Review of The Warwichshire Pen

Authors

Gabriel Woolf

Date of this Version

1988

Document Type

Article

Citation

The George Eliot Review 19 (1988)

Comments

Published by The George Eliot Review Online https://GeorgeEliotReview.org

Abstract

Being born in Warwickshire, it seems, confers distinction upon those who write. I can make this statement without giving myself airs, since I was born in another county, and, according to Gabriel Woolf, merely to dwell in Warwickshire is no guarantee of excellence.

Shaking the local dust from his feet with a grand dramatic gesture, so to speak, Gabriel Woolf began his programme with extracts from Henry V on "the vastly fields of France", whither we had been puffed by the breath of Shakespeare's contemporary, Michael Dray ton. Back in Warwickshire, a contrast followed from the early pen of George Eliot, quietly dramatising a conversation between neighbors, from Scenes of Clerical Life, which gave us a taste of the local dialect.

The spice of the programme was its variety: favourite sonnets by Shakespeare and Drayton were followed by fishy poems of Rupert Brooke; then we entered the sphere of childhood with an hilarious sticky poem by Paul Jennings full of hard staccato sounds. Children of Michael Drayton Middle School, Hartshill provided up-to-the minute poems with their Warwickshire biros. What a treat it must have been for those at Nuneaton who heard their own jolly verses read by such a gifted performer! A little lame dialogue from the minor pen of Angela Brazil kept us giggling, with the black stockinged ones kicking up their legs in the gym; and Maggie and Tom, fishing happily in the Round Pool near The Mill on the Floss, after the shameful episode of the neglected rabbits, brought the first part to a close in a haze of golden sunshine.