MLF: Evolving Words and six by six book launch

Two blogged in one, as I cannot remember that much.

Evolving Words was worth the trip just for the venue.  The performance took place in Manchester museum’s Animal Life gallery, so above our heads was the giant whale skeleton.

The young performers intertwined Darwin with growing up and cultural identity, I quite enjoyed the merging of Darwin with individuality, but I couldn’t help but edging towards my critical side.

To me it was an enjoyable school play, the group young identity who are in residence at the contact theatre certainly had the guts to perform so all credit to them.

I loved the six by six awards, it was a lovely way for me to round off the festival attending on my own with a glass of free wine and a record bag, seated in the Lord mayor’s Parlour.

It was a fitting tribute to the great project that MMU Cheshire’s Creative writing graduates, and Stockport College’s illustration undergraduates had collaborated on together.  The short story anthology gave me a severe hankering to be back at Salford studying Creative Writing .

The book launch was of a really high standard and gave the students the credit their work deserved.

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MLF: Face to Face with Jimmy McGovern

This was an event.  An audience with Jimmy McGovern, staged at the Cornerhouse cinema.  McGovern spoke openly about his script writing career and I found out a lot about what works for him as a writer.

Before this event I had forgotten McGovern was responsible for shows such as Cracker and Brookside, I knew only of The Streets, which I have never watched.

He spoke about how undervalued script writers of TV dramas tend to be, and I admit I am first to say I don’t watch telly because of all the crap that’s out there. 

Though it’s easy to sneer TV scripts as being trite and uninspiring, McGovern reminded us all what a hard job it is to write, and in his own case, write well.

He is such a likeable chap, who has an incredibly responsive way of dealing with the world.  He’s worked hard to get where he has and doesn’t fail to recognise this.  McGovern doesn’t shy away from saying things that some would rather he didn’t, and talks openly about the TV drama he made of the Hillsborough disaster, and how much censorship came into play.

True to his spirit he seems to balance all aspects of himself remarkably, he was intelligent, witty, extremely perceptive and clued up on all aspects of the industry, he spoke honest and openly about his failures and showed us how he felt at the time, nothing screamed falseness about this man.

Hitting the void

Each time I sit to write, I hit a point of distraction, I have taken to checking my emails every couple of seconds, tipping things out of baskets to sort them and then putting them back in and drinking copious amounts of orangina.

Today my mission is, better to do than never to finish, blogging about the Manchester Literature festival.  Nearly all the events I attended were completely free and inspiration laden, so  . . .