We used the part-ruined Mortuary Chapel in the middle of Abney Park Cemetery in the first year of the festival, hosting a theatre performance that was rendered doubly atmospheric with a huge thunderstorm half way through.
Until this year, it’s been closed and boarded shut while essential works took place to secure the structure. It’s been very sensitively done; the new roof means that it’s more protected from the elements but the work has stopped short of removing any of the character and atmosphere of such a wonderful building.
We’ve arranged a small series of events in the Chapel over the weekend, with a view to working out how to best use the space to showcase spoken word and literary events. We hope you get to visit, either during the day or at our special after-dusk event.
Sat 3rd June:
1pm: Barbican Young Poets. We’re delighted to host a lunchtime event with these rising poetry and spoken word stars, hosted by the internationally renowned and hugely charismatic Artistic Director Jacob Sam-La Rose. They’ll be performing work that complements this incredible space.
https://stokenewingtonlitfest.eventcube.io/events/7315/barbican-young-poets/
3pm: Refugee Tales is a wonderful project supporting refugees, asylum seekers and immigration detainees, inspired by Chaucer (http://refugeetales.org/) and three leading writers join us to read some of those tales: Patience Agbabi, David Herd and Rachel Holmes.
https://stokenewingtonlitfest.eventcube.io/events/7126/refugee-tales/
9pm: Burying the Truth. Surrounded by gravestones reaching back centuries, 3 Killer Women – Melanie McGrath, Julia Crouch and Erin Kelly – discuss the secrets that many take to the grave, and their impact on the lives – and deaths – of their families and victims.
https://stokenewingtonlitfest.eventcube.io/events/7140/burying-the-truth/
Meet at 8:54pm at Abney Park Gates on Church St to be guided to the venue
Sun 4th June
4pm: Penny Rimbaud, writer, philosopher, painter & activist and co-founder of anarcho-punk band Crass, performs his interpretation of Ginsberg’s Howl, reimagined as How?. Features Kate Shortt on cello.
Please note the venue has a gravel floor and we can’t be held responsible for damaging your slingbacks. Accessible to wheelchairs but very uneven surfaces in the cemetery.
A limited bar is available.
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