Details
Rotherham born, West End actress, Emma Swan is our guest, talking about her debut middle grade children's novel, Cruiseship Kid: Thief at Sea. Emma recently launched her novel at Rotherham Children's Capital of Culture - the year long celebration of culture by, with and for children. Charles and Graham follow up on last week's Gang of Four and Adam Curtis' Shifty as Graham discovers a link. The duo continue to look forward to EIFF and Graham's tribute to Chris Simpson and Magna Carta.
Comment
Rotherham born, West End actress, Emma Swan is our guest, talking about her debut middle grade children's novel, Cruiseship Kid: Thief at Sea. Emma recently launched her novel at Rotherham Children's Capital of Culture - the year long celebration of culture by, with and for children. Charles and Graham follow up on last week's Gang of Four and Adam Curtis' Shifty as Graham discovers a link. The duo continue to look forward to EIFF and Graham's tribute to Chris Simpson and Magna Carta.
Listen to Episode 232_ Interview Special with Actress and Author, Emma Swann plus EIFF Update and News About S by Antony Pickthall MP3 song. Episode 232_ Interview Special with Actress and Author, Emma Swann plus EIFF Update and News About S song from Antony Pickthall is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 35:35. This high-quality MP3 track has 1013.591 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 12 Jul 2025. Stream and download Episode 232_ Interview Special with Actress and Author, Emma Swann plus EIFF Update and News About S by Antony Pickthall for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
Comment
Loading comments...
Emma Swan, a writer from Rotherham, joins a podcast to discuss her involvement in Rotherham's Children's Capital of Culture. She aims to inspire children through her book "Cruise Ship Kid," promoting Northern pride and creativity. Emma's work with Horrible Histories influences her writing, engaging children and encouraging reading. The Capital of Culture spans various age groups, focusing on inspiring young minds and promoting reading for pleasure. The discussion touches on the importance of modern children's literature and inspiring a love for reading in today's technology-driven world. Good evening. Hello, Charles. Hello. Hello and good evening. Emma, our third voice. Welcome and good evening to Latest Ego of Two Big Egos in a Small Car. This evening we are joined by Emma Swan, who does not, I'm sure, possess a big ego, but we're delighted, Emma, that you will be joining us tonight. There are two reasons behind Emma joining us tonight, one of which is in the writing capacity with the novel coming up, but the second thing, with a kind of Yorkshire slant to it, I guess, Emma, is your involvement with Rotherham as a representative of Rotherham's children's capital of culture. And I've got to hold my hands up. I wasn't aware of Rotherham's status as that, and maybe that's remitted me. But perhaps you could initially, if you would, please, Emma, tell us how you became involved in that and why you became involved in that. Oh, yes, thank you. And thank you so much for having me on. Right, thank you. Perfect. As you said, yeah, I'm from Rotherham. Good starting point. There we go, right. And I'm very proud to be from Rotherham. So my first book, Cruise Ship Kid, that is out at the moment and is actually, I'm delighted to say, Waterstones Children's Book of the Month. Congratulations. Thank you so much. I am, as I said, really proud to be from Rotherham. And therefore, with this fun news that I couldn't really believe, one of the places, well, the main place really that I wanted to share it with straight away is Rotherham because I am determined to try and inspire our next generation to maybe be the future authors or follow their dreams in any way. So I'm really excited to work with children's capital of culture to, yeah, hopefully try and encourage the next young minds to get reading, get writing, getting creative. So that's a project throughout 2025, is that right? That's correct, yeah. I mean, it's interesting because, of course, I'm not saying it's running against Bradford City of Culture 2025, but it's interesting that actually, you know, Yorkshire's got two festivals of the arts going on through the year at the same time. And I don't think there's a cross-pollination between the two. But in terms of what you would hope to attract with attention to Rotherham with this, because anything like this isn't just, you know, it's not just for the benefit of Rotherham, although it's helpful to Rotherham, but it's to spread the word wider than Rotherham. So what do you see as the brief of the children's capital of culture ad? What does it bring to Rotherham and what does Rotherham bring to it? What a wonderful question. So the capital of culture is a whole year of imagination, creativity and community, if I really like. And so what do I bring to it and what does it bring? Well, I firstly want to say what do the children bring to it. It's the most amazing morning. And on the day, it was the day after my book was actually out, I went to Aston Library and different children from Rotherham came along. And it was wonderful. We did two events there, the different kids from around Rotherham. My mum used to teach in Aston, so many lovely links, but the kids were so engaged, so involved. Also, at the heart of my book is a pride for being Northern in cruise ship kids. So it's about a little girl who sails around the world solving crimes with over 80s. But the little girl is from Rotherham herself and has a very strong Northern accent. Now is this rooted in you yourself being a cruise ship kid? It is. Where does a cruise ship kid live? I guess, you know, one of the children who's eight asked me that the other day, they're like, where's your land home? And well, Silver in cruise ship kids live on the boat full time. But me myself, I did live on ships a lot as a child because my parents worked on board. So my land home was Rotherham. The thing that I hope to inspire the kids with Capital of Culture and for them to get from cruise ship kids is also a pride in how we sound. And that's something I was talking a lot about with the children at the library. But Silver gets a little bit picked on for her accent because she says bath, pass the grass like I do. And I haven't seen that very much in children's literature, a celebration of a strong Northern accent. So that's something that hopefully with the Children's Capital of Culture and my events and cruise ship kid itself, it will make any child, no matter where they're from, be very proud of that and never worry that how they sound might affect anything else in their lives, if that makes sense. Absolutely. Graham, over to you. Well, Emma's also been appearing in Horrible Histories on stage. And I was wondering, was the book Cruise Ship Kid written before you took on that role in Horrible Histories or during that role? Yeah, it was sort of during. I've been working with Horrible Histories now for about two and a half years. And we've done Terrible Tudors in the West End and touring around the country. You've been to York? Well, I'm nearest to York. We're doing Manchester and Birmingham Symphony Hall at Christmas, I think. Horrible Histories came up to York this last year, I think, and you did Neil Boxer. Yeah, brilliant. That'll be some of my other friends that have done the tour in the West End. Ah, right, okay, yeah. There's me rude to interrupt you in mid-phrase. Oh, I love hearing it. I was like, oh, which book? Yeah, I love York. But they're just so fantastic, the way it is. And it's such a funny company. And that, I think, as I was writing and working with Horrible Histories and writing Cruise Ship Kid, it was brilliant to have the audiences of the kids because they're so honest with you. They're the best audience members, because if they don't think something's funny, they'll tell you. And I think that's brilliant. So I hope Cruise Ship Kid for children are finding it funny and that they sort of see my acting and working with them has definitely inspired the book. Middle grade? Well, I think if I was writing a book, especially a book for children, the best environment to get ideas would be to be a member of the cast of Horrible Histories. There's so many great ideas in that show and so much history and so many plots. It must have been fantastic when you were writing the book. Yeah, it's wonderful. I mean, the Terry Deary books I've read since I was tiny. And I'm actually going to be performing on stage with Terry Deary in the summer, which I've never met him in person. So I'll be really fangirly, I think. It'll be quite embarrassing. Middle grade. Now, what age group is that? I'm so old now, I've lost touch as to what middle grade is. What age group is that right now? Oh, so it's sort of key stage two sort of age. I still don't know what's key stage two. I don't have children. Cruise Ship Kid, it's sort of seven plus. I've had some parents get in touch with me that are reading it at bedtime to their six-year-old, but also I've been taught to say seven to eleven because I've had some boys tell me they're loving it who are finishing primary school, starting secondary school. So it's a span because there are, I can probably show you in here as well, but I will say it out loud because we've got the non-visual medium, but there are lots of spaces in it for children to interact with it and spaces to scribble in and quizzes and puzzles. And I think that's something that's working quite nicely because kids are like, you mean we can write in the book? And yes, the answer is yes. Children's Capital of Culture, I mean children can say they're up to 18, although 18-year-olds probably wouldn't like to be called children, but is there a specific age group that the Capital of Culture is aimed at or actually is it as wide-ranging as being pre-school to the full flourish of teenage years? I think it, and this is my thought, I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's to inspire, I know they want to inspire all young minds, but there are lots of different types of events and things that are going on. The one that I had the other day was certainly more the primary end, but yes, I think it spans it, which is just so exciting really. I'm so proud to be from there, but I just think it's brilliant that Rotherham are going, let's promote our next generation. Graham, your question? Well, I have to come clean, I mean in terms of children's books, myself and Charles, neither of us have kids, and also neither of us is actually young anymore, so this is how much out of my depth I am. When I was a kid reading children's books when I was a child at school, I had to read like Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, King Arthur, Dig in the Dump, Injust William. It's still a great book. It's like I'm talking about Victorian times, so I can't quite get my head around modern children's literature, but I do think Emma's book is a huge amount of fun, and it's packed with ideas, and it's not a slim little book, there's a lot to it as well. Thank you, I think that it's such a good point that you know, because I've been speaking to a lot of booksellers on this tour, and some of them say that certain parents love to recommend the books that they know from their childhood, and there's some which are just so fantastic, but it is nice to try and promote, I think, like some, I read quite a lot of middle grades, like I love authors like Jenny Pearson and Sam Copeland, and I've no children, which as a 32 year old woman, maybe that's quite embarrassing, I'll be on the tube or a bus reading a children's book, but no matter what the books are, I think there's quite a steep decline at the moment in pleasure for reading with children, and that's something I'm extremely passionate about for the whole country, to try and get kids going, yeah I love reading actually, again. Yeah, they have to get off their phones though to do that, that's the thing. It's true, but then with my events I've been saying things like, does anyone in this room like video games, does anyone like interactive things, and so I've got a few, a couple of questions in there that show it's interactive, things like, which do you prefer, dogs or cats? Go on Graham, what's your answer to that? Are you a dog person or a cat person? I love cats, I love cats. I'm entirely happy to be a cat person. Okay, and what about, would you rather wear a hat made of jelly or socks made of mashed potato? A hat made of jelly, because it would wobble in a fun way, like the head of a turkey. Yeah, well, I would rather have the socks, because I'm a Scotsman, I read the potatoes. This is brilliant, see, and these are the answers that I love, and these are imprudent kids, these kinds of questions. Just doesn't get kids that reading then, you know. Emma, one of the things I wonder about is access to books, whether that's problematic, or whether actually something like Children's Capital of Culture can highlight the importance and power of books. Now, I know, obviously, there's book provision within the school, but they are costly things, you know. The most powerful tool that we can have as a child is our imagination, but you can't imagine a book, you can only imagine from reading the book. What's, to your experience and knowledge, what is access to books like around, around Rotherham, and I don't say it might be different from posh old Harrogate or whatever, but I wonder, from your own experience, whether actually that's something that is being taken care of, for example, with a festival like this. Yes, I could not agree more. It's so important, and I think at the heart of that, obviously, buying books is wonderful if people can afford them, but libraries, the importance of our libraries is just, I think they are the heart of our society, and there is, you know, Aston Library was a local library for me, so going in there really felt wonderful, but, you know, the Sheffield Libraries, it's just so important, and at the event I did the other day, there was another sort of charity called Grimm and Co. that were providing the books for my event, but then also I was at the School Librarians Association recently as well, speaking about this, and it was so wonderful to meet the librarians there, but the look of horror on some of their faces when they said this is an interactive book, Crucifixion, because they were going, well, how do they share it? So I said, don't panic, everything, my publisher is Usborne, and they're brilliant, and everything in the book is designed to, yes, if it's a book for an individual child, in Crucifixion, then they can write on the book directly, but it can also be done with a piece of paper, and I actually wrote in the beginning, saying that if you are lucky enough to have got this book from a library, please use paper, because my dream is that there'll be a couple of copies of these in every library, and then be able to be shared, because it's so important. It used to be Joe Orton that used to deface library books, of course, famously when he was writing, but yes, I'm glad you've come up with a solution to the obvious problem that technically would be there. Graham, your question. The great thing about libraries is they are the only medium where all that happens is reading. The thing about phones and laptops and the digital world is that at the same time that you could be reading books, or reading articles, or getting information, you're also sending personal messages, having arguments, buying things, being hit by adverts that pop up that want you to buy something. So it's not a medium for reading really. The only medium that's solely devoted to reading is the library. Yeah, that's correct. The amount of distractions we have, the amount of, and I don't know about you guys, but when I was studying, I would try and force myself to go to the library just to work, because if I allowed myself to do an essay at home, you're right, I'd have bought something online, I'd have rang my mum, I'd have had too many snacks. So it is a nice focused area. And they've also put on such wonderful events as well, you know, fun for kids, fun for, it's not just them all sat reading quietly, the librarians are interacting with them, asking what they're reading, you know, getting authors to come in and do events. I got them singing me today and I thought, sorry to anyone concentrating. I've got to ask you why you feel that your love of Yorkshire tea, this addiction, is slightly unhealthy. It cannot possibly be unhealthy, it can only be good for you. Yes, you've definitely read my bio and I drink too much Yorkshire tea. Nonsense, it's impossible. Tony Benn used to drink 15 cups of tea a day. No way, really? Yeah. Well, I do quite a few audiobooks, and when I'm recording audiobooks, I will have so many, I feel I'm so caffeinated by the end of the day, but we need it, right? Of course you do, of course you do. Now, you mentioned you're an award-winning comedian, so do you go out to Edinburgh Fringe, do you perform on the circuit around Yorkshire, what do you do? I have done, so yeah, I used to write quite a few comedy songs, and yeah, and so I did the musical comedy awards and stuff, that was a bit pre-lockdown time, and that actually, it sort of inspired me to start writing for kids, because I was just loving, I really do like writing lyrics, and then thinking, hang on, these could work well in a funny children's book, so that, yeah, because if you guys went to Edinburgh, it's so much fun. Oh, you're all, every year, yeah. Oh, brilliant, brilliant, yeah, it's so great. Excellent. Well, Emma, thank you so much for talking to us this evening, we really, really appreciate it, it's been a joy to have you on, and the book, remind us, it's published by Osborne, I think, U-S-B-O-R-N-E, Cruise Ship Kid, and so please punt that down, and I hope the rest of the year goes well, obviously, with the Rotherham Festival at the Children's Capital of Culture, and thank you for telling us all about it, and introducing it to us, we really appreciate that. Thank you for your time, thank you. Have a good evening, Emma. Bye now, Emma, bye. Graham, right, well, thank you very much to Emma for that, and so it's going to be great. Yeah, absolutely, so I had no idea about this event at all, so it was interesting to learn, I mean, it's interesting that it was running at the same time as Bradford City Culture, I wonder why that's been allowed to happen, but, you know, you can see... It's all happening in Yorkshire, let's face it. Let's be positive, Graham, you've got to come up with a positive element of that. So, Graham, this evening, we're going to whiz through subjects, that is our challenge tonight, whiz through subjects, almost as much as the sound of the washing machine that was going on behind me as we were recording, and hopefully that noise won't be coming through. So, the first thing to discuss, Graham, tonight, this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival, we trailed it last week, saying we were about to announce the programme, and very excitedly, Ben Wheatley and Jeremy Thomas are both going to be involved in it. Tell me a little bit more about that, Graham. It's running from the 14th of August to the 20th of August in Edinburgh. First of all, the film house will be back and involved, as well as the cameo, and also some screenings at View Omni Cinema and National Gallery Scotland, and the Toll Cross Central Hall, and as well as like, you know, there's 43 films in total, which is a bit more than last year, still as much as before the financial problems, and there's 18 world premieres, and there's some great films coming up, but what excites me, and I think what excites you about Edinburgh is meeting filmmakers and film people, and going to the Q&A from the top. Initially, they've got Jeremy Thomas, the absolutely amazing British film producer for the last 40, 50 years, in discussion with Mark Cousins, our favourite former director of the International Film Festival, and a great filmmaker in his own right. There's also an event with Ben Wheatley, and he's a producing partner at Andy Stark, where Ben talks about his new film, which is showing at Edinburgh, and all those great but weird prescient films that are made about Britain, like Sightseers and The Kill List. And then also the conversation strand, you've got the two great Scottish filmmakers with a pedigree in films, going back to train spotting, Kevin Macdonald and his brother Andrew Macdonald, who's also now the chair of the International Film Festival. So the new team behind the new version of the film festival after all these years, it may not be as big as before, but they're doing all the right things, they've got good judgment as to what the film festival's about, and what will make it successful in future. We are going up to the film festival this year, and can't wait, I mean it's going to be very exciting, and we will reflect on it afterwards as well, of course, as we like to do. And I'm just thrilled as well that Edinburgh Film House will be involved, so pleased with the reopening, and can't wait to see it on its return. So we'll return to the subject of Edinburgh Film Festival, and International Film Festival, obviously. So that's exciting news as to what's going to be happening, and we'll do more on that. Now, moving on swiftly, last week we discussed both The Gang of Four, and we discussed the political filmmaker Adam Curtis, whose shifty series, a remarkable series, that we talked about in depth last week, as indeed we talked about... BBC iPlayer, right now. BBC iPlayer, you will not be able to find it elsewhere, it's iPlayer, it hasn't actually showed on the BBC, other than on iPlayer, which is an interesting situation with it. And The Gang of Four we discussed, because they performed maybe for the last time in Leeds, and Graham attended that. Now, in the weekend in between, you have found a link between the post-punk legends Gang of Four, and the political filmmaker Adam Curtis. Rather alarmingly, you've written a real conspiracy. Graham, I love conspiracy theories. Yeah, well, Adam Curtis' films are all about conspiracies, they're all about the roots of problems, the roots of things that have gone wrong in recent British political, economic, cultural, social history, so that his films are like one gigantic conspiracy theory. But if you look at his own past, there's a little bit of a potential conspiracy there, because, and this is what has come from my, because I didn't find this, like my great friend James Wiltwood, also a co-conspirator in Charm Music events, Charm Music magazine for many years, James got in touch afterwards, until the last episode, and he said, did you know that both the lead singer of Gang of Four, John King, and the guitar player and songwriter Andy Gill, both of them went to the same school, and this is before Gang of Four met at Leeds University in the 1970s, when they were younger, both of the main members of Gang of Four met when they were at Sevenoaks School in Kent. Now, Sevenoaks School in Kent is actually a prestigious public school, and the reason that those two guys went there, and remember that Gang of Four were a very left-wing cultural group, still are, is because they both won scholarships. So they both won scholarships to go to this posh school, and then when they formed Gang of Four, they were still left-wing, almost like, even though they'd managed to escape their roots, they weren't going to forget that the system was still rigged, in general, against people like them, kids like them. So they didn't forget their roots, even though they'd managed to get out of that situation. But when they were at Sevenoaks School, they were both members of an organisation called The Art Room, which is a progressive, edgy, artistic group at that school. Try and guess who was at that school at the same time who was a member of The Art Room. I'm going to surprise you by saying Adam Curtis. It wasn't that much of a surprise, was it? He's also there in the same school at the same time as them, and they both end up becoming culturally important people, doing things of a vaguely left-wing persuasion. Also at the same time in The Art Room was film director, future film director, Paul Greengrass. And I know Paul Greengrass, as you know, has made populous films like The Bourne Ultimatum, that Tom Hanks film Captain Phillips. He's also made serious movies, serious films for TV about Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland. He did one on the murder of Stephen Lawrence. So you can see that that Sevenoaks posh school has produced the exact opposite of what it's supposed to produce. And so the roots of left-wing thinking that still exists go all the way back to those chance meetings at a posh school, which I think is like a conspiracy theory laid on. Well, it's interesting because, of course, we know about going back to Cambridge, and the Russian links to Cambridge, of course, legendary, back in the 50s and 60s, of course. So, you know, intellectual... In the 20s and 30s. In the 20s and 30s too, absolutely. So intellectual left-wing, no, left-wing intellectualism, that's the right way around for that sentence, is long running. But that's interesting to hear that, isn't it? So, good. Well, I'm glad that actually it's alive and kicking in public schools is a reaction against privilege. Exactly. Don't be alarmed. I'm alarmed. You know something about Alan Edwarne that I don't. Oh, yeah. You love to chat. This is exciting news about Alan Edwarne. And I don't know this exciting news. Share it with our listeners. Well, you know, everywhere in the North you go, there's more and more culture happening. So there's yet another new witcher festival starting shortly. And it's at Whitby, which is called, obviously, the Whitby Witcher Festival. And guess who's one of the main guests at the first ever Whitby Witcher Festival? So Alan Edwarne. Alan Edwarne. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, yeah. So there's about 40 authors taking part in this new event, Venice Cross Town, which runs from the 6th to 9th of November this year. And he's the main person there. That's... No, I mean, you'd think Whitby, therefore, it's going to be gothic literature is going to be at the heart of it. Is that clearly not the case, though? It's wider ranging than that, presumably, to say the least. Well, it's wide ranging, but Lewis Kirkland, the committee chair of Whitby Witcher Festival, she's making a big deal of the fact that Whitby's got Whitby Abbey, the ruins of Whitby Abbey. It's got the roots of Bram Stoker's Dracula. So they do know what they've got. The zoo at Whitby has got this cultural, historical link to the origins of goth. And they will make a lot of that. But, yeah, they can't just trade on that. Otherwise, it would be the Whitby Goth Festival, not the Whitby Witcher Festival. But they're not trying to ignore that past. No. It will be wider than that, for sure. I think it's important to be wider than that. I don't think it wants to go down that comparatively narrow way. I mean, once we have Whitby Goth Festival already, we know the strong links of Whitby Abbey. Of course, you can't ignore the goth history of Whitby. Absolutely not. So does it say exactly how long? Some other names in that offer are Lee Child. Lee Child, the crime writer, is coming. And also the broadcast ambassador, Rob Rinder. Is my mind correct in saying that Lee Child is also coming to Harrogate Literature Festival? That's right. He's been, he's been many times before, because he's such a big crime writer and such a great festival of crime writing. The Dixon's Orbicular Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. And he's coming up in about two weeks' time in Harrogate. Is that to say what Alan Aitbourn will discuss? No, but as you know, he's written a hell of a lot of plays. So he's got about... He's up beyond 90 plays now, Graham. Well, you're going to hope he's going to, like, not try and do them all, because it's going to be a long show. It's going to be a long evening, as he does, isn't it? So, Graham, we'll come to our last topic shortly. But just, we were discussing last week, and we didn't quite complete our discussion, on the play that I went to, which was Through It All Together, which is subsequent to actually seeing the play. I've now interviewed the writer, Chris O'Connor. And I'm full of even more admiration about the play now, because the work that he went, that he put into it, the research, so thorough, but also the fact that Leeds Playhouse is at the forefront in matters of dementia, in terms of dealing with dementia in audiences, how they involve people with dementia in the theatre. Chris himself, incidentally, helps run sessions with Hay Days, which is the group at the Playhouse for older people. And all that fed into the play as well. And it's still running for quite a while longer yet in Leeds. This is a play that's, it's interweaved together. The story of Marcelo Bielsa, bringing a god-like figure to Leeds United, and Leeds United support is played by Rhys Dinsdale, who I also interviewed this week, going through the early stages, and then the middle stage of developing dementia. And it's written with such intelligence, and instinct, and understanding. It's both a celebration of Leeds United, which is maybe, other clubs might wish to see things differently, but actually it's a play that could work, I think, being told about any club's fans. But above all, I think it's the play that handles the subject's dementia in a way that is, and Chris has pains to point this out, but he didn't want it to be presented in the way that it's often been presented, both in television terms, including in soap opera. He wanted to bring a different dimension to the story. And I think he has achieved that. And that's partly through Rhys Dinsdale's absolutely tremendous lead performance in the role of Howard Wright, and also Shobhana Gulati playing his wife. It's Chris's understanding of dementia comes about through his grandmother's experience, in particular, an ongoing experience with dementia, and he's sort of drawn on that. And it's his understanding, I think, I mean, obviously, I'm invested in that story from my father's journey, certainly of dementia as well. But one of the things he wasn't frightened to show was that there are moments of humour within it as well. There are moments of lucidity, there are moments which are not, and there are moments when lucidity comes back, and then there's a gradual descent, and he doesn't hide from that. He told me that, he said, one, and I'm not going to say which review it was, because I don't know, felt that the story should have been taken to the conclusion of the death of Howard Wright, the character. And I think that's a complete misjudgment, because you do not need that moment. We know where the story is going, and the last song is, they're sung together, the lyrics of Marching On Together adapted to We Love You Sue, I Love You Sue, Sue, Sue, which he's sung to his wife through all the years of being Legionella fans together, and he sings it one final time in the play. And you know that at that point, he's going to be going into a dementia care home. It doesn't need a story to go further than that. You've got to allow the power of drama at that point. You do not need to do the obvious things. Also, the point of a story is to get the point across. You don't have to take the story to its whole conclusion, because that's what a story is about. A story is about getting the point across. Once you've got the point across, you don't need to then carry on to the bigger end, because it's just repeating what you already know, what the audience already knows. I asked Cliff how early he came up with that ending, decided to have the husband and wife singing that part of the song, and he said that idea came to him very, very early. He knew that that should be the ending. I think that's part of what makes this playwriting, and he's an experienced playwright. He's done a lot of work with Red Ladder, for example, the Leeds company. I think that's one thing that shows through in this piece as well. Just the last point about through it all together is to say to people, get there early, and look at the exhibition. It's not a big exhibition, but there's a wall of information that's very well worth reading. Lots of quotes from different people, including Alan Peacock, a former Regional Footballer. It's just all part of actually how well this play is being put together. It's a celebration of legionnaires, yes. It's also an awareness of dementia, which affects so many people, and it's handled in a way that I think is really, really well done, and I would urge legionnaire fans and non-legionnaire fans as well. You won't feel a drift in the play if you're not a legionnaire fan. If you're a football fan, you will understand the culture of football. Even if you're not, actually, you will still be drawn into the story because the human story, the dementia side of the story, draws you in as much as the story of football. So, I can't recommend this piece highly enough. It's well worth seeing. It's great, Charles. Yeah. Our last topic for tonight is actually a kind of ongoing subject matter, which is one week now to go to the Tribute to Chris Simpson and Magna Carta. This is the Harrogate musician Chris Simpson and the Harrogate folk musicians Magna Carta, and it's an event in Harrogate, Graham, that you were involved in. One week to go to it now. I mean, this is, in its own way, a very significant event. I mean, I don't imagine Chris has done this kind of talk for quite some time. A truly significant figure within the culture of folk music and where he took folk music. Maybe, as with the book that you're writing as well, this is going to draw attention to it in a way that hasn't happened, as maybe it should have done, but actually to get the chance to listen to Chris talking about Magna Carta. That seems to be a pretty special event, Graham. It's really about Harrogate recognising one of its own songs. Yeah. I mean, he's still famous abroad, but he hasn't been famous in Britain for a long time. And the last time they actually played live in Harrogate, I believe, I'm pretty sure I'm right, was when he played for me in the first year of The Fringe when I was going to The Fringe for Harrogate National Festival in 2010. So he hadn't actually played or appeared in any public function in Harrogate since 2010. And he hasn't played anywhere in Britain, to my note, I'm pretty sure he hasn't, since 2020. And, you know, he's not in the best of health now. So this is a rare chance for Harrogate to actually celebrate one of his own songs. He's a bit unrecognised in Britain now, but he's written so many great songs over so many decades without quite getting to just his arts. And so it's going to be a special night. We'll play a lot of Magna Carta and Chris will talk a bit, but his health is bad. But it's great he's actually going to be out in public and he's going to be recognised in public as well. Are you leading the event, Graham? Of course, yeah. Well, it's part of Vinyl Sessions, which we've been doing for a long time. So that's why the music aspect's there. And also, we use money for the Harrogate Community Hospital charity. So it's a joint venture myself and Colin Payne for Vinyl Sessions. And of course, Graham, Harrogate Community Hospital radio, of course, links in with our podcast as well, of course, they would not. Well, Harrogate Community Radio also supports the hospital, but it isn't hospital radio, that's an entirely separate thing. You've been listening to the podcast Two Big Egos in a Small Car. Your hosts were Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson. This was a Baltic sub-production.
There are no comments yet.
Be the first! Share your thoughts.
