Maverick News

Be like Santa - Get your Walking Boots On! The (Christmas) London Literary Pub Crawl starts this Saturday. This Christmas season, celebrate with a unique walking tour of London's Literary Pubs, in the company of CHARLES DICKENS and VIRGINIA WOOLF*. Enjoy an old-fashioned Christmas Cockney sing-song around the piano on Saturday 15th and 22nd. And as a supporter of Maverick Theatre you can still get tickets for a tenner on the Maverick website here They're limited, and we have a feeling they'll disappear fast! Details of the tour are at www.LondonLiteraryPubCrawl.com *And Maverick's Nick Hennegan. And Dylan Thomas, Jeffrey Bernard, T.S. Eliot and Anthony Burgess. And others... follow on Twitter friend on Facebook forward to a friend  Copyright © 2012 Maverick Theatre Company, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because we have had dealings with you. We don't buy or sell emailing lists. Our mailing address is: Maverick Theatre Company c/o 33a Prebend Mansions Chiswick High Road London, England W4 2LU United Kingdom Add us to your address book  unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences

A Literary 2012, literally!

Well, what a year 2012 has been.  The Silver Jubilee, the Olympics and more importantly (to us anyway) the launch of the London Literary Pub Crawl.  It's because we are a not-for-profit charity with no budget that the critical and audience acclaim we've received early on has been so important and so crucial... and so moving.  Partly inspired by the Olympics coming to London, I felt a desire - perhaps a passion - to share what I'd found out about the struggle some of the worlds most famous writers went through in their early lives in the capital city. And it's so gratifying to realise there are others who share this passion.  So far it's cost everybody involved with this project. The actors, the writers, me - none of us have received a fee and we've turned up and rehearsed at our own cost. But we're doing it because we want to try and avoid the financial hardship the likes of Dylan Thomas, Charles Dickens & Samuel Johnson went through. If we can find an audience we might be able, one day, to give local actors and writers a leg up.

It's very early days for our London tour. But I REALLY want to thank you. As mentioned outside the Soho Theatre, your interest and willingness to buy a ticket for our tour will, literally one day change the literary world!

And that's not a bad thing now, is it...!

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Why the London 2012 Olympic Games legacy is truly Heroic.

London Olympic rings.

Much has been made by the organisers of the London 2012 Olympics about Legacy. The legacy of the buildings and stadia; of the area around East London that has been completely re-developed for the games; of additional participation in sport and the legacy of the games on generations of youngsters. Indeed, some feel the reason London was successful in its 2005 bid, beating other superstar cities such as Paris and New York, was the emphasis it placed on young people and the heritage of the games.

However some in London and the UK were perhaps understandably cynical of the games. The huge cost and disruption to infrastructure were going to leave a legacy of debt, something most Olympic hosts know only too well.

Rule Britannia

I have to declare a vested interest here - I now live in London and this is the first Olympic city I have ever lived in - or probably ever will. So it's difficult to be properly objective about the effect the games has had outside of the capital.

The failure of the commercial company G4S to supply a sufficient number of security staff just a few weeks before the Olympics kicked off elicited a cry of 'Told you so' from the naysayers. Miles of roads in one of the most congested cities in the world were going to be blocked off or restricted as Olympic routes. Zill lanes, as they were disparagingly referred to, making reference to the Soviet habit of reserving lanes on major roads for a privileged political few. There was something decidedly un-British about allowing others to go first without asking!

But then as we got closer to the games attitudes seemed to change. We were waiting for a disaster but it never came. Instead we had the sight of mega-countries like Team USA training in Birmingham. And the sport itself was truly memorable. The whole country - maybe the world - stopped for the ten seconds of Usain Bolt's 100 meters final. Mo Farrah, a refugee to these shores, has become a national hero in the UK with an affectionate nickname - the MoBot. Cyclist Sir Chis Hoy, no stranger to Gold Medal Winning, moved himself and the nation to tears with his emotions on the podium. And Danny Boyle's opening ceremony, whilst sharing the slight bizarreness of all Olympic Openings, was actually rather good.

Jesica Ennis in action.

Practically, as London Mayor Boris Jonson mentioned in his speech during the celebration parade, this Olympics has been the first time ever strangers have felt able to converse with each other on the tube - the London Underground - about matters other than complaining about treading on each others toes. The Olympic traffic flowed as it should. The security survived flawlessly. The Olympic volunteers - the Games-Makers - smiled and could be seen all over London just being happy and helpful.

How moving was Saudi's first woman athlete

But chiefly there was the impact of other non-superstar sportsmen and women.  We witnessed in-yer-face grit and determination from people who participate in sport for good old fashioned reasons. To take part. To achieve for the sake of achievement itself. We're used to seeing multi-millionaire footballers on our TVs but who could fail to be moved by the sight of Saudi Arabia's first ever women athlete, hopelessly out-classed, cross the finishing line in last place and receive a huge standing ovation from a packed Olympic stadium. The super humans of the Paralympics also proved that sport and achievement is its own success. Years of sacrifice to be the best had nothing to do with direct financial reward.  In a world dominated by talk of unbridled capitalism, greedy bankers and financial strife, the real legacy of the London 2012 Olympics is that for the month or so of the games, we were all reminded globally that in spite of colour, creed, religion or belief we are all human. And when some of us strive to be great, to be heroic, we support each other and we all benefit.    

The real legacy of the London Olympic games is that it has reminded us how beautifully human we all can still be.

Loving Literature, boozers and partners...

I've not been here for a while and it's the old thang about Twitter and Facebook et al, against 'old fashioned' blogging. I also now have an iPad and for some reason it doesn't seem to want to let me upload images to Blogger. Any idea how I get round that? Anyhow, the sun has finally arrived with the Olympics and we have launched the first London Literary Pub Crawl. I want this to work and if I can get it right it might change the fortunes of both me and Maverick Theatre. The one lesson I have learned over the last few years of running Maverick is that you can't do it on your own. John Slater and I were able to sustain a huge amount of work together; far greater than the sum of our parts. I now realise I need collaborators and partners, not just for any social reason, but because there are many people much smarter than I who are prepared to sign up for a concept and try and get it off the ground. So I might blog the process of this. Possibly for my own well being. When you find yourself working on your own, it's great to have at least a blog to replace your work colleagues. And like many people in 'proper' jobs, I can take me iPad down the pub on a Friday night after work and talk about what the Blog is going on. Let's see if this blog works first. The first written on my iPad. Down the pub, as it happens...!