Nick Hennegan's Bohemian Britain
Lifestyle tales from the city
Writer Richard hosts brace of Californians, expanding their consciousness (by the pint!) in Soho!
Join us every Thursday and Saturday and discover some of the greatest artists and writers in the world. All with a pint! šŗ šā¤ļø
THIS SATURDAY via Zoom – details at http://www.TheatreProducerTraining.com
Another brilliant @LiteraryPubs night ends in Soho, talking AmDram, āThe Toast of Londonā and writing. Join us every weekend and now on Thursday evenings!
š·š·š·š· (4 our of 5 fine wines… while wine is still available !)
As someone who has been attending the Edinburgh Fringe Festival since 1992, Iām no stranger to small-scale, one person shows. In fact Iāve written and directed a few myself.
But Iām consistently blown away at the level of talent some of these solo writer and performers exhibit – especially the younger ones – (or at least younger than me!) and this is no exception.
āCabaret For The End of the Worldā is actually quite bleak – but it’s also very funny and often very moving too. Cathy Wippel plays Montselier, an Apocalypse surviver. (And, we soon find out, the only surviving accordion player in London!)
It’s the 453rd day after the Bomb has dropped, destroying London and maybe the rest of the UK and the world. This, unsurprisingly has TERRIBLY limited general entertainment, so Montselier has decided to have a cabaret performance in the Barons Court Theatre with us, the audience, assumed fellow apocalypse survivors.
Itās a clever conceit and works very well. Weāre easily drawn into her world.
She first appears as a cross between a vamp and a vampire and starts with a striptease! Although it is only her hazmat suit, rubber gloves and goggles and weāre soon talking about acid rain and people growing extra limbs. But itās a clever way of breaking the fourth wall and giving a slightly surreal conceit a contemporary relevance.
Wippel is wonderful with a perfect physicality. Her accordion is also a perfect partner. The script is coupled with subtle but perfectly-aimed commentary on our (actual?) current society, to the point of making everyone feel a little uncomfortable about the ārealā future. The hints as to why this whole mess happened, are perhaps chillingly relevant in current times. There are little asides like āmaybe I should have signed a petitionā and āmaybe I should have loved the world a little moreā which cleverly reflect on the increasing feeling of futility many people feel in the current political minefield, without being at all āpreachyā, as Wippel brilliantly works us, the audience, too.
It’s a tidy and talented theatrical treat. So go see the cabaret for the end of the world. Beforeā¦ wellā¦ before the end of the world? Without or without an accordion.
WE DID IT! Thank you SO MUCH if you contributed to our initial fundraiser for the first West London People’s Theatre Company! We’re still fundraising, but we can get the wheels in motion for our first production in Spring 2026!
If you’d like to be involved in ANY aspect of putting on a theatre production, see HERE.
This timeā¦ Brendan Behanās niece, two undercover poets, a former NHS worker – and mainly a LOVELY bunch of people who – as normally happens – we now consider friends!
Become our friends too! http://www.LondonLiteraryPubCrawl.com.
Nick Hennegan celebrates the birthdays this week of two of the greatest writers of the last century – Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath.
And celebrate writers live every week in London with The London Literary Pub Crawl!
Poet Cahal Dallat talks to Nick Hennegan about a celebration of 150 years of a unique part of London. The area was built specifically to attract artists, writers, poets, painters, and creators.
For more details, see www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com/events/
Nick Hennegan talks to writer Sam Cullen about his latest book commemorating some of London’s greatest lost pubs.
Nick HenneganĀ is in a Pub in Wales, celebrating national poetry of TWO countries. With contributions fromĀ T. Lew Jones, Dylan ThomasĀ andĀ John Keats.
