Creative-writing.ch

Cinderella 2009 Christmas Panto

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:33:54 +0100

Get ready for a feast of outrageous overacting, painful puns, awe-inspiring audience participation, raucous rock'n' music all rolled into a scintillating Cinderella... (that's enough hype! ed.)

And so it is upon us once again, Panto Fever and around the English Department and, God forbid, even in classes Panto quotes are rife and students contradict each other chorally with "oh no, it isn't" -- "oh yes, it is". All this because we're headed for a four-night series of performances of this time-honoured musical play, some would say hoary old thing, a Cinderella that all those who love the fairy tale will almost recognise. (didn't say that's enough hype? ed.)

Cinderella, the Panto
performances in the
Gaskessel (www.gaskessel.ch)
Sandrainstrasse 25, 3007 Bern
7, 8 9, 10 December
Doors open at 19.00
Show starts at 19.30
admission 15.--/20.-- (bring a cushion to sit on!)

Music and things

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:17:44 +0100

There has been little in the way of posts because the time since summer was so busy with teaching and stuff. But one of the new things to have developed in the last months is that thanks to new hardware, more and more material will become available as sound files online. The first offering here is this:

Note that "Benediction Song" can be downloaded for free.

Gymnasium Oberaargau, Langenthal

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:48:19 +0100

Listen to poetry and music and support multi-faith Gladys Allen Highschool in Karatchi. 1st July, 8 pm Aula Gymo (http://map.search.ch/4900-langenthal/weststr.21

Music and News

Tue, 27 May 2008 15:27:50 +0100

Words (Big Bill Shakespeare) and Music (FAM)

It had to happen at some stage and now it has: what with all the possibilities for ego-mania on Web 2.0 it was probably merely a matter of time until we'd be using the marvellous possibilities of Facebook and Co and the opportunities this affords for pushing music on the unsuspecting and innocent.

For the Student Theatre Group production of As You Like It I had the pleasure to supply the music, which can now, together with a couple of other songs that represent my dabbling in song-writing and recording, be accessed by clicking on this:

It's actually quite interesting that after years of playing other folks stuff (a decent cover is always better than a mediocre composition) and of not doing very much in terms of original music, there is now a burst of this and, given time, a fair bit more soon. It was great working on the tunes for the Shakespeare and his lyrics are so easy to sing, so doing the music for them was almost too easy.

The other two songs on the site for the moment are results of a bit of pastichy dabbling, with the song "Never Change" a kind of Cohen-by-numbers. The strange things seems to be that both but this one in particular attracted a lot of favourable and completely un-ironic comment on Myspace before the account was closed down for reasons that have remained unexplained. Still, go and have a listen ... and don't fall for all the heavy-duty hard sell of having to become a fan and all that. I'm doing this for fun, not (so much) for my ego.

Poetry Workshop and Reading with Poet, Singer and All-Round Good Man Donny O'Rourke

It has been my pleasure to get to know this wonderful writer, singer and enjoyer of good company, good craic and good cheer and I take great pleasure in drawing attention to the fact that he is doing a workshop and a reading on

Thursday, 29 May, 16.15-18.00 (workshop)
and 18.15 -19.15 (reading)
at Unitobler, Room f-121

It will be great to work with Donny and even greater to see lots of people for a reading that promises to be truly memorable.

More News to Follow Soonest

There will be more news soon including some concerts with the next incarnation of the Psynchopaths and a poetry reading in Langenthal.

Arrival in the 21st Century

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:01:50 +0100

Well, Web 2.0 being seriously upon us, this gives many of us a shot at media glory. And then, of course, there are all these ways of making a relatively shakey amateur video look rather less shakey and adding some snazz, largely thanks to Mac (with seems rather snazzier) and Windows (considerably less so).

Andri, Franz's son, age 12, has been messing around on his Macbook, and with the tricks it affords for editing video footage. The outcome is this short film featuring Franz reading "Pets". The video, not shakey at all, actually, was taken by Amy Smearsoll of the International School of Berne, where the reading took place during a residency there. The title tune, incidentally is a rough'n'ready multitracked first effort at a recent song. Oh, yes, and the whole thing is a Cloak & Dagger Production, Andri's most recent venture.

More Music at Mappamondo

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:51:21 +0100

After the rather pleasant evening with a wide variety of music that was ED-Aid 07 the Arts Council of the English Department has had the glorious idea to repeat the event in order to welcome our new students and to publicise what the Arts Council is all about.

And thusly we find ourselves again, Dick Watts and Dewi Williams now colloborating a bit more closely together with friends before being joined by the indefatigable Psynchopaths. And then, of course the second part of the evening will be devoted to the usual mix of Blues, Rock, Fun(k), Soul and touches of Jazz, although it has been rumoured that new songs have been added to the mix.

So get there for
Friday 5 October
Mappamondo
Theatersaal, L�nggassstrasse 44,
3012 Bern,
starting at 19:30 hrs or at least that's when the bar opens
(see also the Download file of the concert poster)

As a small advance taster there is an amateur video from one of the practice sessions featuring Dick, Dewi and Franz out in the sunny climes (ha-bloody-ha) of Oltigen, where for once the sun shone happily on three men as they were playing music in the backgarden.

Ed-Aid 07 Benefit Concert

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 01:16:53 +0100

Creative-writing.ch's own FAM will perform on stage, larger than life and twice as natural, as part of the Ed-Aid 07 Benefit Concert, which will be held at the Mappamondo Theatersaal, L�nggassstrasse 44, 3012 Bern, on Friday, 2 February 2007, starting at 20:00 hrs.

The line-up includes:

Excons
Dick Watts and Friends
Dewi Williams
L�ru Becher
Shake
The Psynchopaths

The concert hall and bar will open at 19:00 hrs, admission comes to CHF 15.--/20.--, and all proceeds go to the following charities: SidEcole, Cecily's Fund and the Equal Education Fund.

The event will double as somebody's birthday party, but the person in question being of a modest and bashful disposition, no names shall be named. Not at this point, anyway.

The concert poster is available for your downloading pleasure in a common desktop wallpaper size (1024 x 768 px) and in PDF format.

New-new and old-new on the showcase

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 01:51:16 +0100

It is with great pleasure that we can announce two changes to the showcase.

One of the most gifted participants of a workshop for teachers some years ago, Hans-J�rg Suter, got in touch with updated versions of the two texts that were up on his page, which he asked to be put up instead of the original versions he had submitted after our meeting at the Appenberg seminar. Hans-J�rg has since worked on his writing rather seriously and been to workshops of the Arvon Foundation, where very good things happen. Clearly, I'm delighted to act on his wish to have the edited versions up there in their full glory (with many thanks to you Hans-J�rg, and yes, we must think about offering such workshops like the one in Appenberg for Teachers again!)

At the same time a former participant in the Creative Writing Workshop at the Uni of Berne, Nora Rohland, also got in touch to tell me the great news that she won the Stauffacher Short Story Competition. I have great respect for short story writers (like Matt Kimmich and Sara Probst, both previous winners of this award; I tried once and sank without trace) and remembered how Nora as a first-year student did some very impressive course work. It is great to know that she too went on and went one (or several) better. Certainly, when you read her short story, you can tell that there is an extraordinary talent at work here.

I was told once by a visitor that the material posted on the Showcase had been taken for the work of published writers; nobody would think that the majority of them aren't even first language English speakers. Nora fits into this very neatly, so thanks for so spontaneously agreeing to let us display your work in the Showcase.

An afternoon workshop with English Teachers of Canton Bern

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:18:51 +0100

9 November marked a day of work together with friend and poet (and what a poet he is) Matthias R�egger at one of the regular meetings if highschool teachers of English in the Canton of Bern.
To begin with there was a short introduction to the notion of creative writing in the EFL classroom with sime basic points made by FAM and some practical hints and tricks from practicing highschool teacher Matthias. Then there was a set of four writing activities in the plenary session, followed by a circuit of 6 more activities to be tackled individually or in groups.
The presentation and the material (cue cards and instruction sheets for the activities) can be downloaded from here. The pictures used for "Picture them" are not uploaded for copyright and time reasons, sorry.
Thanks once again to all the teachers who participated and to those who read their work. Matthias and I hope that the Writing Bug may have infected you and that you may be want to try things out with your students. If more ideas are needed you can download the BBC/British Council teaching pack Creative Ways.

Residency at the International School Berne

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 10:26:33 +0100

It is with some excitement, to put it mildly, but also a bit of stagefright that FAM will be off to a two-day residency (11 and 12 September) at the English-medium International School Bern. Apart from the regular ISB students, there will also be some pupils from the Freies Gymnasium and Campus Muristalden in Bern who are taught throught the medium of English in selected subjects.

This is a follow up from the yearly visits by poets to work with and to read to the children and youngsters at this school. Previous visiting poets included George Szirtes, Ian Macmillan, Benjamin Zephania and Roger McGough, who are all hard acts to follow. Still, it's nice to rub shoulders with such an illustrius bunch of predecessors, not to mention a challenge to come up with something the students will remember.

The first day will focus on the pupils in primary school, where the challenge will be to do a writing workshop that may include rather little writing. This is followed by a reading for the children in the afternoon. Monday will finish with a reading for the older students, who will be trying their hand at writing poems the following day.

Working with children and young people always is a challenge. This is mainly because it often gives you a first shot at trying to prevent students from developing their fear of flying, which is one way to describe the unease students often have when dealing with poetry in class. Clearly, the order of the day(s) will be to make that first also the best shot...

Now watch the Movie

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:14:54 +0100

It won't exactly be the red carpet and the stretch limousines but it will be a world premiere: the first showing of Matt Kimmich's short film "Knowing me, knowing you.".

The film uses the short play of the same name which was written during a sabbatical in Greece and presents two characters, both feeling that the time for a break has come in their relationship. They both mentally rehearse conversations that might lead up to the point where this could be mentioned, each one imagining how their counterpart might react. The dialogues focus on domestic scenes and minor conflicts as they occur between seasoned couples and are interspersed with comments by the protagonists that reflect on the nature of their relationship. Contrary to what all this might suggest, the play is a comedy. If Matt doesn't contradict, I would suggest that the film is too.

The first viewing will take place on

Wednesday, 14 June 2006,
Room f022 at 18.15

followed by an aperitive.

Collaboratory temporarily closed

Tue, 16 May 2006 02:51:45 +0100

Creative-writing.ch never had very strong defences against comment spam but was largely spared -- until recently, when the Collaboratory began to get flooded with the stuff.

I've just cleared out a big steaming pile of spam and decided to close the Collaboratory to further contributions until we've got stronger spam-fighting mechanisms in place.

Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who has contributed and made the Collaboratory a fun place to visit!

Singing with Old Friend Dewi Williams

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 08:25:02 +0100

When Dewi Williams retired, there was widespread despair that both his dulcet tones and his repertoire of good-time songs would be lost to the students and friends of the English Department. And soon the raucous pre-Christmas parties with their impromptu finger food buffets and improvised quaffing (instead of serious academic work, of course), so much disliked by the caretakers, would become nothing but a dim memory of the few survivors.

Fortunately, nothing can hold Dewi down for long and so it is with great pleasure that we can announce an Evening of Songs: on Wednesday 29 March at the AliBaba / L�nggassTreff on Lerchenweg 35, Bern as of 7 p.m. Dewi will be performing his songs (with yours truly doing the backing picking/vocals) and everyone is expected to join in lustily. The evening is organised by the Swiss-British Society Bern, bless their cotton socks, and should be good fun. Be there with well-oiled vocal chords...

New Section

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 13:33:40 +0100

Creative-writing.ch now sports Up Close and Personal, an outlet of FAM prose.

Visit early, visit often -- or subscribe to the RSS feed available in the sidebar.

The New Instinctive Acts Panto!

Sat, 07 Jan 2006 00:46:00 +0100

Yep, four years after the memorable production of Aladdin on the Mappamondo stage (December 01) the Instinctive Acts are back with another Panto. This time it is the timeless tale of Sleeping Beauty, with an Instinctive Acts Troupe featuring many new faces, directed by Simon D. Hicks, doyen of the English Department Drama Workshop and producer of countless theatrical events (All's Well That Ends Well, One-Act Play Evenings I and II, Bits and Bobs, etc.) based on a script by theman himself and enlivened by five brand new songs with music and orchestration by Renaissance Man and old theatre hand Matt Kimmich.

So what's the story? For Princess Rose's christening, due to a terribly silly oversight, the evil sorceress Malicia has been left off the guest list. When she makes an unexpected appearance during the proceedings to bring her own duly unpleasant gift, the visceral reaction of the baby princess does little to put her into a more pleasant frame of mind. Malicia leaves with a curse that before the Princess turns 16 she will prick her finger on a spindle -- and die. Felicia, the third of the Fairy Godmothers, who hasn't had a chance to pass on her gift yet, manages to defuse the grimness of the curse, instead of death making it a deep sleep until the princess is woken by the Kiss of True Love. As there is not that much True Love about and to be on the safe side, the young princess is taken away to the Fairy Godmothers Alicia, Delicia and Felicia's secret forest cottage, where peace reigns, or if you believe the by then 16 year old (well, nearly) Princess Rose, nothing ever happens.

In the meantime Ron Withecash and his evil sidekick Izzy. A. Stinker have joined forces and plots with Malicia and her evil sidekick Slimella, because without Princess Rose Ron could finally meet his business plan of transmogrifying the Royal Palace into a Fairyworld Theme Park, whereas Malicia is promised that she can fulfill her ambition of becoming a talk show host on Fairyworld Networks. Their devious plot is that Malicia pretends to lift the curse, a message which the two unequal princes Henry (aka Hank) and Jules somewhat inadvertently communicate to the princess. With this knowledge Rose can't be held in the hotbed of social rest that is the Fairy Godmothers' cottage for a minute longer.

Her return to the castle is eagerly greeted by her father King Walter and a bit less so by his wife Queen Antonique. But all efforts fail to get Rose back to the safe haven in the forest and she is promptly ensnared by the evil Malicia, pricks her finger and falls into the deep sleep prophesised -- and with her the whole Royal Household including the amorous General Mayhem, the object of his desires, the dame Cook and Buttons, the ever hungry factotum. So who will wake her when the sleep curse hits everybody including the butch Prince Hank and his younger brother Jules, who makes up for lack of brawn with his endless supply of cheek? Will the Royal Palace really end up as the tacky centrepiece to an even tackier Fairy Hyperworld? Will Malicia's superior magic tilt the balance in her favour and will she become the talk of the town with her Malicia's Magical Moments talk show? What will General Mayhem's success be in his suit of Cook? Will Buttons survive the starvation of his long sleep? And what about Hank and Jules' infuriating mother, Queen Fluenza and her quest for a princely bride?

You can find the answer to all these questions
on February 2, 3, 4, at 19.30
and on February 5 at 15.00
at the Mappamondo Theater Saal, L�nggass-Str. 44
(Bus stop Mittelstrasse or Unitobler)

Tickets will be available at the door or at Stauffacher Bookshop in Berne