Our Patch FEBRUARY 2016
Our Patch FEBRUARY 2016
BY GEORGIAN,
JANET'S GOT IT
OFF
THE
SHELF
WIN A
COPY!
Forget sticky-backed plastic and old
coathangers... Janet Ellis is now crafting a
new career as a wordsmith of quality and
originality. She chatted to Tim Harrison
Want free signed copy
of Janet's book?
SEE PAGE 17
H
Janet Ellis, pictured at the
Lyric theatre in Hammersmith,
awaits the publication of her
debut novel, The Butcher's Hook.
Far right, her Blue Peter days
PORTRAITS: LEIGH QUINNELL
LITERARY LYRIC A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
T
he much-loved Lyric
theatre is back in action
following its impressive
£20million refurbishment
and expansion. So it’s only
fair that we allow them to
rewind back in time to their acclaimed
2012 run of their riotous and irreverent
reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s most
performed play, A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, to remind us what we’ve all
been missing from the cutting-edge
theatre.
Now back, co-directed by Lyric
4/5
artistic director Sean Holmes and Stef
O’Driscol of Filter Theatre, it features
music from the London
Snorkelling Team to help
it stage a radically cut,
fast-paced version of
the comedy where
classical verse meets
outrageous gig.
“It can take
being experimented
Fredy Roberts
with; you can mess
in A Midsummer
about with it,” says
Night's Dream
Holmes with a smile.
“It’s got a strong forward momentum,
and we’re respectfully disrespectful. We
play fast and loose with the text – we’ve
cut quite a lot. I think Shakespeare
would be spinning in his grave, but
would quite enjoy spinning. He’s big
enough and tough enough to take
anything we can throw at him…”
A Midsummer Night's Dream runs at
the Lyric from 19 February-19 March.
Tickets are from £15, but there’s a
free first night for anyone who lives
or works in H&F borough on Feb 19.
er life may still be defined
by a four-year stint
co-presenting Blue Peter
in the 1980s, but Janet
Ellis’s intriguing patchwork
quilt of a career has a
new thread woven into it… that of a
novelist.
The Butcher’s Hook, set to be
published at the end of February, is her
first fictional work, set in the grubby,
grimy London of 1763.
“It’s about a girl falling in love with
the wrong chap; she has very little
formal education, but she is bright,”
said the Hammersmith resident, who
has had immense fun researching the
era via letters, ephemera, old diaries and
contemporary publications.
Why 1763? “Because nothing much
happened then,” she laughed. It meant
that Janet – mother of pop singer
Sophie Ellis-Bextor – could let her
imagination soar, without being
distracted by obvious historical events.
“I’ve always loved the Georgian
period, partly because it’s always so
overshadowed by the Victorian era that
followed,” she said. “As a Londoner, I
walk around a lot, and the Georgian
style has always appealed to me.
“I’ve always thought it would be
fascinating to know how it felt to live
then, how it looked, how it smelt!
“The book is my imagining me; it’s
first person.”
Janet was fairly confident she had a
book in her, but wasn’t sure about the
‘nuts and bolts’ of writing.
So she joined a writing course. “That
was hugely significant for me,” she
said. “I saw it advertised online, and I
thought it would be the right thing to
do as I couldn’t quite summon up what
was needed [to complete the book].”
She joined an eclectic collection of
14 characters who’d also signed up for
the course, and the group met regularly
to receive advice from experts, and
help shape each other’s writing while
offering mutual encouragement.
A lawyer, a chap who runs a couple
of country pubs, a woman who used to
present Farming Today, a former head
of children’s programming at the BBC…
it sounds like the start of a country
house gathering where people start
disappearing!
“We still meet,” said Janet. “I think
it taught me that you can be really
ruthless with writing; you can move
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