As part of this year's Rochdale Literature And Ideas Festival, an event was held to celebrate women writers - all women writers, indeed any women writer, from anywhere in the world in any century, with only one proviso; that being that they are a part of The Maskew Collection in Rochdale Library.
Ok, a little explanation before we move forward! The Maskew Collection is a unique collection of classic literature and philosophy resources named after Frank and Annie Maskew, who first met in Rochdale library in the 1950s. A bequest was given to the library to purchase and upkeep a collection of literature and philosophy books to inspire future generations with the joy of reading and thinking.
To this end, the festival had asked Joyce Branagh to collate and curate a short event to celebrate women writers and in turn four actresses and a keyboard player were engaged and an hour's distraction from the murky grey weather outside unfolded.
Branagh introduced the event and talked us through each piece and why it was chosen with background information and anecdotes. Always interesting, always pertinent, and the hour was indeed highly entertaining. In fact I listened to some things this hour that I had never heard of before and were indeed inspiring and illuminating.
The event had a lovely mix of songs, poetry, and novel / play extracts and we really did travel the world and the centuries with this whirlwind tour. After starting with the Carole King song, 'Natural Woman' we moved swiftly into literary terra firma with Shelagh Delaney's A Taste Of Honey whizzing around the globe to New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, Italy, Poland, Pakistan, Africa, and goodness knows where else before coming back 'home' to hear an excerpt from Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice and finishing of course with what else other than Victoria Wood's hilarious Ballad Of Barry And Freda.
The four actresses taking part in this event were (and I hope I have got these correct!) Hannah Ellis Ryan, Mina Anwar, Krissi Bohn, Sue Delaney and the pianist was Rebecca Hughes.
All the items chosen were lovely and meritorious, and the afternoon was hugely enjoyable, however, here a just a couple of my personal favourites from the event..
In no particular order, I really enjoyed the excerpt from the play 'Women Alone' written by Franca Rame, Dario Fo's wife. - a comedy despite, or maybe even in spite of, the tragedy. Two pieces about munitions workers in the two world wars; first a poem by Madeline Ida Bedford and then a Music Hall song made famous by Gracie Fields called 'The Thingummybob Song'.
Also of note was a superb poem by Zora Neale Hurston, at one time America's most prolific black female writer; a small gem of a poem from a Czech poet called simply 'Silence'; Sujata Bhatt's poem, 'Love In A Bathtub', and an excerpt from Aphra Behn's 'Orinoco'.
A couple of things which would have just put the icing on the cake however would have been certainly for the performers to have made a little effort to dress smartly and appropriately. They did look as though they had just come from lounging around at home sadly. Also, the keyboard needed the volume upping, it was inaudible past the third row of seats.
These minor hinderances notwithstanding, the afternoon was a joy to watch and listen to, and we could easily have listened to much more.
Reportage - Matthew Dougall
on - 21/10/18
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