Felicity Kay English Tutoring

25/03/2024

Macbeth will be live at VUE cinema on the 2nd May!

Get Tickets to Macbeth: Ralph Fiennes & Indira Varma on the official site. In cinemas 2nd May.

20/12/2023

If you’d like a distraction from the fact that Christmas is a fortnight away (sorry for saying it again)... our 2024 competition is open!

All info on entering at bridportprize.org.uk

07/12/2023

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-67577402

On James "Jemmy" Wood's death, people lined the streets to boo and throw stones at his coffin.

14/11/2023

https://www.newtheatreroyal.com/performances/macbeth-2/

A full-cast production set in the murky Dark Ages where love, politics and witchcraft collide. A warworn Macbeth is told by three sisters that he is fated to become King of Scotland so beginning a series of events that lead to the destruction of Kings, friends and souls as he, and his Lady, try to c...

19/10/2022

Shall we?

Join us this Sunday (!!) at Southbank Centre for our new issue launch feat. performances by Mark Ford, Katie Peterson, Helen Bowell, Sudeep Sen, Eduardo C. Corral, and David Harsent. The event will also be available via live streaming.
We hope to see you there, so grab your tickets while there's still some left!

In-person event tickets: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/literature-poetry/npl-presents-poetry-londons-autumn-2022-readings

Live-stream tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/410545301047

16/08/2022

Buoyant with a sense of affinity with my bestie, Byron, just now – having swum a mile in open water (well, open-ish) – I thought I’d look into the mad and the bad boy’s 1810 swim across the Hellespont, and discovered this poem. Light-hearted and playful, it’s easy to hear Byron’s elation at having succeeded in his daring do. He was enormously proud of his success and fondly referred to his two mile swim from Europe to Asia, across the turbulent Dardanelles, as his biggest ever achievement. The story goes like this: hampered on shore by a club foot (as I am hampered on shore by my aging knees), Byron was over the moon to have discovered a sport in which he could excel. A good enough story as stories go. But I suspect there was more to it than that. Having been out there myself - not the Dardanelles you understand, but the Solent (the stretch of water between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight) - I suspect he felt amazing! I suspect he felt positively reborn!

After Swimming the Hellespont
By Lord Byron (1788–1824)

IF, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont;

If, when the wint’ry tempest roar’d, 5
He sped to Hero nothing loath,
And thus of old thy current pour’d,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!

For me, degenerate, modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May, 10
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I’ve done a feat to-day,

But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo—and—Lord knows what beside, 15
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;

’Twere hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals, thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labour, I my jest;
For he was drowned, and I’ve the ague. 20


A note about the picture: "Hero and Leander" by Salvator Rosavery

09/04/2022

Stop the clocks! It's David Tennant doing Macbeth!

David Tennant will play the role of Macbeth in a Radio 4 broadcast of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

16/11/2021

Anyone studying 'A Christmas Carol'? This looks good. The man himself telling us the story. "Marley was dead : to begin with..."

European Arts Company returns with a heart-warming evening in the presence of the author himself! A Christmas Carol was the first public reading Charles Dickens […] Read more