A Bit Lit

A Bit Lit

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A Bit Lit episodes

  • Trevor, Carla, Shakespeare and Latinidad
    In this film Trevor Boffone and Carla Della Gatta tell us about their new book, Shakespeare and Latinidad, which they hope will be 'of value to anyone wanting to make culturally-relevant Shakespeare' productions. The book contains 25 essays by both theatre scholars and practitioners and celebrates the more than 130 Latinx productions of Shakespeare taking place since 1969. Trevor and Carla emphasise the importance of co-creation between art and knowledge, practitioners and scholars, and exploring new ways for theatres to create self-documentation and archiving practices. Both literature and theatre are made by 'living and breathing real people', they tell us, and they stress the need to ground ourselves in the orality, sound, noise and silences of creative work. For more details on our films and further resources, go to our website at https://abitlit.co

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    38 min
  • Richard Katz on the joys of being a clown

    The actor and writer Richard Katz tells us about devising work, the creative space between play and playtext and the joys of being a clown. In devised work, Richard tells us, everyone directs, and there is no power structure in which the director is in charge of a group of actors. Clowning involves being in the moment, escaping the Freudian need to ask why a character does something. This film is a fascinating insight on theatre from a performer who has worked across The Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe, Complicité, Told By an Idiot and Improbable.

    For more details on our films and further resources, go to our website at https://abitlit.co

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    42 min
  • Edwards Boys The Fawn 2 The Company
    In this film we hear from Felix, Jamie, Johan, Ewan and Will about performing in Edwards' Boys' forthcoming production of John Marston's The Fawn. The boys tell us about the play and their experience of working in this boys company, based at King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    41 min
  • Edwards Boys The Fawn 1 Perry
    Perry Mills tells us about his forthcoming production of John Marston's The Fawn, on sale now and onstage in early October. See http://edwardsboys.org for more.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    33 min
  • The devil on holiday in eighteenth-century England

    He talks us through The Devil upon Two Sticks, which sees the devil looking into people's houses, which feels both spooky and also like an early version of reality TV. John Milton's Paradise Lost, Daniel Defoe's A Political History of the Devil and Eliza Heywood's A Spy upon the Conjuror all also feature, as does the anonymous The Adventures of Lucifer in London, in which the devil is a kind of human connoisseur and body-hops his way around England's capital city.

    For more details on our films and further resources, go to our website at https://abitlit.co

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    33 min
  • Studying English and Creative Writing

    We hear about moving from short stories to the novel as a creative writer, and the balance between historical and contemporary issues in the study of literature. We also hear what it has been like to study at a time of Covid, both the good and the bad sides of lockdown learning.

    Oli and Lauren also tell us about Fincham Press, Roehampton's own publishing house, which nurtures new writing from students and staff. We hear about student trips to Paris and across the streets of London, bringing literature back into the real world that produced it and where it is set. They both speak powerfully about love, literature and stories, and working as a student community to take each other seriously and help one another to develop. Literature, they tell us, is something that records who we are and who we might be, and documents our lives even as it changes them.

    For more details on our films and further resources, go to our website at https://abitlit.co

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    33 min
  • Theatre of Wrestling: Unruly Music Hall Sport Interview

    The project draws on the transgressive histories of British popular theatre, including the Victorian music hall, variety theatre, the Shakespearean stage, and fairgrounds and circuses. In a far cry from the polite theatre that dominates today, Music Halls were bold and scandalous spaces where feats of strength and exhibitions of wrestling were interwoven with comedy, popular songs, and other variety acts such as human statuary and animal performances. In this interview, Richard Summers-Calvert and Sam West tell us about making these films, celebrating a time 'before wrestling was pinned down' and fixed, and instead mingled with other art and festival forms in what Claire Warden has called a 'queer music hall sport'. This work allows us to 'see wrestling differently', and connect wrestlers to the long history of their craft. Richard and Sam tell us about recreating and reimagining rare archival footage, and creating an 'experimental learning space' as a 'structure in which only wrestlers could thrive' - celebrating the unique skillset of a wrestler. The film also celebrates the importance of failure in any form of performance experiment, which is music to Andy Kesson's ears! You can see the documentary itself in our previous film, and be sure to check out our other wrestling films with Claire Warden and Sam West at Wrestling Resurgence, and the wrestlers Nick Radford, Chuck Mambo, RJ City, The OJMO and Josef Kafka. 

    For more details on our films and further resources, go to our website at https://abitlit.co

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    31 min
  • Nedda Mehdizadeh on early modern Persian and English connections
    Nedda Mehdizadeh tells us about the networks existing between Safavid Persia and Tudor and Stuart England, and how English fantasies of ancient Persia as a fallen Empire affected their ability to interact with the contemporary country they actually encoun

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    40 min

About A Bit Lit

From the publisher's feed

As much of the world went into lockdown in spring 2020, we wanted to provide a platform for research and creativity, championing the brilliant arts and knowledge-making going on in the world right now…