can feel a lifetime of loving Wordsworth in the reflectively steady walking rhythm his voice gives these great lines. It’s not often you can feel love and thought coming out of your car radio but don’t take my word for it–listen to him here. Or try it yourself–read aloud but very slow and steady:

But ere the fall
Of night, when in our pinnace we return’d
Over the dusky Lake, and to the beach
Of some small Island steer’d our course with one,
The Minstrel of our troop, and left him there,
And row’d off gently, while he blew his flute
Alone upon the rock; Oh! then the calm
And dead still water lay upon my mind
Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky
Never before so beautiful, sank down
Into my heart, and held me like a dream.

Here’s the link to the In Our Time page. You can subscribe to the programme’s podcast here.

Here’s the link to Stephen Gill’s reading.

By Jane Davis

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