Drill Hall Raise the Roof Gala Night

What a night!

Very many thanks to the wonderful Julie Fox for being mad enough, brave enough and sufficiently determined to bring it all together.
It must have taken many hours of rehearsal by the wonderful young performers from the Lincoln Academy of Theatre Arts Theatre School to perform excerpts from CATS, Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera. Thanks to them and the juniors, who were very simply a delight.
Thanks to Stephen John Davis and former LATA student, Alex Lodge, from coming up from West End productions to sing so wonderfully for us. And what about Jamie Marcus and his son, Harry: some serious talent.
Drama from Common Ground, and their forthcoming Waiting for Godot. A scene from the 2012 production of Calendar Girls was a total delight. But don't rest on your laurels, the FishTank performers have some wonderful promise.
Saturday Sessions are a vital part of the Drill Hall life and the two acts performing showed serious talent.
Performance poet Gemma Baker made us think about how we have power to keep this wonderful place. Together we can, so Be A Brick and Buy A Brick.

A delighted audience at the 2018 Lincoln Book Festival with thanks to Phil Crow

A sideways look at Victoriana

In this year’s  Lincoln Book Festival, we want to look at the Victorian period in a different way. So, we look first at its obsessions and then at its distractions. We examine crime and how fiction may have initiated the criminal act. We look at the people who met the Queen and what they thought.

The line-up features prize-winning authors and critically acclaimed new works of history writing and historical fiction. Among the literary celebrations of Victoria and the Victorians, highlights include:

Lee Jackson - Palaces of Pleasure - 

Ambrose Parry - The Way of All Flesh - 

David Gilmour - The British in India - 

Miranda Seymour - In Byron’s Wake - 

We celebrate John Ruskin and, the Brontes, and, through Lincoln’s wonderful archive, Tennyson.

Its not all Victoria. We open with a celebration of young persons writing with young adults author Melvin Burgess. We have Sarah Hogg with her novel set in her home at Kettlethorpe. We welcome back the wonderful Susan Fletcher with her House of Glass. We have letter writing, trains and food with Leaves from a Tuscan Kitchen. 

We have four great fringe events. David Starkey talking on a Monarchy of Misfits at Lincoln Drill Hall, The French Lieutenants Woman at the Venue and two pieces of short theatre at Lincoln’s Oxfam Bookshop