book tickets
David Harper - Unexpected Tales
Tales from the funny world of TV, art and antiques!
David Harper - As seen on Bargain Hunt, Antiques Roadtrip, Celebrity Eggheads, Flog It, For What It's Worth, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, Celebrity Masterchef, Through The Keyhole…and lots more.
Featuring funny behind the scenes anecdotes from TV, live auctions, exciting antique finds, huge profits, even bigger losses, as well as stories from celebrity TV appearances and historical journeys through time. It’s all part of what makes this show like no other.
The show is very much audience led with involvement in the form of questions from the audience or questions and challenges from David throughout, as the talk develops.
WHY? Join the TV celebrity and national treasure David Harper as he shares the stories of his career
Courtyard Theatre
£15
other events you may be interested in
Sharon Shannon & Band with special guest Seckou Keita
Legendary Irish accordion maestro Sharon Shannon brings a new live show on UK tour 2019.
Joined by her band, Jim Murray (acoustic guitar), Jack Maher (electric guitar, vocals) and Sean Regan (fiddle, percussion and beatbox), Sharon will perform music from her many albums throughout the years, including 2017s Sacred Earth.
Seckou Keita from Senegal playing Kora and percussion was one of the key collaborators. Now Seckou joins Sharon and her band, as a special guest on the Sacred Earth UK tour 2019.
Courtyard Theatre
£18
Poetry Group
Led by Rosemary Muncie
If you enjoy poetry, this group is for you. Bring along poems to share and discuss whether your own writing or favourites - from the anonymous traveller who longed for the western wind to blow to the subtle and ironic voices of today.
Summer
Sun 12 May, 9 Jun, 7 Jul, 11 Aug
10.30am – 12.30pm
£5 per session including a drink from the bar
Sunday Stories
Interactive storytelling in the magical story den.
Join in or unwind in the Café Bar with a latte and the Sunday papers, while your little ones get involved in telling stories from all over the world.
Join Ruth on Sunday 9 June. She will be reading:
- The Emperor's Nightingale, and a pocket full of tales.
Age guidance 4 – 7 years.
WHY? A sociable, creative and entirely relaxed way to do Sundays for families with young children
The Story Den
£3.50 per person (45 mins)
The Good Life - The Songs of Tony Bennett
Robert Habermann performs the songs and tells the story of the great Tony Bennett.
From starting out as a singing waiter, to being invited to join Bob Hope on tour and becoming an international icon. Featuring his hit songs including Stranger in Paradise, The Good Life, It Had to Be You, Blue Velvet and The Very Thought of You.
WHY? The first time his story has been told with all his great songs and images of his paintings
Studio
£15 (£13.50)
Margaret Atwood: Live In Cinemas
On Tuesday, September 10th, the wait is over….The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s highly anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, is revealed.
The momentous literary event will be celebrated with an exclusive live cinema broadcast, as Fane Productions present an evening with the Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic and inventor.
The publication of Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985 and the current, Emmy Award-winning television series have created a cultural phenomenon, as handmaids have become a symbol of women’s rights and a protest against misogyny and oppression. Live from the London stage, Atwood will be interviewed by broadcaster and author Samira Ahmed in a conversation spanning the length of Atwood’s remarkable career, her diverse range of works, and why she has returned to her seminal handmaid story, 34 years later.
‘Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in.’
With exclusive readings from the new book by special guests, this will be an unmissable and intimate event with Atwood, spotlighting her signature insight, humour and intellect.
The Testaments will be published worldwide on 10 September.
The Beatles: Hornsey Road with Mark Lewisohn
The surprises and delights of Abbey Road, the Beatles’ final album – 50 years on.
September 2019 is the golden anniversary of the Beatles’ multi-platinum album Abbey Road – the last work they recorded before their seismic breakup. It was both the end of the Sixties and the end of the greatest band of all time.
To hail this anniversary, world’s leading Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn is touring a theatre show of illumination, intrigue, surprises, delights, humour, excitement and entertainment – a fast-moving and smart illustrated history of our forever national-heroes the Beatles, their brilliant album Abbey Road, and other major events of that extraordinary year 1969.
Mark Lewisohn has the world’s greatest archive of Beatles stuff, harvested over 40+ years of unrivalled deep access to archives and public and private collections. He will be showing audiences a stunning array of strong and relevant content, with rare music, photos, films and choice memorabilia. Audiences (even superfans) will see and hear things they didn’t know existed.
Hornsey Road (that intriguing title will be explained …), tells all about how the album was made and the many momentous events that occurred during its recording, when the Beatles were joyously together inside the recording studio but falling apart outside. This was the year of their breakup, and the album was made at a time of turmoil in their personal and business lives.
Abbey Road wasn’t just one of so many glorious and triumphant chapters in the Beatles’ unparalleled time together, it was their best-selling and last piece of work. Audiences at Hornsey Road will be constantly grabbed by the sights and sounds that show how it all came together.
Courtyard Theatre
£20
Susie Dent presents The Secret Life of Words
Lexicographer - Best Selling Author – Queen of Dictionary Corner
Take a journey into the curious, unexpected, and downright surreal origins of the words we use every day. Susie will retell the adventures that lie hidden within such words as lasagne (involving a chamber pot) and bugbear (a terrorising monster), and explain such oddities as the silent h in ghost and the mysterious disappearance of kempt, gormful, and ruly (and yes, you really can be gruntled). She will look to the lexicon of the past to fill some of today’s linguistic gaps – such as the frenzied fit of tidying we all do just as guests are about to descend (that’s a scurryfunge).
Alongside such forgotten stories you will hear Susie’s selection of the funniest moments from her 25 years on Countdown and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, as well as some startling results from eavesdropping on a group of waiters.
Each evening will include some of Susie’s favourite words from the towns and regions she visits, and she’ll be asking the audience for theirs. In fact, she’ll be welcoming any questions about word origins, usage irritations, the dreaded impact of Americanization, and the very future of our language in her very own ‘word surgery’.
WHY? 'Funny, fact-filled and delightful' Jonathan Ross
'Wonderfully clever and funny... a national treasury from a national treasure Richard Osman
'Susie Dent is a one-off. She breathes life and fun into words' Pam Ayres
Courtyard Theatre
£20
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