I am the magpie

Andrew Davies is coming to Cultural Exchanges! This is the event I am most excited about for Cultural Exchanges. He wrote the screenplay for one of my favourite films, Bridget Jones's Diary, with Helen Fielding and Richard Curtis and then he wrote the screenplay for the sequel with Helen Fielding so of course I’m going to go and see him talk.

Screenwriting interests me anyway, so going to hear someone talk about his adaptations of Bleak House and some of his other classics is like dangling some shiny jewellery in front of a magpie (If you haven't guessed already, I'm the magpie in this scenario.)

I may not be looking forward to everything that Cultural Exchanges has to offer, but that's just as well.  I couldn't attend everything and some of the events aren't really my cup of tea. Dance, for instance - but Sally Doughty's dance performance was the first event to sell out so there's plainly an eager audience. I suppose some other people probably aren't as keen as I am to hear Andrew Davies.

Cultural Exchanges probably has a little bit of everything for everyone, which is probably what it was designed to do.  You can book your tickets HERE.


Charis Wakeford

One crazy week and a distressing suit

I dreamt of a week with no timetable when I could just sit back and be inspired by a range of speakers.  But all that inspiration must be interwoven with the very hectic schedule of rehearsing for another cultural exchanges, as I prepare to perform in De Montfort's collaboration with that other hub of Leicester culture, The Curve.

The play, Serious Money is written by Caryl Churchill and is set after the Big Bang of the 1980s. It's about money, money and more money and the effects it can and does have on folk. Oh, and it opens on Friday 1st March.

For me, Cultural Exchanges will be an exchange. An exchange of character, persona and definitely dress code, as my character wears a distressing suit (to say the least).

I will therefore mostly be mixing up my Manda Scott, author of the acclaimed Boudicca series, with 'A Bull on my Tongue' from the revered novelist, Alan Garner. I will be adding a dash of Etherington from Serious Money (in the distressing suits), a sprinkle of the author and screenwriter Andrew Davies, and to see in which way i am headed, several helpings of postgrad and undergraduate performance bubbles.

It will be one busy, exciting, crazy, scary, intriguing, inspiring week!


Michelle Haggerty-Wood

Screen success

When I finally came to pick the 3 events I was inclined to attend, I became rather over-excited and signed up for 6.  But top of my list is the discussion with author and screenwriter Andrew Davies on Wednesday 27th February. 

Davies  will be discussing his work with Deborah Cartmell and Yvonne Griggs (DMU).  These include his BAFTA-nominated adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House, as well as television versions of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Vanity Fair. He also collaborated on the screenplays for both Bridget Jones films. His latest work, period drama Mr Selfridge, is currently being aired.

I'm looking forward to hearing from one of the UK's most critically acclaimed screenwriters and learning how he works.


J.Wedgbury

Men in Breeches

What a difference a year makes.

Last year, March 2009. I was a stay-at-home Mum who had recently left a career in banking. I'd noticed in the local paper that Andrew Davies (the TV scriptwriter famous for his BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice), was speaking at DMU's Cultural eXchanges week.

"Well, that's a good way of spending an hour or two," I mused, as pictures of Mr Darcy fresh from the lake ran through my mind. What a fascinating man! I mean Andrew Davies, of course. He brought a wealth of inside stories from the world of film and TV. University seemed another world to me then.

Fast-forward to March 2010. I'm a full time first year Creative Writing and English Language student at DMU and have booked to see nine events in Cultural eXchange week, 2010.

I met a teenage hero of mine on 1st March, Alexei Sayle. Several of his comments struck me: everyone is searching for significance and safety. How true - we all want to matter somehow, and feel secure.

His thoughts on the similarities between Santa and Stalin were sickle-sharp. I'm not sure I'll look at either of those two 'great leaders' in the same way again.

Finally, his method of writing comedy was inspiring: take a mad, insane leap into the great unknown, don't be Earth-bound. I may take that as a new mantra for my own writing.

(Meanwhile, for those of you who like men in breeches, here's a picture of one of the men I've discussed in this post.)



(I bet you're glad it's not Stalin in the red breeches.)

Sally Jack


[photo by Shawn Lee from wikimedia commons]