Josie Long opening the festival with some rather dubious jazz hands.
This weekend EastLondonLines is at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival . If you want to follow the festival on Twitter, use the hashtag #SNLF2012, and keep checking back on this post for the latest reviews, updates and gossip as it comes!
With audiences captivated by tales of poo, mills and boon and msn live, we can only imagine what the rest of the Stoke Newingtton Literary Festival has in store for us. Lets hope it all ends happily ever after.
The audience hanging on every stool...
- Bruno Vincent in the austere library gallery
At The Library Gallery: Things We LIke, featuring a mix of poets, authors, comedians and acoustic music with a song about a tree. Bruno Vincent, introduced as “stand-up comedian and writer of funny books”, read to the audience several chapters from his book, which mainly consisted of stories that revolved around poo. We heard a lengthy account of what happened to one of his friends who went to France and had to go to the toilet, only to discover the toilet was a mere hole in the ground.
Bruno also told us how he asked a girl out he had fancied for months, and to his own surprise was invited to her house, where her cousin, who suffered from sever constipation and only visited the toilet every three weeks, insisted he witnessed his freshly laid turd.
Amongst the other performers at the event was comedy writer Miriam Elia.
Robin ince rips into the pulp
Next up on stage was comedian,Robin Ince, who explained he has transcended from “bibliophile to litero-sexual”. He brought with him a selection of his worst book purchases, seemingly picked up from charity shops and printed in the 70s. He read from such renowned prose as: What Would Jesus Eat?, How To Pick Up Sexy Girls, The Amateur Taxidermist and What God Does When Women Pray?. He then read from his favourite Mills and Boons novels, using a melodramatic bedding track to emphasise the utter literary futility of the romance between the city worker who fell in love with the lighthouse keeper by chapter four.
Pete Brown on a roll
We caught up with Pete Brown, whose wife Liz Vater is the founder and organiser of the festival, who told ELL: “This is looking to be the biggest and best Stoke Newington Literary Festival so far and I am so excited about it. We’ve just seen Josie Long – who absolutely rocked it and this will set the tone for the rest of the weekend” Pete Brown will be demonstrating his expertise in all things beer on Sunday, with an ale tasting session – set to music – at the White Hart pub. Details are here. He will also be discussing what exactly makes a ‘good’ pub, on Saturday, alongside Robin Turner. Also, suspiciously, at the White Hart. Details here.
Comedian Josie Long who, as she tells us, is a resident of Hackney Downs, has set the festival up with some Hackney-centric gags. The mainly local audience took no offence at her asking: “So, you’re from Stoke Newington – are you the posh ones, or the nice ones?” before having a dig at George Osborne, and performing a hopeful impression of Ed Miliband nationalising EVERYTHING, and burning down private schools, hospitals and mansions across the country…we can but hope…The 29-year-old then ridiculed msnlive.co.uk’s rather bland list of 30 things to do before you’re 30, including: Spending £500 in a night, getting on the property ladder, quitting your job, going travelling and…having sex.
Kicking things off at the Literary Fest is Josie Long and Robin Ince at the opening gala in Stoke Newington Town Hall. Gin is flowing (courtesy of Hendricks) and the main room is busy.
Literally, it's the Stoke Newington Town Hall
