Mother Goose Panto in Tampere

The Tampere Finnish-British Society is staging a production of the pantomime Mother Goose, in English. Performances will be on Thursday 18 December at 19.00, Friday 19 December at 19.00, and Saturday 20 December at 14.00 and 19.00. The venue is Sorintalo, Sorinkatu 16, Tampere and tickets are 7 €, available through tamperepanto@gmail.com or at the door.

The cast is all amateur, composed largely of students from Tampereen Lyseon Lukio (Rellu). And guess who’s playing the role of Mother Goose? It’s funny, I’d never really seen myself as a panto dame before.

Lecture: The Life and Work of William Blake

I´m giving a talk about William Blake on Friday 20 September. William Blake is one of the most interesting and influential British poets and artists. He is a forerunner of the Romantic era, a visionary, and held revolutionary views about society, human nature, perception and art.

I´m going to talk about the main events in his life, a little about his personality and discuss a selection of his poems, illustrations and paintings. I will handle these topics at a fairly general level but I hope to be able to give a clear impression of his ideas, beliefs and philosophy and to show how these are apparent in his writing and artwork. and I will have to select examples from his work, of course, because there won´t be time to go into detail. The talk will last about an hour and I hope there will be time for questions afterwards.


And now you want to know where this is going to happen. Here are the details in full:

Friday 20.9 at 18.30 in Tampere main library (Metso), we will be in the upstairs lecture room which is called Pietilä-sali. The talk will be in English. It is organised by the Tampere branch of the Finnish-British society. It is free and all members of the public are welcome.

If you´re in or near Tampere on the 20th September, drop in. I look forward to seeing you there.

Cinderella pantomime

It´s been a week since the end of our Cinderella pantomime´s run. The dust has settled (and the excitement) and it´s about time to post a couple of photos from the production.

Here´s the wicked step-mother, Estella, and the two step-sisters. Nasty pieces of work, as you can see. A glass slipper would never fit on either of their feet, you might think. In fact, we took some liberties with the original story. In our version, the second sister, Patience, gets the slipper onto her foot, just after the Prince has recognised Cinderella. For a moment he looks from Cinders, to step-sister, and back; then decides to take Cinderella. Patience points out to her sister, Prudence, that they never had a chance, whereon Prudence suggests that there are plenty more fish in the sea. Exit Buttons and Manfred, hotly pursued by the two sisters.

The mirror-on-the-wall also made an appearance, and after informing the Queen that she was not the fairest in the land and being informed in her turn that she was in the wrong fairytale, went on to advise the Queen that the Prince was in need of a wife. That got the plot back on track.

Here´s the whole cast: