A UK SUMMER OF CULTURE

Despite the rise of technology and our obsession with social media, the UK remains a hub of culture and creativity.

Obvious mentions include the Royal Family, The Suffragettes, and our fascination with William Shakespeare. Although paper books might be less commonplace, with over 4 million readers using Amazon’s Kindle unlimited, literature has become more accessible thanks to technological advances.

Social media platform TikTok has become a space for book lovers known as ‘BookTok’, allowing people to discover new reads and leave reviews on books. Furthermore, in 2021, 2 in 5 people were reported to listen to audiobooks to hit their reading goal for the day, which shows diversion from the traditional hand-held paper book. The diversity of reading options has allowed for a wider variety of reading materials such as fictional podcasts like ‘The Black Tapes’ and digitally drawn graphic novels. A teenager who appears to be scrolling through Instagram could just as easily be turning the page on a gripping thriller on their phone.

So, while we might curse social media from time to time, it allows for sharing of resources and ideas, and the teenager hooked on their new favourite book may have discovered it through ‘BookTok’.

However, sometimes connecting digitally isn’t enough and many book lovers dream of events allowing them to meet their favourite authors or likeminded bookworms. Thankfully, there are many established gatherings like The London Book Fair and literature festivals throughout England. The London Book Fair, hosted in May, has been and gone, however, there are other upcoming events such as the Penzance Literature Festival in July.

The Penzance Literary Festival is held from 2nd July to the 6th July and takes place in various venues across Penzance in Cornwall. Most of us don’t need an excuse to visit Cornwall. The beautiful county in Southwest England offers charming shops, quaint coastal towns and glorious rugged coastlines, making it a popular tourist spot and holiday location. The county might be famous for its Cornish pasties, but it is also a hub of creativity, and the Penance Literary Festival attracts bookish tourists from all over.

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The festival features events like ‘Secret Gardens of Cornwall’, ‘The Art of The Cartoonist’, and ‘Reimagining the Climate Crisis: Storytelling in a changing world’. Tickets for the majority of these events are £6-10.00. The website offers the opportunity to download the schedule of events, and with 19 pages worth of activities, one will be spoilt for choice.

If you fancy yourself a writer, the Literary Festival also offers workshops for budding writers, and the lack of tickets speaks for themselves. All eight workshops are sold out, so if you’d like to attend a workshop next year, get your bookings in fast. This year offers workshops on ‘Character Development’ and ‘How to Plot a Novel’, perfect for those who are interested in writing or writers who need a spark of inspiration.

Their website offers directions on how to get to the festival and essential information on how to book your LitFest ticket. If you turn up without booking, you can still buy tickets at the door of events for cash payment, however, they urge you to book tickets in advance to avoid disappointment.

Hand-in-hand with literature, the UK’s love of theatre and drama dates back to the 10th Century and grew in importance throughout the 1500s. In 1576, the first theatre was built in Finsbury Fields in London and was an enormous hit, predicted to have about 50 million visits from its opening up to 1642.

Today, the art of theatre is mostly loved by people over the age of 30, which shows it is dwindling as a form of entertainment for young people. Instead, there appears to be segregation of theatre lovers into social groups who are ‘theatre kids’, unique and elite and separate from other young people.

The formation of these social groups is detrimental to theatre as a form of entertainment and seems to infer that only those who are part of the ‘theatre kids’ are ‘good’ at acting and performing and only they will enjoy theatre. Many of us know, of course, that this is an incorrect assumption.

Companies like Austentacious are evidence that everyone can enjoy theatre. Their plays are suitable for all ages and are guaranteed to be hilariously witty and sometimes raucous. This company is made up of a small group of performers (around 4-5 people) taking on various roles and characters. Austentacious is taking the world by storm, collecting rave reviews from that of The Times Magazine, who praised their shows as ‘a potboiler of a parody, joyously performed’. The Telegraph also rated the company five stars and described their shows as ‘brilliant, barmy improv in Regency frocks’.

Austentatious, inspired by the works of author Jane Austen, perform their shows in Regency Era gowns and suits, adopting accents fitting to whatever made-up character they might be playing. It might feel like everything has been ‘done’ in the 21st Century, with almost 1 in 3 small businesses confessing they expect to close by the end of 2024, Austentatious hasn’t experienced these anxieties thus far.

The company has grown and flourished thanks to their Unique Selling Point which is abnormal in that their plays rely on an audience member’s title. This means every one of their plays is completely improvised and unexpected for the performers too! Previous shows have featured titles like ‘Survival of the Frilliest’ (a thrilling lesbian love story including archery and windowless rooms), ‘Mansplain Park’, and ‘Tent and Tent Stability’. If the titles have got you giggling, watching their performances will leave you in stitches! Austentatious is currently performing in the West End, London throughout July. Book now on their website to avoid disappointment as their shows often sell-out.

Making the ‘old’ new and relatable enables a modern audience to enjoy classical literature like that of Jane Austen, and the same can be said for reviving periods of history and bringing them to live in the 21st Century. Few people can fail to be thrilled while witnessing jousting events with knights and horses dressed in armour. Historical re-enactments such as these are enjoyed by all ages, from young children to the elderly. These performances are like an immersive history lesson, serving to be both educational and entertaining. Many castles in the UK put on reimagined jousting and duels to attract tourists, however, the Tewkesbury Medieval Festival is one historical event that doesn’t need to try to attract visitors!