A return of the Corsham StoryTown Festival is being mooted with another celebration of the art of creative storytelling and writing. This provides a great opportunity to involve the Pickwick Association with a sequel to last year’s immensely successful Pickwick Capers.
Pickwick Capers was held on 18 October 2019 in the splendid and appropriate Victorian setting of the Masonic Hall building in Pickwick.
Inspired by an idea by Neville Farmer to link the ‘array of characters that came into his sphere’. Pickwick Capers was conceived as ‘an entertainment involving recitation, singing, drama etc.’
Pickwick Capers brought together drama teacher and playwright Marnie Forbes-Eldridge, Corsham Regis School, Pickwick Association members and the local community in a show which included readings from The Pickwick Papers, a rousing performance of ‘What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor’ and even a scene recreating the discovery of the foundling Moses Pickwick in 1694.
Pickwick Association Chairman David Taylor said after the show ‘What history, what characters, what fun, what a wonderfully rewarding afternoon!’
The show also quoted from work by author, Stephen Jarvis who wrote Death and Mr Pickwick. He subsequently made contact with the Pickwick Association with great enthusiasm about the production.
As with the original Pickwick Capers, John Maloney has once again come up with some innovative ideas for Pickwick Capers II:
John has proposed a collaboration which could draw on sources including the fascinating 1901 Oliver Twist Children’s Story by Kate Dickinson Sweetser.
This was written during a period when Corsham had a Poor House and Pickwick had a Pox House!
Also, during our current challenging times it could reference Dickens’s Hard Times with its themes of poverty for the many, fabulous wealth for the few, the effects of industrialisation and an education system totally based on ‘hard’ facts.
So what are your thoughts on the concept of Pickwick Capers II? Let us know what you think and get involved…