Dear everyone,

Welcome to Chapter 7 of Canterbury Tales! A blonde and a brunette jump out of a plane - which one hits the ground first?

Yes, I’m bringing out my second-best joke, because this week’s edition of Tales is all about comedy. There are more jokers in this city than at the Tory party conference - and for some reason, they are all doing funny things right now that they wanted me to tell you about.

First, for the second week in a row (she really is here all week), we feature comedienne Lusy Koror , who is running a new course in improv comedy which will culminate in a show. I don’t normally like to talk about money for the simple reason that I never have any, but I have to say that £40 for eight sessions which sound like tremendous fun, and the chance to make people laugh on stage, seems to me almost too good to be true. I would love to go on this course if it didn’t clash with school - especially as, in my interview with Lusy, I learned that I’m already doing improv with the kids at school anyway, without realising. Read more here:

Playing for laughs - your chance to learn improv comedy

Have any of you ever watched Whose Line Is It Anyway? I watched it as part of my research for this article, and it had a very young Paul Merton in and was hilarious. That could be you, if you join this course.

Lusy’s husband Vatsn runs weekly stand-up comedy nights in Canterbury (life in their house must be hilarious) - and he and his Texan friend Ben are touring Canterbury and Margate with their new show about the funny side of being an immigrant. There is one, though don’t tell Tommy Robinson. Find out more here:

The travellers’ jest: the funny side of being a foreigner

And last but not least, until a couple of weeks ago Marc Meakin was a very helpful man who I knew from my time working at Waitrose. Little did I know that he is performing stand-up comedy at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next week! If I can be serious for a moment amid this sea of funny people, I loved Marc’s story because it’s a testament to the healing power of humour: his comedy has not only helped him make loads of new friends but has allowed him to re-establish a relationship with his brother.

Oh, and MARK IS DANNY DYER’S UNCLE. He just dropped this into conversation as if he was chatting about the weather. Would you Adam and Eve it? (stop it, you are not Mick Carter - Ed.)

Read Mark’s story here:

Danny Dyer’s my nephew - but he doesn’t follow me on Instagram

That’s all for this edition! Please feel free to share and comment on the posts ‒ and if you’ve got a story that you think I should be covering, email me at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com.

What’s on in Canterbury this fortnight:

Open mic night: Chuck And Blade, Sun Street, Monday, August 10, 6.30pm to 10pm. Sing, play, read, and eat (though not into the microphone) - food’s available until 9.30pm.

Canterbury Shakespeare Festival: It’s still going - The Winter’s Tale concludes the festival at the end of this week, and you can also still catch the Puffling Pants compilation of Shakespeare extracts. Full details in this article from Chapter 6 of Canterbury Tales.

School uniform sale: St Dunstan’s Church Hall, London Road, Saturday, August 15, 10am to noon. All proceeds go to the Pilgrims Hospices.

The Searchers and Hollies Experience: The Best of Both Worlds: Gulbenkian Arts Centre, Saturday, August 15, 7.30pm. A tribute to two classic 60s bands, featuring every top ten hit they had.

Cathedral open gardens: Saturday, August 15 and Saturday, August 22, 11am to 3pm. The Cathedral is opening some of its private gardens to the public. You’ll be able to meet and chat to the Cathedral gardeners and there will be kids’ activities. Free with a Cathedral Pass.

Hedgehog hospital open day: Dottie’s Little Hog Hospital, Bullockstone Road, Herne Bay, Sunday, August 16, noon to 3pm. Meet the volunteers, learn about the amazing work they do caring for sick and injured hedgehogs, enjoy homemade cakes and win prizes on the tombola.

Peppa Pig’s Big Family Show: Marlowe Theatre, Tuesday, August 18 to Thursday, August 20. The family are preparing for the arrival of baby Evie - and they need your help!

Children’s craft and songwriting workshops: Whitstable, Herne Bay and Faversham libraries, various dates in August. Find out more in our story on the Summer Reading Challenge at Kent Libraries.

Canterbury Liars’ Walk: Starting from outside Tiny Tim’s Tearoom, Monday, August 17, Wednesday, August 19 and Monday, August 31, all at 10am. A guided walk around the city - but not everything your guide tells you is true. Read our story in last week’s Canterbury Tales.

Junior Park Run: Sturry Road Community Park, Sunday, August 9 and Sunday, August 16, 9am. This 2k run for four to 14-year-olds is free ‒ but please register on the website before you go.

The Making of Marlowe: Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, High Street, until Sunday, November 22. An exhibition exploring the life of the playwright.

Open mic stand-up comedy: Alberry’s, St Margaret’s Street, Wednesday, August 12 and Wednesday, August 19, 7.30pm.

That’s all until next week! Please get in touch if you’ve got a story, or an event coming up, or just want to let me know what you think at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com .

Oh, and it’s the brunette - the blonde has to stop and ask for directions.

Thank you again, as always, for reading and for your support.

Love,

Sarah

He’s been called a “Temu Harry Hill” – but Canterbury’s Marc Meakin had no pretensions to comedy until he went to Glasgow to see his friend do charity stand-up.

“He was quite funny, but I thought I could be funnier,” Marc said.

And he must have been right. Just a year and a bit after that gig, Marc is now a stand-up regular in London – and is performing at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe alongside his former mentor Tom Short.

It’s not really surprising – comedy and performing is in his blood. His nephew is none other than Danny Dyer, star of Eastenders, Human Traffic and The Football Factory.

But Marc, 63, says it’s his Uncle Johnny who really inspired him.

“My comedy stems from him. We used to tell each other jokes,” he said.

“I just wanted to make people laugh, and I get a big adrenaline rush from it. I’ve never taken a drug in my life but I feel high after gigs.”

After the Glasgow trip, the grandfather-of-two signed up for an eight-week training course with Ultra Comedy, led by Short.

At the end of their training, the fledgling comedians performed in front of 300 people at the Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green.

The course was free, but to complete it, you had to sell at least four tickets to the show as well as raising £50 for charity – Marc chose the British Heart Foundation and Mind.

“We started with the basics. Tom talked about etymology, puns and misunderstandings of words,” Marc said.

“They taught us how to use the microphone and I learned not to mumble and rush.

“After about four or five weeks we got into groups and worked on subjects that were dear to our hearts. Mine was family.

“By week six or seven I was performing a five-minute set.”

Nine family members came to see him at the gig at the end, including his wife, Michele, whom he married three years ago, and three siblings.

“It was a bit like the Disneyland of comedy. There were no hecklers and everyone was cheering on their family,” Marc said.

“It was such a big buzz.”

He now performs regularly at open-mic nights in London and the south east and will appear in Edinburgh from Sunday, August 16 to Tuesday, August 18 as part of Comedy Shorts, hosted by Tom Short, in which different comedians perform five-minute sets.

“He’s offering everyone who has been on his course a slot,” Marc said.

“I’m really excited. I wanted to go just to soak up the experience.

“I’m doing a lot of stuff now that’s on my bucket list – I wanted to do stand-up show, and also to pass my driving test, which I did in June. A skydive is also on the list.”

Closer to home, Marc will be performing at The Space, in London’s Docklands, on Saturday, September 5 in aid of children’s cancer charity Little Ripples.

“It’s nine female comics and me. I’m the token man,” said Marc, who works at Waitrose in Canterbury and lives in Littlebourne.

“This is basically my hobby now. I’m not taking up golf.”

Although his wife and in-laws have inspired some of his jokes, Marc is often the butt of his own humour.

“A lot of my humour is quite dark – although never underestimate the power of a dad joke, if you have the personality that can deliver it,” he said.

“I get most laughs if I tell jokes about myself, as the audience is on that journey with you. My original set was on how I lost a load of weight.

“But I would always say that I wasn’t trying to fat-shame anyone. Punching down is frowned upon. You have to be mindful of people’s sensitivities.

“I grew up watching 1970s comedies – some of that would be considered hate speech now. You have to unlearn stuff. I don’t just try to shock people and I road test jokes.”

And if something in your set goes wrong – you just carry on.

“You are the only person who knows if you have messed up. I did, on my first set, but I just kept going,” Marc said.

“Most of the time I always get a good laugh. If someone heckles me I say thanks, mate, do you want to come up here and do five minutes? They usually say no.

“If you go savage with a heckler you will split the audience. Some of them will want him thrown out and some of them will support him.

“If someone else’s joke falls flat I try and heckle with something better. One guy called me a Temu Harry Hill. I took it as a compliment – Harry Hill and Stewart Lee are my comedy heroes.”

Marc says he has made lots of new friends through performing stand-up – and that the comedians form a very supportive community.

“I’ve found my people. I’ve never had so many friends in my life,” he said.

“We all get on and cheer each other on. It’s almost why I’m continuing.”

Comedy has also brought about a reconciliation with his brother Joey, who came to see him at the Bethnal Green gig.

“It was a surprise as we hadn’t really spoken for a few years,” Marc said.

“He used to bully me as a child – I thought I couldn’t really do some of my set in front of him, because I turned it into a joke.

“But we’re talking now.”

What of Dyer, who famously called former Prime Minister David Cameron a “twat” on TV? Alas, he doesn’t even follow his comedy uncle back on Instagram (@carkcomedy).

“Danny lived with my mum for ages. I’m proud of him, but it’s hard to see him now he’s famous,” Marc said.

“He is a very generous man – he paid for my mum’s funeral, and he’s given a lot of money to a lot of charities and doesn’t brag about it.

“Before he was on Eastenders I used to say all the time that he would be brilliant in it.”

In any case, it isn’t his famous nephew who is Marc’s inspiration but his Uncle Johnny – perhaps even more than Harry Hill.

“He could have done stand-up,” Marc says.

“At my gig I said: Uncle Johnny, this is for you. He would have loved it.”

@carkcomedy

Do you have a story that Canterbury Tales could tell? Email canterburytalesnews@gmail.com

Two immigrants are amusing audiences in the city with their tales of life as foreigners via the ultimate hostile environment – stand-up comedy.

Canterbury comic Vatsn Shri and his Texan buddy Ben McWilliams are taking their show Foreign Misfits on a tour around Canterbury and Margate – focusing on their experiences as expats.

Ben is coming over for the shows from the Lithuanian capital Vilnius and will be taking his act on a tour of Europe afterwards.

The two originally met in Lithuania when Vatsn, who is Malaysian, was living there with his wife Lusy.

“Ben runs the English comedy scene in Vilnius. When I moved there I hadn’t done stand-up for a long time, and it was at his weekly open mic sessions that I got the spark to do comedy again,” said the 34-year-old.

“He is one of the reasons why I decided to start an open mic night here, and he gave me advice on how to run it.

“We’ll be talking about how we view things differently and how we deal with situations in different countries. And we will be making fun of ourselves.”

Ben has also lived in China and travelled within Europe, so the pair have visited and lived in a wide array of countries between them.

They’ve kept in touch since Vatsn moved here with Lusy two years ago, meeting up at last year’s Pink Soup Festival, a festival in Lithuania celebrating the country’s traditional cold beetroot soup.

“We’ve been speaking about this for years,” added Vatsn, who works as a school design and technology technician.

“Ben has had a lot more experiences on his travels. He travelled to Siberia and had several funny encounters there.

“We each have more than an hour’s worth of material. Mine is a compilation of sets I’ve done before in Malaysia and Lithuania, and so far I have got quite a lot of laughs.

“I’m confident that we will be doing a great show. We’re going to make it the best that we can.”

Language is often a source of amusing (at least to everyone else) errors for immigrants, when our stabs at idiom or pronunciation don’t quite hit the mark. True to form, Vatsn tells me he ran into problems in Lithuania with two similar-sounding words, one of which is the word for penis.

(I had similar trouble in France, but you don’t need to hear about that.)

But he suddenly gets serious. “You can even find humour when people are being racist to you,” he says.

“Racism is different in different countries. And when you find the point of view from which people are acting like that towards you, it’s very funny, because it’s so ridiculous.”

Tour dates are as follows:

Plan Burrito, St Margaret’s Street, Tuesday, August 11, 7.30pm

Alberry’s, St Margaret’s Street, Thursday, August 13, 7.30pm

Hoffs Bar, Marine Drive, Margate, Tuesday, August 18, 7.30pm

Siip café and bar, Guildhall Street, Friday, August 21, 7.30pm

Vatsn also hosts open mic stand-up comedy nights at Alberry’s every Wednesday at 7.30pm. Anyone can perform – if you are interested in taking part, contact him on Instagram @vatsncomedy .

Do you have an upcoming event you’d like Canterbury Tales to write about? Email us at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com

Are you Canterbury’s answer to Paul Merton or Josie Lawrence? Then a new improv course in the city has a stage waiting for you.

City comedienne Lusy Koror is running an eight-week series of classes, starting this Tuesday and culminating in a show – and it’s open to anyone who wants to have a go at making people laugh, with no experience necessary.

The 43-year-old art teacher is a veteran of Canterbury’s comedy scene – she has run an improv group in the city for two years and also performed stand-up at her husband Vatsn Shri’s open mic nights.

“Improv can be really funny for the audience, especially if they have chosen the elements of the story or scene,” says the mum-of-two.

“I fell on the floor laughing when I saw my best friend pretending to be a crab during one scene. That was eight years ago and I still think about it.”

So how exactly does improv work? As the full name – improvisational comedy – suggests, it’s created spontaneously, with no script.

The group leader gives you a prompt – a description of a scene, or an instruction – and from there the performers make it up as they go along.

If you’ve ever watched Whose Line Is It Anyway, or listened to I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue on Radio 4, you’ll get the idea.

And if you’ve ever played with a group of children, imagining you’re at school, or on a boat, or are a group of dragons, or played with dolls or Action Men, then you have already done improv.

“It’s exactly like a school playtime,” Lusy said.

“It’s bringing back the play that we do so easily as kids, but don’t as adults. I play a game with my kids called Do You Remember The Time? where we make up scenarios.”

The main principle of improv is known as the Yes, And? principle: whatever situation you find yourself in on stage, you just go with it and build on it.

Scenes can be short – just a couple of minutes – or long, and you can also have more serious improvised drama. Lusy’s course will focus on short comedy scenes of up to five minutes.

“You might be in a world full of dinosaurs, and there’s a dinosaur coming towards you right now. Or you might be a bunch of five-year-olds going to buy ice cream,” she said.

“Or someone might be driving a car, and they have to pull over to the side of the road to pick up a hitchhiker – who will have some kind of distinctive characteristic.

“In a show, you’ll have a plan of what games you are going to play, but the audience is involved and it is driven by them.

“Sometimes the audience has to write things down on pieces of paper – they might suggest that one character tells another character a secret, or that they are pregnant and the other person is the father.”

But what if your mind goes blank on stage, and you can’t think of anything to say?

“Improv is about really quick thinking – it trains you to think of alternative solutions fast. So you try to train people so that wouldn’t happen,” Lusy said.

“But you are never on your own. Someone else will pick you up, so you will never draw a blank. Even if you are hesitating they will make it part of the scene.

“It’s not about making yourself look good, it’s about making your team look good.”

And Lusy, who has previously lived in Lithuania and Malaysia and run improv groups in both, says you will develop other skills too.

“I find it very therapeutic to be someone else for five to ten minutes,” she said.

“It’s so much fun being in that moment, and it’s also a really good way of building confidence and problem solving skills.

“You see all sorts of people come out of their shells and really change and grow.

“Improv gave me confidence I didn’t have – it helped me to become the person I was meant to be.”

Sessions will take place upstairs at Siip café and bar in Guildhall Street on Tuesdays from 7pm to 9pm. The course will start this Tuesday, August 11, and end with a free show on September 29; another course will start in October. The whole course costs £40.

For more information or to join contact lahstudio.space@gmail.com

If you join Lusy’s course, let us know how it goes in the comments! Or share our story and let your friends know about it!

Dear everyone,

Welcome to your bonus edition of Canterbury Tales! There is just so much happening at the moment that I’ve had to do an extra edition of the newsletter to feature a couple of stories I didn’t have time to do last week.

The first of these is the Canterbury Liars’ Walk, a new guided walk around the city led by art teacher and stand-up comedian Lusy Koror (who also features in next week’s newsletter for a completely different reason). As Lusy takes you round some of the city’s historic places, some of the things she tells you will be true, and some of them can only be described as alternative facts. You have to work out which is which ‒ and there’s a prize up for grabs. Read all about it here, and see whether Lusy managed to dupe our editor and vice versa:

Liar, liar, pants on fire

We’re still only a week into the school summer holidays, so I hope some of you will be interested to read about the Summer Reading Challenge, in which kids can win prizes for reading over the holidays. All the libraries in the Canterbury area are taking part, so you can sign up and borrow books from any of them. Herne Bay and Whitstable libraries are holding events too, including a session with author Gareth P Jones at Whitstable Library this Sunday where kids turn stories into songs. Read all about it here ‒ and then go and read all about something else at the library:

Holiday reads: a kids’ summer challenge at the libraries

That’s it - because this is only a postscript to last week’s newsletter. But Canterbury Tales will be back again next week! In the meantime, please feel free to share and comment on the posts ‒ and if you’ve got a story that you think I should be covering, email me at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com.

What’s on in Canterbury this week:

Canterbury Shakespeare Festival: Across the city all week! Chekhov’s The Seagull, Aphra Behn’s The City Heiress, a kids’ version of The Tempest and a compilation of Shakespeare extracts are all on the programme. Full details in this article from last week’s Canterbury Tales.

The Making of Marlowe: Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, High Street, until Sunday, November 22. An exhibition exploring the life of the playwright ‒ who co-wrote the Henry VI series with Shakespeare.

Phat Gandalf: Hampton Bay Park, Herne Bay, Friday, July 31, 8.30pm; Pearson’s Arms, Whitstable, Saturday, August 1, 8pm. Less dad rock, more your cool older brother.

Cathedral gardens: Saturdays from August 1 to August 22, 11am to 3pm. The Cathedral is opening some of its private gardens to the public on these four days. You’ll be able to meet and chat to the Cathedral gardeners and there will be kids’ activities. Free with a Cathedral Pass.

Junior Park Run: Sturry Road Community Park, Sunday, August 2, 9am. This 2k run for four to 14-year-olds is free ‒ but please register on the website before you go.

Mean Girls: Marlowe Theatre, Monday, August 3 to Saturday, August 8. The stage version of the cast-iron classic. You can’t sit with us, though.

Open mic stand-up comedy: Alberry’s, St Margaret’s Street, Wednesday, August 5, 7.30pm (doors open 7pm). Laugh at other people … then have them laugh at you.

That’s all until next week! Please get in touch if you’ve got a story, or an event coming up, or just want to let me know what you think at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com .

Thank you again, as always, for reading and for your support.

Love,

Sarah

Children can win prizes for reading books from Canterbury’s libraries during the summer holidays as part of a national challenge.

Kent Libraries are taking part in the Summer Reading Challenge again this year – offering children the opportunity to win bookmarks, keyrings, certificates and medals.

This year’s theme is Read to the Beat, focusing on music and rhythm – and children can read any kind of book on that theme. Fiction, non-fiction, audiobooks, ebooks, graphic novels, cookbooks, joke books … as long as it’s borrowed from a library, they can read it.

The challenge runs until Saturday, September 5, is open to children aged four to 11, and is free.

Children can sign up at any time at any library in the county – just get a library card if you don’t have one, collect a sticker booklet and borrow a book.

You choose your own reading goals and get prizes for achieving them, including a certificate and a medal after six goals. Children can also sign up online at summerreadingchallenge.org.uk, although you can’t collect the same prizes as if you’re taking part through a library.

Vicky Wraight, Kent Libraries’ customer services development librarian, said: “It helps children keep up their reading over the summer and return to school with greater confidence.”

Canterbury has libraries in Canterbury, Herne Bay, Whitstable, Ash, Aylesham, Herne Bay, Sturry and Swalecliffe, and Faversham has libraries in Faversham and Boughton under Blean.

Several libraries are hosting activities as part of the challenge. Children’s author Gareth P Jones will run a session called Fairytale Musical Mashup, where children turn stories into songs, at Whitstable Library, in Oxford Street, on Sunday, August 2 from 10.30am to 11.15am.

There will also be a series of craft afternoons:

Making rainmakers: Whitstable Library, Thursday, August 13, 2pm to 3pm.
Making wind chimes: Whitstable Library, Thursday, August 27, 11am to noon.
Crafts using recycled materials: Herne Bay Library, High Street, Tuesday, August 4 and Tuesday, August 11, both at 11am.
Music-themed crafts: Faversham Library, Newton Road, every Wednesday in August, 10.30am to 11.30am.

There will also be a songwriting workshop with Explore Learning, focusing on rhythm and rhyme, for five to 11-year-olds at Faversham Library on Saturday, August 22 from 1pm to 2pm. It’s free, but you need to book your child’s place by calling 03000 413131 or emailing favershamlibrary@kent.gov.uk (or you can do it in person at the library).

We would love to hear from children taking part in the Summer Reading Challenge. Write to us about what you’ve been reading at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com - the best ones will be published!

Lusy Koror tells lies.

She lies to tourists, groups of city-dwellers, even to schoolchildren – and they pay her to do it. And yes, she’ll lie to you.

Welcome to the Canterbury Liars’ Walk – a new way of visiting our city and discovering more about its history as you try to sort the facts from the fibs. And if you’re the best detective, you’ll win a prize!

You might say the premise is deceptively simple. Starting from Tiny Tim’s Tearoom, Lusy takes a group on a tour to seven historic places in the city. At each one, she’ll tell a true story and a lie.

You have to work out which is which – and the person who gets the most correct answers wins.

The walk is based on the London Liars’ Tours, developed by game designer Holly Gramazio – who has agreed that Lusy can use the format. Lusy herself ran something similar in Penang, Malaysia, where she lived for eight years.

The art teacher, illustrator and mum of two has spent two years developing a Canterbury version – because, ironically, when you’re lying, you have to get your facts right.

Friends from Canterbury Historical and Archaeological Society were called upon during a series of test walks to make sure that Lusy really was telling the truth when she was supposed to be – and not telling it accidentally when she wasn’t.

“I was trying to find interesting facts, so I had to dig really deeply into lots of things and double check everything,” she said.

“At every stop I tell a story that is 100 per cent true and one that is 98 per cent true. I had to find truths that sound like lies and lies that sound like truths.

“I have had people who have grown up here who didn’t know some of the stuff.”

When she sits down to talk to me, it’s an educational interview. I learn that England had no head of state for four years after Charles I was executed (there was a Parliament, but no one in official overall charge), that Christmas was banned while Charles was still on the throne (no wonder he was executed), and that Jane Austen, whose brother lived at Godmersham House, was a frequent visitor to Canterbury.

Lusy says she makes sure that she isn’t doing all the talking during the walks and that there’s plenty of opportunity for interaction and discussion.

“I get a volunteer to read one of the stories, and the audience stands with whoever they think is telling the truth,” explains the 43-year-old, who lives in Canterbury.

“We have discussions and people really get talking about the moment and the buildings and architecture, which I would like to think helps the facts stay in your brain a bit more.

“I try to help them question what they’ve been told. I’m an actor so I should be a good liar – but having critical thinking skills is really important in the age of AI.”

The prize is a copy of the Canterbury Colouring Book, which Lusy has created from drawings she’s done of the city.

“Everyone has responded really well so far and enjoyed the walk,” she added.

“The first one was with a group of teenagers who had just finished their GCSEs. They really got into the game play and I feel like they learned from it.

“It gets competitive but it’s all very friendly.”

Walks take place on Monday, August 17, Wednesday, August 19 and Monday, August 31, all at 10am.

cantlie.co.uk

Lusy’s lie detector test

Canterbury Tales wanted to test Lusy. We asked her to tell us a lie and a truth to see if we could work out which was which.

And then we did the same – to see if *she* could tell when *we* were lying.

Lusy’s lie: “The Coliseum holds 50,000 people. The Roman Theatre in Canterbury holds 10,000 people.” One of those statements is true.

Canterbury Tales says: “Ten thousand sounds too many – that’s the size of a small town. That’s not true.”

Lusy says: “You’re right! It only holds 3,000 – though that’s still more than twice the size of the Marlowe Theatre.”

Lusy 0, Canterbury Tales 1

Now can Lusy tell when we are lying? Editor Sarah is a terrible, uncomfortable liar, so this shouldn’t be hard.

Canterbury Tales’ concoction: “I have lived in France and Spain. I used to play cricket for my school.”

Lusy says: “Girls haven’t played cricket in schools for that long – but I think if you’d lived in France and Spain, you would have mentioned this before, as we’ve known each other a while. So I’m going with the cricket as being true.”

Canterbury Tales says: “Wrong! Girls didn’t play cricket at my girls’ school, and everyone thought I was weird for liking it. Well, among other reasons.”

Lusy 0, Canterbury Tales 2! Can you believe anything you read on this site anymore?

Are you going on the Canterbury Liars’ Walk? Let us know about your experience in the comments!

Welcome to chapter six of Canterbury Tales! If you like arts, you’ll like this edition; if you don’t, maybe go and create a spreadsheet or something.

There is so much happening in Canterbury this summer it’s unreal, and this weekend is the start of the three-week Canterbury Shakespeare Festival. Macbeth is the main production this year ‒ but there’s also a kids’ version of The Tempest, a production called Puffling Pants made up of extracts from different plays, and works by Aphra Behn and Chekhov.

I don’t like Macbeth, and don’t really understand why anybody does, but I seem to be in the minority, because during my conversation with festival managing director Charlotte Groombridge, who is a quite fascinating interviewee, I learned that it has been performed in Armenia and translated into Armenian. This is so interesting, if you’re interested in language, that I’m going to link to the post about it on the Canterbury Shakespeare Festival website as well as my own feature, which is here:

Shakespeare was writing sex jokes for drunk people

Here’s one of the posts on the festival website about Շեքսպիր, as Shakespeare is known in Armenian, and the challenges of translating 17th-century English into another language:

Speak plain and to the purpose: Using Shakespearean translations

But back to Canterbury, where there’s even more art this weekend in the form of the Sunrose Arts Festival. Now in its fourth year, the festival features a collaborative poem, an art scavenger hunt, the final of an international poetry slam and much more. Read all about it here:

Poetry, printing, postcards and performance - it’s the Sunrose Arts Festival

Did any of you see Miss Saigon at the Marlowe Theatre? If so, I’m going to assume that you found it as incredible as I did, and as the rest of the theatre seemed to. Read my review here and please tell me what you thought ‒ if you thought it was meh I would really love to hear why!

Dreams were all I ever knew: Miss Saigon at the Marlowe Theatre

Now for some great news. There is so much going on this week that I am splitting this fortnight’s newsletter into two, because there is some other cool stuff that I have not had time to write about. So there will be a special bonus edition of Canterbury Tales next week!

In the meantime, please feel free to share and comment on the posts ‒ and if you’ve got a story that you think I should be covering, email me at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com.

What’s on in Canterbury this week:

Canterbury City Show: Westgate Gardens and Westgate Square, Saturday, July 25 and Sunday, July 26, 10am to 5pm. Our roundup from chapter five has all the details: Inflatables, tennis, sea shanties and wrestling

The City Series by Henry Cockburn: Lilford Gallery, Palace Street, from now until Friday, July 31. Colourful oil paintings of UK cities by Canterbury artist Henry Cockburn ‒ some of which have been featured in the i paper.

The Making of Marlowe: Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, High Street, Saturday, July 25 to Sunday, November 22. An exhibition exploring the life of the bouncy-haired Canterbury playwright.

Junior Park Run: Sturry Road Community Park, Sunday, July 26, 9am. This 2k run for four to 14-year-olds is free ‒ but please register on the website before you go.

The Proclaimers: Marlowe Theatre, Sunday, July 26, 7.30pm. They’ve walked a thousand miles to be here [no, that joke has been made too many times - Ed.]

That’s all until next week! Please get in touch if you’ve got a story, or an event coming up, or just want to let me know what you think at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com .

Thank you again, as always, for reading and for your support.

Love,

Sarah

I was prepared for Miss Saigon to have a sad ending. I knew the story, and the fact that it’s set during the Vietnam War isn’t exactly auspicious.

I wasn’t prepared for it to be an astounding, gripping and visceral piece of theatre which I will never forget.

Written by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Richard Maltby Jr, the sung-through musical opens in 1975 in a brothel run by a sleazy character known only as The Engineer. Kim is a 17-year-old orphan; it’s her first night there. Chris is a good-hearted American Marine who is there with a friend but doesn’t want to be. Of course it’s love at first sight.

Unfortunately, that is as good as it gets for Kim. The US Forces are evacuated from Vietnam; the musical jumps forward three years, and we find Kim living in Saigon with her two-year-old son, Tam, who is Chris’s. And Chris is back in America, and married.

Julianne Pundan is a perfect Kim. Her incredible voice does justice to the soaring score, and her sweet-natured, loving yet strong-willed Kim is wholly empathetic. I am fully on her side and, as I watch, am preparing to become furious with everyone else.

But around the end of the first half, I notice something is going wrong with the character of The Engineer. He is an unmitigated villain – selfish, grasping, exploitative and abusive. But as Seann Miley Moore cavorts gleefully on stage with a degree of camp that makes Lily Savage look like Phil Mitchell, I am unsettled to find myself feeling a vague affection for this unrepentant scoundrel. Do I – like bad people now?

In the second act, I realise this is one of the great strengths of this show – its ability to make you see the story from every character’s point of view. I expect to hate Chris’s wife, Ellen, for standing between him and Kim, but it is clear that she really loves him and is the reason why he made it through the trauma he brought home from the war. I expect to despise Chris as weak and shallow, but when flashbacks show us how hard he tried to take Kim with him, I realise what an impossible situation he was in. Jack Kane gives a remarkable performance, shouting in anguish rather than singing as he describes what he and other veterans went through (”Lots of guys came back and had no life”).

Even Kim’s cousin, Thuy, to whom she was betrothed at the age of thirteen and who tries to kill her son, is still somehow not an unempathetic character. Like everyone in the story, he is a victim of his circumstances, and Mikko Juan manages to make his suffering felt by the audience. When his white-faced ghost haunts Kim, telling her that Chris betrayed her once and will do it again, the sense of impending tragedy starts to feel almost Shakespearean.

And yet, amid all this, Miley Moore is almost a comedy turn, pulling off with increasing success the feat of making The Engineer somehow endearing. As he flashes his underpants at the audience during The American Dream, he is in danger of stealing the show.

But the moments of levity are brief. The ending comes as a shock even though I know what happens. I am crying, I can tell that my mum is crying, and then, even though I can’t see anyone else, I somehow become aware that the whole theatre is crying.

And for the curtain call, the whole theatre stands up. It is a lovely touch that the child who plays Tam comes on last, the star of the show without even having had any lines.

“I never want to see Miss Saigon again,” my mum says to me as we leave. “Because there will never be a better version than that.”

Did you see Miss Saigon? Let us know in the comments what you thought!

Where can you try out new art forms, contribute to a giant poem and attend the final of a worldwide poetry competition? Why, in Canterbury this weekend, of course.

The Sunrose Arts Festival is returning for its fourth year – and organiser Alice Gretton says her aim for the day is to get people to try something they haven’t done before.

And, thanks to the festival’s sponsors, they get to do it for free.

“I want people to find an art form that they love and want in their life,” said the 27-year-old, who organises the festival with fellow producers Edie Brennan and Izzy Irini.

“I hope people will come away knowing about an art form that they didn’t know much about before.”

There will be a variety of workshops, from lino postcard making to cyanotyping – a type of printing – improv comedy, yoga and writing for wellbeing.

In the creative circle, anyone of any age and skill level will be able to create a piece of art which they can either take home or display at the festival. There will also be a giant collaborative poem which everyone will have the opportunity to write a little bit of.

Plus you can take part in a scavenger hunt for art around the city – posters in shops and green spaces will feature poetry quotes and copies of artworks, with QR codes you can scan to find out more about the work and the artists.

“In previous years we had artists sitting in different places around the city, but we realised it was probably best to have some form of media, rather than them sitting in the corner of a coffee shop for four hours!” said Alice, who works at the Marlowe Theatre.

“The reward is the art that you find.”

Actors, dancers, musicians, comedians, poets and drag acts will perform on the main stage, and at 7pm, the grand final of the Utterance international poetry slam – which features 22-year-old Brynn Birks, from Ramsgate – will be live on a big screen.

There will be a visual arts exhibition and stalls will be selling artwork, jewellery, retro clothing, homeware, toiletries and craft items.

Overall, more than 50 artists are taking part in the festival, which is sponsored by the Kent Community Foundation, Canterbury BID, Canterbury Unlocked and Sheppey solicitors John Copland and Son.

“We are steadily getting more recognised, which is lovely,” Alice said.

With many universities making cuts to their arts subjects, Alice is particularly keen to encourage young people and children to remain interested in art.

She studied drama and theatre at the University of Kent and is concerned that opportunities are dwindling for young people to follow similar artistic paths. The day before our interview, the Guardian reported that nearly 4,000 academic posts in social sciences, humanities and the arts had been axed in a year. Earlier this year the University of Nottingham announced that it would not be accepting new students onto its modern languages, music and theology courses.

“We will see young people seeing the arts less and less as a career option. They are so underfunded,” Alice said.

“But when the world shuts down, people turn to art. People were talking about that a lot during covid. They were watching movies, they were baking … when people didn’t have to be busy, it was interesting to see the world really value creativity.”

The Sunrose festival was borne in the aftermath of the pandemic. “After covid everything disappeared and I wanted to encourage it to come back,” Alice said.

She had already been organising and performing at poetry events in this country and abroad for almost a decade and in 2024 published her own poetry collection, Fruit Salad and Rocket Ships.

“I thought I might as well make it a big festival and open it up to other art forms, as a lot of poets also do other forms of art,” Alice added.

“We have three aims: to connect creatives, create opportunities, and celebrate the city. I want it to be fun for all the family that leaves people thinking.”

The Sunrose Arts Festival takes place on Saturday, July 25 from 10am to 9pm in the Dane John Gardens.

linktr.ee/sunrosearts

We’d love to see what you made at the Sunrose Arts Festival - tell us (and post your pictures) in the comments!

Murder, witchcraft and self-destructive ambition take centre stage in the city this summer with the return of Canterbury Shakespeare Festival.

This year’s flagship production, staged this weekend, is Macbeth – sorry, sorry, the Scottish play – a tale of a couple who will stop at nothing in their devastating lust for power.

And if you don’t like all that new-fangled messing with the great man’s work, rest assured it has not been interfered with.

“It’s going to be a very traditional Macbeth, done by local people who have a passion for the play,” says festival managing director Charlotte Groombridge.

“That makes a big difference. Their enthusiasm is going to spill out to the audience.

“And you’ll be outside in a beautiful, very atmospheric venue.”

Macbeth remains one of Shakespeare’s most popular and widely performed plays, and in 2019 the University of Oxford reported that it was the one most taught in schools.

This is despite the fact that it’s a horrible story about horrible people doing horrible things – or perhaps that’s exactly why.

“It’s a universal play. It explores themes of power and destiny, and how you can sleepwalk into terrible things. One terrible choice can ruin your entire life,” Charlotte says cheerfully.

“Sometimes we all feel we are being blown by these powers and that everything is spiralling. Macbeth makes one very poor decision, and then he has no control over anything.

“We can all identify with that after the last 15 years of politics.”

Earlier this year, Charlotte and her husband, festival artistic director Elliot Huxtable, directed a production of Macbeth in Armenia, in Armenian.

“They wanted to do a play that they thought was universal and they really connected with Macbeth,” the 34-year-old added.

“Shakespeare is a master of human psychology. He understood people in a way that a lot of writers don’t – he understood grief and passion and that self-destruction that is in all of us.”

This summer’s festival features six plays – not all of them by Shakespeare. There are also performances of Aphra Behn’s The City Heiress, in which Charlotte plays rich widow Lady Galliard, and Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull.

“We always like to expand past Shakespeare, and are moving towards more contemporary writers as well,” Charlotte said.

“Humanity doesn’t really change, we just change the way we talk about it.”

The free show, Puffling Pants, is a collection of excerpts from different Shakespeare plays – and if you’re not a fan of the Bard, then you’re exactly the audience they have in mind.

“It’s Shakespeare for people who don’t like Shakespeare or think they don’t understand it,” Charlotte said.

“We want to give people the opportunity to see a show for free – it’s our way of giving back to the community. I hope people will come away thinking they want to see a full length play.”

While the 400-year-old prose isn’t as readily understandable as contemporary language, Charlotte stresses that in his time, Shakespeare was anything but inaccessible.

“He was writing for the masses. Then the upper classes got hold of his work and thought: this is for us,” she said.

“A lot of work has gone into making Shakespeare very elite: high-priced tickets, the idea that only the best actors can play it. But he was writing sex jokes for a lot of drunk people.

“If you read a synopsis beforehand you would be surprised, once you know what each scene is, how easily you can follow it.

“Everyone can like him. He wrote 39 plays – you tell me there’s not one you can like.”

There’s also a children’s version of The Tempest – Tempest in a Teacup – which is just 55 minutes long. This is also free for children: you only need to buy one adult ticket to bring up to four kids.

Charlotte and Elliot have been involved with the festival since 2015, when it was started by Benjamin Chamberlain with just two shows.

“We had a very minimal set and costumes that looked like we were a guerilla theatre,” said Charlotte, who lives in the city and teaches psychology at East Kent College.

“We were so short of actors we had to rehearse Romeo and Juliet in a week. But it showed there was an appetite for what we were doing.

“Each year since there have been more shows and more venues. And we have always stayed true to our belief that the festival has to be by the people of the city, for the people of the city.”

The festival now attracts around 1,500 to 2,000 people to Canterbury each year and puts on productions all year round, including an annual winter comedy.

There have been a few disasters, however.

“Last year King Lear collapsed on stage. Elliot had to take over and play the role with a script and white face paint in his hair,” Charlotte said.

“Another time the actor playing Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream went to London and didn’t want to come back for the performances. No one had done that before. An actress called Claire Watson had to take over. I actually think she was better.”

If you’d like to get involved, there are open auditions for every show – and of course people are also needed for myriad jobs backstage, including directing, stage managing, stewarding, artwork, costumes and makeup.

Directors can also pitch plays to be performed – and sponsors and donors are always needed to help with funding.

“All you need is a passion for theatre or a passion for the community,” Charlotte says.

Here’s the programme. Bring your own chairs for outdoor performances!

Macbeth

Writer: William Shakespeare

Synopsis: Macbeth really wants to be king. He’d kill for it, lol.

Charlotte says: “All the characters are bad – no one is the hero. It’s easy to blame Lady Macbeth, but Macbeth has choices, and he goes straight to murder.”

Venue: St Margaret’s Churchyard, St Margaret’s Street, Canterbury

Dates and times: Thursday, July 23 to Saturday, July 25, 7.30pm each night with a Saturday matinee at 2pm. There will also be a performance at the Julie Rose Stadium in Ashford on Sunday, July 26 at 2pm.

Puffling Pants

Writer: William Shakespeare. More or less

Synopsis: Excerpts from Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice, presented by Shakespeare to Queen Elizabeth I.

Charlotte says: “There’s a focus on how Shakespeare tells stories through costume.”

Venue: St Thomas’ Church Hall, Canterbury Lane, Canterbury

Dates and times: Tuesdays and Wednesdays from Tuesday, July 28 to Wednesday, August 12, all at 7.30pm.

The Seagull

Writer: Anton Chekhov

Synopsis: Romantic entanglement and lack of artistic fulfilment on a Russian country estate.

Charlotte says: “Chekhov is like Shakespeare if Shakespeare had been Russian. He really balances humour with tragedy. And Tyler Hill is a beautiful setting, really removed from the city – you will be enjoying the play under the stars.”

Venue: Tyler Hill House, 13 Calais Hill, Tyler Hill, Canterbury

Dates and times: Thursday, July 30 to Saturday, August 1, 7.30pm each night with a Saturday matinee at 2pm.

Tempest in a Teacup

Writer: William Shakespeare (sort of), performed by Cut-Out Theatre

Synopsis: Prospero was the Duke of Milan – until his own brother conspired against him and had him exiled. So he conjures up a magical storm in which his enemies are shipwrecked …

Charlotte says: ​”It’s a great play and this shortened version is very funny and energetic. The speeches are beautiful – it was Shakespeare’s last play and he can write a really good soliloquy at this point.”

Venue: St Margaret’s Churchyard, St Margaret’s Street, Canterbury

Dates and times: Thursday, July 30, 11am and 2pm; Friday, July 31, 11am and 2pm; Saturday, August 1, 11am; Sunday, August 2, 2pm and 4pm.

The City Heiress

Writer: Aphra Behn

Synopsis: Young rake George Wilding is trying to keep his rich uncle happy – and dallying with three different women. What could possibly go wrong?

Charlotte says: “The style in which plays were written really changed in the time between Shakespeare and Aphra Behn. England had just come out of the Reformation, when everyone had to be buttoned up because of Cromwell; she was writing for Charles II, who was very sexually active and loved jokes about sex.”

Venue: All Saints’ Church Hall, Military Road, Canterbury

Dates and times: Thursday, August 6 to Saturday, August 8, 7.30pm each night with a Saturday matinee at 2pm.

The Winter’s Tale

Writer: William Shakespeare

Synopsis: Leontes has it all: the film career, the wife, the new baby girl. But, consumed by jealousy and suspicion of his best friend Polixenes, he risks losing everything.

Charlotte says: “Winter’s Tale has everything; suspicion, intrigue, comedy, miracles, and even, if you’re lucky, a bear!”

Venue: The Canterbury Hotel, New Dover Road, Canterbury

Dates: Thursday, August 13 to Saturday, August 15 at 7.30pm, with a Saturday matinee at 2pm.

canterburyshakespeare.co.uk

Will you be going to some of the festival performances? Do you feel sorry for Macbeth? Let us know in the comments!

Welcome to chapter five of Canterbury Tales! All the stories in this chapter have something lovely in common.

The story you need to read very urgently is this roundup of the Canterbury Children’s Literature Festival, which is happening this weekend. The city has a whole weekend of book-themed events for children, with lots of authors coming to talk about their books, show the children how to draw their characters, and most importantly of all, get the kids to create their own stories. If you have children, know any children or are a child, you need to read this, take a look at the list of events (the festival has a website but I have listed most of them here anyway) and take your child to something, because it is virtually guaranteed that they will benefit:

From cosmic cadets to dinosaur drawalongs … Canterbury Children’s Literature Festival is back

The amazing thing about this festival is that it was founded by, and is organised by, an ordinary married couple who are just really passionate about encouraging children to read. They put together the whole festival themselves, which must be an inordinate amount of work, for no money, just for the love. So despite what I said two sentences ago, Bex and Rhys Hughes are in fact not ordinary, but extraordinary. I find it amazing that there are people like this in the world who will just spend huge amounts of time doing things they don’t have to do in the hope that others will benefit.

And yet the very next story is about another one of these people and another one of these events: the Canterbury City Show. This is yet another event borne simply out of people’s desire to celebrate the city we are fortunate enough to live in or near and do something good for the community around them. Edd Withers, the festival organiser, who again must be spending a very large amount of his own time on this, was really simple in what he wanted to achieve: “We wanted to create an annual celebration of Canterbury.”

Inflatable tennis, sea shanties and wrestling - it’s the Canterbury City Show

Edd also said something about the city which really chimed with me: “Everyone knows each other.” I have only lived here for two years, and this is something that has really struck me since moving here: it’s twice the size of the town I came here from, but people are so much more connected. I cannot interview anyone without someone else we both know coming up in conversation somehow; I can be at an event where I think no one knows anyone else, only to find people who have no obvious reason to ever cross paths waving at each other across the room. It is great to live somewhere like this.

Remember a couple of weeks ago, when it was so hot no one could move or speak and everyone just sat in baths of ice longing for the great British winter? Some people in our community were walking between 15 and 34 miles to raise money for the Pilgrims Hospices. And so we have a third story about people putting in time and effort for nothing, because it helps those around them:

Heatwave hikers happy to help hospice

I became a local journalist because I liked writing. But I remained a local journalist because of the way it connected me, one of life’s outsiders, to my community - and because it taught me, again and again, that it is full of brilliant people. It’s still teaching me that.

Please feel free to share and comment on the posts ‒ and if you’ve got a story that you think I should be covering, email me at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com.

What’s on in Canterbury this fortnight:

Miss Saigon: Marlowe Theatre, Friday, July 10 to Saturday, July 18. A tale of doomed romance during the Vietnam War - and a West End classic.

A Sea Symphony: Gulbenkian Arts Centre, Sunday, July 12, 6pm. The East Bridge Chorale, East Bridge Concert Orchestra and Caritas Chamber Choir perform Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture and Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music and A Sea Symphony.

Junior Park Run: Sturry Road Community Park, Sunday, July 12 and Sunday, July 19, 9am. This 2k run for four to 14-year-olds takes place every Sunday. It’s free - but please register on the website before you go.

Can Art and Politics mix? Beach Creative, Herne Bay, Wednesday, July 15, 7pm. An exploration of how artists have engaged with politics, from the Troubles in Northern Ireland to communism.

Kent and Canterbury Hospital League of Friends Summer Fair: Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Sunday, July 19, noon to 4pm. Bollywood dancing, therapy ponies, and a performance from Canterbury Musical Theatre Society will be among the attractions. All proceeds will go to the hospital.

Canterbury Bike Ride: Canterbury Rugby Club, Sunday, July 19, from 7.30am. Choose from three routes: a short 24-mile trip, a 54-mile excursion or a 73-mile trek. You’ll ride through the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and down to Wye; the two longer routes then head along the Elham Valley towards Sandwich and back to the city.

That’s all for this chapter. Please get in touch if you’ve got a story, or an event coming up, or just want to let me know what you think at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com .

Thank you again, as always, for reading and for your support.

Love,

Sarah

Hardy hikers braved a heatwave to raise an enormous £135,000 for the Pilgrims Hospices.

More than 650 people took part in the Pilgrims Way Challenge on June 20, when temperatures reached 27C in the city, to raise funds for the charity’s three hospices in Canterbury, Ashford and Margate.

The annual event has raised more than £1 million since it started in 2018.

Those taking part have a choice of three routes. The shortest hike, a mere 25km, runs from Canterbury to Wye through Old Wives Lees, Chilham and King’s Wood.

The 35km route from Dover to Canterbury starts from Connaught Park, on the hillside below Dover Castle, and heads north towards Sandwich, past the 18th-century Waldershare House. Walkers then head north west through the countryside towards Womenswold and Patrixbourne and into the city.

The 55km option combines both these routes, starting at Dover and ending in Wye.

Notable fundraisers this year included the PHA – Let Loose! team from the Ashford hospice, who walked the 25km route and raised £3,260.

The hospices rely heavily on fundraising to help meet their annual running costs of £17.5 million.

Walker Louise Humphrys said: “I am a first timer and we had a great time.

“It felt very supportive – there were lots of friendly people and I never felt alone.”

Volunteer Steve Hodges added: “I had the best morning volunteering at the first rest stop. I met some lovely people.”

The charity’s head of fundraising, Kate Duddell, said: “Seeing so many people come together, challenge themselves and support hospice care across east Kent was incredibly special.

“The atmosphere was full of encouragement, laughter and determination from start to finish.

“Thank you to every participant who took on the challenge - and a very special thank you to our amazing band of volunteers, from registration teams and route marshals to those running rest stops, cheering supporters on and helping behind the scenes. We could not hold these fundraising events without their dedication, energy and generosity.”

Did you take part in the Pilgrims Way Challenge? Let us know in the comments!

Bloodthirsty unicorns, child stowaways, dragons, dinosaurs, robots … they’re all coming to Canterbury this weekend for the city’s second children’s literature festival.

More than 40 events for children of all ages are taking place across the district, including story sessions, storytelling yoga, bookish board games, a storytelling concert, drawalongs, and a visit from panto dame Mama G.

A talk by bestselling author A F Steadman, creator of the Skandar series, is the headline attraction.

Hang on though, storytelling yoga? “The yoga leader tells a story based on a picture book and the children make the poses of different animals and landmarks in the story,” festival organiser Bex Hughes explained.

She and her husband Rhys started the festival last year because they wanted to encourage children to love reading and stories ‒ and to discover different ways of engaging with those stories, including audiobooks and graphic novels.

“Reading is as important as diet and exercise,” said Bex, 39, who runs a school breakfast club and also works as an exam invigilator.

“Everything we do with the festival is trying to support what schools and parents are doing and find ways for different brains to enjoy stories. Everyone’s way of storytelling is valid.

“Parents are so important as reading role models for their kids. If people don’t see the people they love reading, they are never going to believe that it’s important.”

Authors have been visiting primary and secondary schools in the district all week in the run-up to the festival.

The University of Kent, a major sponsor of the weekend, hosted an event for 100 children with graphic novelist Zak Simmonds-Hurn, poet Patience Agbabi and author Penny Chrimes.

This theme for this year’s festival is Go Wild With Stories ‒ which can be interpreted either as telling stories about nature, or letting your imagination run wild.

Around 40 children entered a writing competition on this theme earlier in the year and the winners will be presented with their prizes at a ceremony in the Three Cities Garden tomorrow.

All the entries will be on display at Wildwood, which is one of the festival venues, throughout the weekend.

“We had some great entries. There are a lot of really talented kids!” Bex said.

The festival is expected to attract around 2,000 people ‒ and Bex and Rhys want it to get even bigger.

“Last year the maximum capacity at each event was about 40 people. This year hundreds of people have booked tickets for A F Steadman,” Bex said.

“She is well worth people coming to see, because the books are great but she is also a lovely human.”

Another highlight for Bex is the talk by Clare Pollard, author of The Othernoughts ‒ a retelling of the story of Jason and the Argonauts, featuring children.

“One of them is the shape-shifting grandson of Poseidon, but he can only shift into useless shapes at the worst possible moment,” Bex said.

“And the Argo has a voice and is always telling people off.”

We’ve listed Saturday and Sunday’s events below ‒ there are also some on today, which you can find details of on the festival website. If you’re free tonight, the Big Kids’ Bookish Quiz is a quiz entirely dedicated to children’s books ‒ I went last year and it was huge fun.

“We’re very excited about all the new venues involved this year, such as the Beaney,” Rhys added.

“Fenwick has a lovely event space hidden away at the back on the first floor, which is where we’re holding the Meet and Greet with [graphic novel characters] Bunny and Monkey.

“Expanding to more schools this year has been great ‒ and we’re working with some of the small independent bookshops that can’t afford to have a festival of their own.”

Although the National Literacy Trust’s Annual Literacy Survey this year found that more children enjoyed reading in their free time compared with last year, the figure is still only 36.1 per cent. One in ten children aged five to 18 say they do not have a book of their own at home.

“The response from the city last year was amazing,” Bex added.

“We got a lot of feedback along the lines of ‘My child hates reading but they have not stopped drawing comics since this event,’ or ‘They’ve read this book and now I’ve had to go out and buy three more.’

“I think it has been really valuable to be able to offer that.”

Rhys added: “There was an event last year with Lucy Strange where kids were walking out with huge stacks of her books which the parents had to get signed!”

As well as the University of Kent, the festival has been sponsored by Canterbury BID and Canterbury Unlocked, Canterbury Rotary Club, Kent County Council, Kent Youth Trust and Aylesham Parish Council, which has funded an event in the village. Waterstone’s has donated a free graphic novel for every child who attends the Garry Parsons drawalong, and the publishers of the Phoenix comic are providing free copies at the Bunny and Monkey meet and greet.

“We have doubled the amount we fundraised this year, and we want to increase that further ‒ it would be really good to have more sponsors,” added Rhys, 40, an activities instructor with Kent Scouts.

“We want to build better connections with businesses, because by supporting literacy, your business could end up with a better employee in five to ten years.

“We’ve already started contacting authors for next year!”

canterburykidslitfest.co.uk

We’ve listed Saturday and Sunday’s events below and would love to hear about your experiences of the festival. Leave a comment or email us at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com

Friday, July 10:

The Big Kids’ Bookish Quiz. 6.30pm, Chapters Coffee and Books, High Street, Sturry. A quiz all about children’s books. Teams can have up to six people ‒ both children and adults are welcome!

Saturday, July 11:

Cosmic Cadets with Ryan Crawford. 10.30am, Chapters Coffee and Books, High Street, Sturry. Learn how to find ideas and turn your experiences into stories before designing your own Cosmic Cadet team and mission.

Drawalong and Dinosaurs with Garry Parsons. 10.30am, The Old Synagogue, 33 King Street, Canterbury. Drawalong and story session with the illustrator of the Dinosaur That Pooped series.

Stitch Head with Guy Bass. 10.30am, Waterstone’s, Rose Lane, Canterbury. Stories, terrible poems and a question and answer session with the author.

The Storymakers. 11am, Canterbury Library, The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, High Street, Create your own characters, do a treasure hunt for story elements and then put it all together in your own book.

The Kingdom of Tigers with Felicity Yeoh. 11am, Canterbury Library, The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, High Street, Canterbury. Singing storyteller Felicity presents her picture book, which is set in the Malaysian rainforest.

Children’s book swap. 11am to 1pm, Canterbury Library, The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, High Street, Canterbury. Bring a book you no longer want and swap it for one you do.

Weird and Wonderful Ways to Save the Planet with Madeleine Finlay. 11.30am, Franciscan Gardens, 60 St Peter’s Street, Canterbury. Explore the gardens, learn how plants and animals have developed ways to solve problems, and create your own machine to solve an environmental issue.

Turn Your City Wild with Christiane Engel. 11.30am, Wildwood, Herne Bay. Redesign a city so it’s full of animals and plants at a drawing and collage workshop with the illustrator.

Storytime with Dean Atta. Noon, Waterstone’s, Rose Lane, Canterbury. A storytelling session with the picture book author and poet.

A Kidsummer Night’s Dream with Cut-Out Theatre. Noon and 2pm, The Old Synagogue, 33 King Street, Canterbury. A 50-minute kid-friendly version of Shakespeare’s comedy.

The Supersonic Fart with Helen Rose. 12.30pm, Canterbury Library, The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, High Street, Canterbury. The author will read and sign her debut book.

The Othernauts with Clare Pollard. 12.30pm, Chapters Coffee and Books, High Street, Sturry. The author will talk about the legendary heroes and creatures that inspired her adventure novel, including Hercules, Orpheus, sirens and centaurs ‒ and then you’ll get to create your own story!

Bookish Board Games. 1.30pm to 4.30pm, The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, High Street, Canterbury.

Beast Meets Stick Storytime with Emily Ann Davison. 1.30pm, Franciscan Gardens, 60 St Peter’s Street, Canterbury. Listen to the author read her picture book and then enjoy some arts and crafts.

Midnight Puzzlers with Liz Fost. 2pm, Canterbury Cathedral Community Studio, 36-37 Burgate, Canterbury. Jaya has found herself locked in the museum at night. Can you help her solve the puzzles and crack the codes to get out? (Editor’s note: readers of around my age may remember Liz from kids’ TV show Playbus …)

Birdlands with Anthony McGowan. 2pm, Waterstone’s, Rose Lane, Canterbury. The author reads aloud from his book.

Meet Bunny and Monkey! 2pm, 2.45pm and 3.30pm, Fenwick, St George’s Street, Canterbury. Meet the duo, have your picture taken with them and learn to draw them!

How to Make a Comic with Madeleine Finlay. 2.30pm, Chapters Coffee and Books, High Street, Sturry. Learn how Madeleine created her graphic novel Cosmo Park ‒ and how you can create a graphic novel of your own.

Robots, Reading and Revolution with Steve Blackman. 2.30pm, Canterbury Library, The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, High Street, Canterbury. Steve will introduce his book Zero Override ‒ and then you can have a go at designing a robot or building your own story.

Storytelling Yoga with Happy Kids Yoga. 3.30pm, The Old Synagogue, 33 King Street, Canterbury. A chance to explore a story through movement.

In Conversation with Nathanael Lessore. 4.30pm, Waterstone’s, Rose Lane, Canterbury. The author will discuss and sign his books Steady for This, King of Nothing, What Happens Online and Like a Brother.

Sunday, July 12:

Storytelling Yoga with Happy Kids Yoga. 10am, The Old Synagogue, 33 King Street, Canterbury. A chance to explore a story through movement.

Happy Hills with Sophy Henn. 11am, Waterstone’s, Rose Lane, Canterbury. Listen to the author and illustrator talk about the Happy Hills characters, learn to draw them ‒ and then help to invent a new character.

A Celebration of Families with Robert Tregoning. 11am, The Little Green Bookshop, High Street, Herne Bay. Listen to the author read his book The Family Quiz, take part in a drawalong, then meet The Rock Family Band and put on your own show!

School of Gods drawalong with Thiago de Moraes. 11.30am, The Old Synagogue, 33 King Street, Canterbury. Learn to draw creatures based on the author’s new book.

Our Living Soils with Emma Rosen. 11.30am, Franciscan Gardens, 60 St Peter’s Street, Canterbury. Learn about the world within the soil through stories, crafts, and movement.

How to do Paris with One Leg by Ella Dove. Noon, Chapters Coffee and Books, High Street, Sturry. The author and journalist will read from her new book and tell her own story of becoming an amputee.

The Canterbury Storymakers. Noon to 2pm, The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, High Street, Canterbury. Adults and children are both invited to contribute to a giant book featuring stories and memories of Canterbury ‒ you can write or draw them. Children will also be able to create their own book on the theme of medieval Canterbury.

How to be an Eco Explorer with Yussef Rafik. 1pm, Wildwood, Herne Bay. Explore the woodland and learn how to care for the environment.

Storytime with Mama G. 1pm, Waterstone’s, Rose Lane, Canterbury. Stories, songs and dancing with the panto dame and Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist.

The World of Skandar with A F Steadman. 1pm, Shirley Hall, The Precincts, Canterbury. The bestselling author will talk about her Skandar series ‒ and you’ll have a chance to create your own bloodthirsty unicorn and discover elemental magic.

We Are Dragons with John Condon. 2pm, Chapters Coffee and Books, High Street, Sturry. Storytime and dragon crafts with the author.

Storytime with Tiny Talk. 2pm, Fenwick, St George’s Street, Canterbury. Stories, songs, actions and signing.

Storytelling concert with Canterbury Voices. 2.30pm, The Old Synagogue, 33 King Street, Canterbury. The all-female choir will explore how folk songs tell stories.

Tilda’s Journey in the Jungle with Nicola A Lewis. 3.30pm, Canterbury Cathedral Viewing Gallery, Visitor Centre, 36-37 Burgate, Canterbury. Explore Tilda’s world through puppets and music and make your own magic wand.

Open any newspaper or ‒ yes ‒ news website and you’re bound to find an article about how the internet has stopped people talking to each other.

And yet later this month, a huge festival will take place in Canterbury, celebrating everything the city has to offer ‒ and it all came about because of Facebook.

The enthusiastic participation in two groups dedicated to life in the city ‒ Canterbury Residents’ Group and Canterbury Community Group ‒ gave Edd Withers the idea of creating an event which would shine a light on all the fun and interesting things happening in the city, and most of all, bring people together.

The first Canterbury City Show took place in 2023, and after a follow-up event in 2024 and a hiatus last year, it’s back again on Saturday, July 25 and Sunday, July 26.

“The first one was almost an experiment. We wanted to create an annual celebration of Canterbury,” said Edd, 39, who spent his twenties and early 30s in the city and now lives in Chartham.

“Canterbury doesn’t seem to celebrate itself. It’s wonderful, and as a city we need to pat ourselves on the back a bit.

“It’s known globally as being an ancient place, but it’s also a really young, dynamic city with lots going on.

“And it’s like a giant village. Everyone knows each other. Let’s just take a weekend to celebrate everything that Canterbury is ‒ and all go and see each other.”

Music, sport, talks, workshops and kids’ activities will be among the attractions at the festival, which takes place in the Westgate Gardens and Westgate Square and is free.

“We suggest a contribution of £3 to £5 per session to help cover costs ‒ but pay what you can, including nothing. Every booking is welcome,” Edd added.

There will be music from numerous choirs and vocal ensembles ‒ including women’s shanty choir Upping the Shanty and their male equivalent, Lowering the Tone ‒ as well as the Raven Drummers, Canterbury Musical Theatre Society, Doddington Ukelele Movement, harpist Marie Kelly and saxophonist Graeme Airth.

A myriad of talks and workshops will take place inside the Guildhall in St Peter’s Place, ranging from a children’s theatre workshop to a talk on Canterbury in Tudor times, a public speaking workshop with Canterbury Speakers Club, and an exploration of the Great Stour River Monitoring Project and the wildlife in the city’s waters. Canterbury Children’s Literature Festival will also run a storymaker session where children can create their own books.

Outside there will be tai chi, kung fu and qigong, zumba, kids’ yoga, minigolf, inflatable tennis, axe-throwing and archery led by the Prince of Wales Youth Club, and … wrestling. Yes, there will be live action from UK Pro Wrestling on both days. Grown men will be grappling with each other under the Westgate Towers.

For little ones, an Afro-Caribbean-themed family zone at Toddlers’ Cove will offer music, food and children’s activities.

There will be stalls selling handmade goods, Kentish produce and food and drink, and a chance to meet representatives from charities, community groups, Kent Fire and Rescue, Kent Police and the Army.

Edd has plenty of experience organising events ‒ he was one of the co-founders of Pride Canterbury, and part of the team behind the City Sound Project music festival. I ask him what part of the Canterbury City Show he’s most excited about.

“The wrestling is the obvious answer ‒ this crazy, chaotic action and drama going on under the ancient gateway,” he said.

“But the thing I think I value the most is the family area. I have a young child and I know the importance of being able to create a place where it’s calmer and cooler and there are fun and interesting things for kids, like baby signing and film characters wandering around.”

Sponsors including the University of Kent, Lenley’s and Canterbury BID have covered the cost of the festival ‒ but if you’d still like to become a sponsor, hold a stall or volunteer on the day, Edd would love to hear from you.

“There’s a lot to be proud of in Canterbury, so come with an open mind and explore,” he added.

canterburycityshow.co.uk

Are you going to the show? What are you most looking forward to? Tell us in the comments!

Welcome to the fourth chapter of Canterbury Tales news and features. This edition has been a great reminder of one of the best things about journalism - that you never really know what the story is going to be.

I absolutely loved interviewing Cllr Keji Moses on her year as the city’s Lord Mayor. Keji is just an incredible lady: so fun, vibrant and full of life, but also so intent on helping, supporting and encouraging others. I’ve met her a few times and she is a really positive, uplifting presence at any event. She also raised £10,000 for East Kent Mind during her tenure ‒ a cause close to my heart. I knew she’d have some lovely stories to tell about her year as Lord Mayor. Read them here:

"I wanted anyone who has ever felt out of place to see me": Keji Moses on her year as Lord Mayor

Next Saturday is Canterbury’s annual medieval pageant - I thought this would be a fairly standard story, not dissimilar from last year, but I was so wrong. This year’s theme is the Bayeux Tapestry, which, I learned, was probably created in the city ‒ and now we’re going to make our own version, the Canterbury Tapestry, depicting life here as it is today. I had to stop myself going down a real Bayeux Tapestry history rabbit hole when I was writing this piece. As well as lovely Rachel Pilard from Canterbury BID, I also got to chat to the brilliant Stewart Ross, whose new play about the Bayeux Tapestry will be performed on the day. Find out about everything here:

Embroidering the tale: this year's medieval pageant

I’m aware that it’s starting to sound like I love everybody, so here’s something I didn’t love: the stage sequel to Yes Minister, at the Marlowe Theatre. It was written by one half of the duo who created the classic series, so I was surprised when it fell short of the mark:

I'm sorry, Prime Minister, but I didn't want a lecture

Please feel free to share and comment on the posts ‒ and if you’ve got a story that you think I should be covering, email me at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com.

What’s on in Canterbury this fortnight:

Dirty Cute: Maiden’s Head, Wincheap, Saturday, June 27, 7.30pm. The rock trio perform at the pub. You will still be able to watch the football!

Junior Park Run: Sturry Road Community Park, Sunday, June 28 and Sunday, July 5, 9am. This 2k run for four to 14-year-olds takes place every Sunday. It’s free - but please register on the website before you go.

Annie: Marlowe Theatre, Tuesday, June 30 to Saturday, July 4. It’s a hard knock life in the orphanage ‒ will Annie’s long-lost parents ever come to rescue her?

Speed dating: Cafe No 35, St Margaret’s Street, Friday, July 3, 7pm to 10pm. All ages are welcome ‒ and if you don’t meet The One, you’ll at least have an interesting night out.

Quiz night: Maiden’s Head, Wincheap, Monday, July 6, 7pm to 10pm. Teams can have up to six people and the price is £2 per player.

Queen Elizabeth on Tour: Canterbury Cathedral, Tuesday, July 7, 2.30pm. Cathedral archivist Cressida Williams will give a talk on Elizabeth I’s visit to Canterbury in 1573, a very important event for the city ‒ and a hugely expensive one too. The talk will be followed by afternoon tea in the Refectory.

I am writing this far too late on a school night, so it’s time to draw to a close. Please get in touch if you’ve got a story, or an event coming up, or just want to let me know what you think at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com .

Thank you again, as always, for reading and for your support.

Love,

Sarah

Even as politics seems increasingly beyond parody, the classic comedies Yes, Minister, and its sequel Yes, Prime Minister, remain brilliant satires of life in Westminster.

So I have high hopes for I’m Sorry, Prime Minister, the stage show written as a follow-up to the TV series. It’s intended as the concluding chapter of the fractious relationship between politician Jim Hacker and civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby, his unfailingly polite and unfailingly obstructive permanent secretary. It’s even written by series co-creator Jonathan Lynn.

Unfortunately, it supports my theory that many sequels should simply not be written.

Hacker is now in his 80s and living in reasonable comfort as the master of an Oxford college named after him. But after he makes some politically incorrect remarks, the students call for his resignation and eviction ‒ and he needs Sir Humphrey’s help.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the play. It is very funny in parts (“They said no all the time! It was like dealing with the Treasury!”). But it’s also quite depressing ‒ and it’s a comedy, so this is unexpected. Hacker’s experience of ageing is sometimes funny, but his incapacitation and isolation are mostly just sad. We’re supposed to laugh as he rushes to the bathroom, but I feel uncomfortably like we are being invited to mock old age.

Sophie, the carer he has had to employ, is the play’s third main character and a rather weak link, because I have no idea what my reaction to her is supposed to be. She is more right-on than a diversity reporter at the Guardian, and while I don’t dislike her ‒ she clearly means well and cares about Hacker ‒ she is more tiresome than funny, and the play seems to endorse at least some of her moralising.

And this, I think, is its fundamental flaw. Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister were satire. Satire cannot be earnest; as soon as it becomes so, it ceases to be satire. We do not need to be told that almost everyone in the two television series is self-serving and unprincipled ‒ we can see that for ourselves, but they are characters in a comedy, and we are not supposed to feel genuine antipathy towards them. When Sophie tells Hacker that he has no friends because he is reaping the rewards of a selfish life, or when both Hacker and Sir Humphrey reveal their strained relationships with their children, am I supposed to feel amused, or a sense of justice? I just feel sad ‒ estrangement from their children is a genuinely upsetting fate, far too harsh for a comedy.

In fact, for me the most interesting part of the play is when Lynn forgets to lecture us and the characters engage in a discussion about cancel culture, with both sides argued persuasively. It’s a serious few moments, but it really gets me thinking.

Princess Donnough plays Sophie decently enough, but she mumbles a lot of her lines. However, Simon Rouse, as Jim Hacker, and Clive Francis, as Sir Humphrey, are both excellent ‒ complete naturals in their roles. And somehow, despite Lynn’s attempts to persuade us that we want them to get their comeuppance, we are still rooting for them to put the po-faced college students in their place. Or at least, I am.

Move over, British Museum. Canterbury is about to create its own version of the Bayeux Tapestry ‒ and you, yes you, are invited to help illustrate it.

This year’s Medieval Pageant on Saturday, July 4 is themed around the historic embroidered work ‒ which experts believe was probably created in the city.

At workshops on the day and throughout the following year, people will have the opportunity to create drawings for a tapestry depicting life in the city today.

But you needn’t plot an invasion or shoot someone in the eye with an arrow ‒ the drawing workshops will all have nice themes.

St Mildred’s Church will run a workshop on animal drawings, St Thomas’s Church will focus on food and drink and St Martin’s Church will have the theme of arts and leisure.

“What we want to do is imagine the Bayeux Tapestry, but now, celebrating all things Canterbury,” said pageant organiser Rachel Pilard, head of marketing and communications at Canterbury Business Improvement District.

“The fact that it’s coming over to the British Museum in September meant this was a perfect moment for us to do a Canterbury Tapestry.

“We want people to think about some of the lovely things that we do day to day in Canterbury, whether that’s their favourite food and drink, their favourite animals and pets, or their favourite sporting activity, from football to Pilates.

“Some 500 animals are depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, from domestic animals to monsters ‒ and the final section has lots of images of everyday activities and sports.”

Faversham company Animate Arts will make the drawings into a tapestry 68.38m long ‒ the same length as the Bayeux Tapestry ‒ and it will be on display at next year’s pageant.

If you can’t make it next weekend, there will be plenty of other opportunities to contribute a design.

“As the tapestry builds, it will be on display in different places,” Rachel said.

“We hope to have workshops at the Beaney, Christ Church and possibly the Cathedral, as well as in schools and community venues.”

Lord Mayor Alister Brady will open the pageant at 10am, when there will be music and dancing from medieval band Rough Musicke.

The family trail will have 21 stops, ranging from the Westgate Towers and the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge to the Canterbury Tales Experience and St John’s Hospital ‒ home to England’s oldest toilet.

You don’t have to visit them all ‒ there are “little legs” and “tiddly legs” routes marked on the trail map, and if you visit five or more stops you can collect a free giant chocolate coin from the Cathedral visitor centre.

There will also be re-enactments, musical performances, singing workshops ‒ including a chance to try Gregorian Chant ‒ sword fighting, stonemasonry, carving, coin and badge making, crafts, medieval market stalls and face painting.

You’ll be able to visit medieval encampments and meet medieval characters, learn how to do Bayeux stitching, take a selfie with the medieval giants, and place errant family members in the stocks.

The Canterbury Shakespeare Festival actors will perform four shows ‒ two based on The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer’s great work, not this website), and two performances of Stewart Ross’s new play The Tapestry (more on which below).

There will be no major parade this year, to avoid disappointment for people who miss it, but there will be a mini-parade on the stage in St George’s Street at 2.30pm where adults, children and pets alike can show off their costumes. Everyone who gets onstage dressed up will receive a prize ‒ human or animal.

“Not having a parade is a way of engaging people all day,” Rachel said.

“But it doesn’t mean we’re not going back to it ‒ we will probably have an even bigger parade next year.” Next year’s pageant will mark the 1,000th anniversary of William the Conqueror’s birth, and French re-enactors are coming over to perform at the castle.

Now in its 11th year, the annual pageant attracts thousands of people to the city ‒ and Rachel, who has been organising it for eight years, says it gives people an opportunity to discover places that they didn’t know existed.

“For us the most important thing is getting people to visit all the locations,” she said.

“So many people visit a heritage site and say, we didn’t know that was there. They didn’t realise that St Mildred’s Church has a Roman wall, or that St Martin’s Church is part of the UNESCO site.

“It’s a day of welcoming the community into these spaces. We really want people to come down and engage with the stage and make their mark on the tapestry.”

After the pageant ends at 5pm, the Canterbury Singers will give a performance of folk songs, entitled Sumer Is Icumen In, in St Mildred’s Church at 6pm.

What is the Bayeux Tapestry and was it made in Canterbury?

The Bayeux Tapestry depicts life in 11th-century England around the time of the Norman Conquest.

It is the source of much of the information we have about that time ‒ and yet it lived rather under the radar until 1729, when scholars who saw it on display in Bayeux Cathedral realised its significance.

And yet no one knows for certain where it was made, or who made it.

According to English Heritage, most historians agree that the tapestry was made in England because of the style of the needlework and the letters, and the illustrations of English fables.

And many scholars believe it originated in Canterbury, probably in St Augustine’s Abbey, which was the main Benedictine abbey in England at that time and an important centre of Christian scholarship and manuscript illumination (decoration).

In 1957, an art historian called Francis Wormald demonstrated that the designer probably drew inspiration from other manuscripts produced in Canterbury, most of which belonged to the abbey. There are similarities with the Canterbury Gospels, a 6th-century work probably brought to England by St Augustine and now held at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. Two of the three knights named in the tapestry were linked to St Augustine’s.

Professor Benjamin Pohl, from the University of Bristol, suggested last year that it might even have been intended to hang in the abbey refectory for the monks to read during meals.

These days, the tapestry lives in its own museum in Bayeux, in Normandy ‒ but it is coming to England in September, and will be on display in the British Museum for ten months.

The queen who may have written the story

A medieval queen who may have written the words telling the story on the Bayeux Tapestry is the central character of a new play to be performed at the medieval pageant.

Stewart Ross, president of Canterbury Commemoration Society, has written The Tapestry about Queen Edith, the wife of Edward the Confessor and the sister of King Harold. Harold was defeated by William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings.

In the play, Harold subjects her to a terrifying attack, and Edith knows that she is in danger whoever wins the battle. She needs to make a deal with both sides ‒ which is how the tapestry is born.

Most of the action takes place in a pub in Canterbury owned by the girlfriend of the city’s Archbishop, the excellently named Stigand.

The full play will premiere in November, but a curtailed 20-minute version will be performed twice during the pageant.

“It puts a woman at the heart of the story of the Norman Conquest,” said Stewart, an author whose hundreds of published pieces include novels, non-fiction books, music and plays.

“Edith is very clever and very determined, and she really makes the most of her position.”

The people in the play are real, and it’s certainly possible that Edith commissioned the tapestry, but Stewart had few historical facts to work with. He liked it that way, though. “It’s a huge help, because then you can make it all up,” he said.

The Tapestry will be performed on the pageant stage in St George’s Street at 10.30am and 2pm.

canterburymedievalpageant.co.uk

Keji Moses likes to help people.

And when she became the first black African woman to be elected as Lord Mayor of Canterbury last year, she knew that that fact alone would make a difference to others.

“I recognised that my appointment would hold significance for people who may not always see themselves represented in certain environments,” she said.

“I wanted anyone who has ever felt excluded or out of place to see me and recognise that there’s a space for them as well.”

Keji was already a well-known figure in the city after being its Sheriff from 2024-25 ‒ despite only having been elected to Canterbury City Council the year before that.

The 49-year-old former civil servant, who moved here from south London, was very clear on what she wanted to do with her year in the role.

“I wanted to serve in a different way, and I wanted to bring people together,” she says.

“My work has always been rooted in community and advocacy, and the role of Lord Mayor allowed me to do that on a wider platform.

“It allowed me to learn more about Canterbury and its people ‒ it’s the people that make it special. Behind every organisation ‒ schools, businesses, community projects ‒ are people.”

Although Keji, like her successor Alister Brady, is a Labour councillor, the role of Lord Mayor is non-political ‒ it is a ceremonial appointment which dates back to the 8th century.

You are the Crown’s official representative in the city, attending public, civic and charitable events and supporting schools, charities, businesses and community organisations.

The Lord Mayor chairs the city council and makes sure procedures are being followed correctly, but is not involved in political decision making. You are not Sadiq Khan - although sometimes people think you are.

“A lot of people get it confused with the Mayor of London and think I have more powers than I do,” Keji said.

“You’re the first citizen of the district, representing the city and the wider community at events and supporting the community.

“It’s not about party politics ‒ that’s really important to state. You have to be there for everyone. You are a bridge between the council and the community, shining a light on organisations, charities, volunteers and schools who are doing good work quietly and without recognition.

“When I’m out and about I see people who I have met and they stop and talk to me, and that is quite humbling.”

Every Monday starts with a meeting at 10am at Tower House, where the mayor is based, to go through the diary for the next two weeks.

A driver is employed to take the mayor and their consort to events ‒ although Keji was fond of walking ‒ and there is a civic manager who oversees everything, and two administrators who go through all the emails and schedule the appointments.

Keji was supported by Mayoress Carol Reed, who had been her consort when she was Sheriff. “I knew she would be very supportive,” Keji said.

The Lord Mayor is also supported by the Sheriff, who attends the Monday meetings and will usually deputise for the Mayor if they can’t be at an event. Cllr Steph Jupe held that role during Keji’s year and holds it again this year.

“You could have events from Monday to Sunday. Not working at weekends isn’t an option ‒ whatever day the event is on, you have to attend it,” Keji said.

“Every day is very different and every event is very different. There’s always that expectation and excitement when you’re invited to something.

“The civic team were brilliant and really supported and helped me. There’s no way that I would have been able to do anything I did this year without them.”

The mayor-making at the start of her tenure was one of the highlights. “My friends and family were there, and it was deeply emotional to be part of the history of Canterbury and have my family supporting me,” Keji said.

“The Lord Mayor’s Gala was another special moment. We had people from all diverse groups, and we raised £3,000 for East Kent Mind [her charity for the year]. People were so happy to give for the cause, and that really encouraged me.

“And then taking part in East Kent Mind’s Big Walk and Talk, when I was interviewed for the Canterbury Courier and we had our picture taken for the cover, really highlighted the message that we were trying to send about mental health.”

Another standout was meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, at Tower House at the end of her pilgrimage from London in March.

“As she was walking along the High Street there were so many people behind her. Having all those women ‒ the first Archbishop, the first Bishop, the first African Lord Mayor ‒ in itself was something quite special,” Keji said.

“Her installation at Canterbury Cathedral was special too. A lot of schools were involved.”

But it isn’t just the major events that stick in her mind. “St Stephen’s Primary School invited me to give a talk about belonging. I went in full regalia and took the mace.” Keji recalls.

“I greeted the kids at the gate as they were walking in and you could see the smiles on their faces. Some of them still recognise me when they see me in town. I don’t think I will forget that one.”

Keji was born in Nigeria (her full name is Morounkeji) and came to the UK when she was eight.

She studied social policy at university, went on to work for the Metropolitan Police and the Department for Work and Pensions, married her husband Lawrence and had two sons.

But in 2018, tragedy struck. Her daughter Mayah was stillborn and, understandably, Keji struggled to cope with the horror.

“I wanted to give everything up,” she told me in a previous interview.

“But the support I had, and the people around me who were able to take the time to listen to me, helped me to navigate what had happened.”

In Mayah’s memory, she founded the charity Mayah’s Legacy, which helps pregnant women to be more involved in their healthcare, advocate for their needs and make their voices heard.

East Kent Mind gave her its mental health leader and champion of the year award in 2024 ‒ and the following year she chose them as her Lord Mayor’s charity.

As well as raising money and awareness ‒ Keji set herself a target of £10,000 ‒ she and the charity ran a project to recruit 100 wellbeing ambassadors, mainly aged between 16 and 24.

Their role is to be informed, empathetic and non-judgmental points of contact for people who want to talk about mental health. Ambassadors support the charity generally with publicity and fundraising, and also receive specific training in how to respond if someone opens up to them, and how to signpost them to other organisations which can help.

Over the year, the charity recruited 140 ambassadors: 120 in the target age group and another 20 outside it.

“I wanted to focus on young people and on normalising conversations around mental health, and empower young people to look after themselves,” Keji said.

“With issues like youth unemployment and the effects of covid, they’re a group who are often finding it difficult to navigate their way through society. We want to build a stronger network of people who can support each other.

“The project it’s still expanding ‒ the ambassadors are now going into schools.

“It opened up a whole conversation about mental health and how we could embed that in the educational system.”

East Kent Mind’s fundraising and development lead Simon Dolby said: “Keji’s enthusiasm and passion enabled us to exceed all our expectations.

“All the team were absolutely delighted with the success and can’t thank Keji enough for being our chief champion!”

Keji says she learned a lot about the importance of sharing our struggles during her year as Lord Mayor.

“People carry a lot. Everyone has a story, and that has really helped me to connect with people,” she said.

“I learned to trust myself and my intuition more. There was one event where I had to speak and I was conflicted. I wanted to be a little more vulnerable, open up a bit more about myself, and part of me thought: don’t do that.

“But I did. I spoke from the heart. And that allowed other people to know it’s okay to speak from the heart and show up as yourself.”

The past year also helped her to see her own neurodivergence differently.

“I have dyslexia, and I struggle sometimes with information overload. If I don’t prepare for something I find it difficult and challenging,” she said.

“But I have a helicopter view ‒ I am good at seeing the final product and looking at how different people can bring that to realisation. Someone once said to me: you are the glue that holds things together, and I really believed that was my role.

“It allowed me to see my dyslexia not as a disadvantage, but to use how my brain works. My approach is: we can sit and talk, or we can take action. I learned that if I put my mind to something, I can achieve it.”

Most of us who’ve met Keji know how much she loves fashion. When I first met her, in my then-role as editor of the Canterbury Courier, we were taking her picture for the cover as the wellbeing ambassadors were our cover story. She was wearing blue lipstick, and she looked incredible. So I have to ask what her favourite event to get dressed up for was.

“For the duck race, I wore a flowery yellow dress. It was beautiful going along the river and seeing all the beautiful flowers,” she recalls.

“Then at Westgate, I had my picture taken and I had a duck standing next to me all dressed in yellow. I didn’t plan it but I had managed to go with the theme!

“I had that picture framed. Then at the Christmas lights switch-on I had a festive outfit on, I was in red and white … and I stood next to Father Christmas.”

Keji attended 291 events during her year as Lord Mayor, taking one ten-day break to go on a family holiday while the Sheriff attended events in her place. She is now enjoying a well earned rest.

“I was so exhausted. I crashed after Alister’s mayor-making,” she said.

“At the moment I’m just taking life easy, working on Mayah’s Legacy and looking for other opportunities.

“My advice to Alister? Enjoy every moment of it, be aware that you are part of history, and put people at the centre of everything you do.”

mayahslegacy.com
eastkentmind.org.uk

Welcome to the third edition of Canterbury Tales news and features. And I want to say, this week, how much I am absolutely loving doing this.

I don’t have loads of subscribers. You’re still a small and select band. I’m not making any money (which I will have to if I want to do this long-term). But it is making me so happy.

All four stories this week have been an absolute pleasure to write.

This week is Refugee Week in the UK, so I wanted to write about the work Kent Refugee Action Network, which is based in Canterbury, does to help young refugees who arrive here unaccompanied. I spoke to Rishan, who fled Eritrea for the UK when she was a teenager. She rebuilt her life here with the charity’s help and is now a nurse. It would be hard not to be moved by her resilience and her determination to overcome the horrors she has been through. Read her story here:

The courage of compassion

Canterbury’s first Afro-Caribbean festival takes place next week, so I spoke to organisers Abbey and Tolu about what’s in store. Once I had gotten over my confusion at the fact that Abbey was a man, I had great fun talking to them about their plans and how much they like Canterbury. Find out all about it here:

Out of Africa

The weekend before last, I went to see the Central Band of the Royal British Legion perform in Canterbury Cathedral. I was very surprised not to see more people there and can only say that everyone who wasn’t there missed a real treat. Read my review here:

A right royal treat: the Central Band of the Royal British Legion

And, last but absolutely not least, I LOVE this story about bus driver Ace Brown, who was having a completely normal Thursday morning until one of his passengers, 80-year-old Adrian James, had a heart attack on his bus. Ace took such great care of him that he almost certainly helped to save his life ‒ and Adrian’s family tracked him down to express their gratitude. Everyone I spoke to for this story, including the Stagecoach press officer who put me in touch with Ace, was just absolutely lovely and it was heartwarming to write.

“Incredible” bus driver helps save grandad’s life

Please feel free to share and comment on the posts ‒ and if you’ve got a story that will brighten other people’s day, email me at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com.

What’s on in Canterbury this fortnight:

Classical At The Movies: Colyer-Ferguson Hall, University of Kent, Saturday, June 13, 3pm. The University of Kent Chorus and Symphony Orchestra perform classical pieces from films, including works by Mozart, Elgar and Bach.

Living Through Two World Wars: Canterbury 1914-1951: Clagett Auditorium, Canterbury Cathedral, Tuesday, June 16, 2.30pm. Former University of Kent history teacher Doreen Rosman talks about how life in the city changed during the first half of the last century.

I’m Sorry, Prime Minister: Marlowe Theatre, Tuesday, June 16 to Saturday, June 20. A stage sequel to the classic comedies Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, written by co-creator Jonathan Lynn.

Verdi’s Requiem: Canterbury Cathedral Nave, Saturday, June 20, 7.30pm. Canterbury Choral Society and Youth Choir perform Verdi’s masterpiece with the London Mozart Players.

University for the Creative Arts Graduate Show: University for the Creative Arts, until Wednesday, June 24. The students’ end of year show features work from artists, designers, illustrators, architects and more - and it’s free.

Garden: Beach Creative, Herne Bay, Friday, June 12 to Thursday, June 25. An exhibition of work by members of the centre’s Friday Art Group, on the theme of gardens.

That’s plenty to keep you going, I hope! In the meantime, if you’ve got a story, or an event coming up, please let me know at canterburytalesnews@gmail.com .

Thank you again, all of you, for reading and for your support.

Love,

Sarah