A Leap in the Dark 42

A Leap in the Dark 42   8pm  Saturday 22 August 2020

     It’s the Buzz, Cock!

Tonight’s show is curated by C. D. Rose, co-editor of Love Bites: Fiction Inspired by Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks, published in 2019 by Dostoyevsky Wannabee. Chris will introduce nine of the authors appearing in that anthology: Emma Bolland, Sarah-Claire Conlon, Kathleen Davies, Sharon Duggal, Meave Haughey, Richard Hirst, Tom Jenks and Jonathan Kemp

Pete Shelley (born Peter Campbell McNeish; 1955 – 2018) was an English singer, songwriter and guitarist. He formed early punk band Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto in 1976, and became the lead singer and guitarist in 1977 when Devoto left. The group released their biggest hit "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)" in 1978. The band broke up in 1981 and reformed at the end of the decade. Shelley also had a solo career - his song "Homosapien" charted in the US in 1981

We’ll have archive footage of the band in the late 1970s, an interview with Pete Shelley himself and some thoughts from Those Who Were There at the Time.

There's no charge for taking part in A Leap in the Dark, but please make a donation, no matter how large, to The Trussell Trust.

Programme

The Pale Usher welcomes you

Side 1

Intro: Rock Follies (1975)

Track 1  C. D. Rose

Buzzcocks - "What Do I Get?" Released Feb 1978, remastered and re-released by Domino Record Co. 

Track 2  Cathleen Davies 

Track 3  Richard V. Harris

  

Track 4  Meave Haughey

Track 5  Tom Jenks

Track 6  Emma Bolland

Interval: “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldnt’ve)” 

Buzzcocks live at Manchester Free Trade Hall, June 1978

Side 2

Track 7   Jonathan Kemp

Track 8   Sarah-Clare Conlon

Track 9   Sharon Duggal

Pete Shelley “Homo Sapien” (1974, released 1980) 

Track 10  The Settee Salon with C. D. Rose

Track 11  ’Time’s Up’

The Pale Usher signs off

The Company

Emma Bolland is an artist and writer working across text, performance, and moving image,  exploring the problematics of expanded understandings of translation—between languages and language codes, between writing, reading and speaking.  Recent publications include Over, In, and Under (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2019). They are an Associate Lecturer in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University.

Sarah-Claire Conlon is a copywriter and proofreader, Literature Editor of arts and travel site Creative Tourist, and a former editor on ELLE and Nova magazines. She studied French and, 20 years later, Creative Writing at the University of Manchester, and is Writer-in-Residence at the city’s Victoria Baths. Best British & Irish Flash Fiction listed, she has work upcoming in Confingo and PN Review.

Cathleen Davies is a writer and publishing assistant living in East Yorkshire. Her work has appeared in Storgy, The Confessionalist, The Maine Review, Miracle Monocle, various UEA anthologies, and Dostoyevsky Wannabe’s collection Love Bites. Her hobbies include live music and self deprecation. cathydavies1995.wordpress.com 

Sharon Duggal is the author of the critically-acclaimed novel The Handsworth Times (2016) which was The Morning Star's 'Fiction Book of the Year 2016' and Brighton City Reads 2017.  Her short stories appear in various anthologies and her second novel Should We Fall Behind is published by Bluemoose Books this October.

Meave Haughey is a weight-lifting librarian.

Richard V. Hirst is a writer based in Manchester. His most recent book is Plunge Hill which he co-wrote with Jenn Ashworth and is out now with Dead Ink.

Tom Jenks is a poet and publisher with a particular interest in kitchen equipment.  

Jonathan Kemp lives and works in London.

C.D. Rose was born and raised in Manchester, but has lived in many other places since then. He is the author of The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure, Who's Who When Everyone Is Someone Else and The Blind Accordionist (forthcoming in spring 2021, Melville House). 'Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)' was the first single he bought. 

The Pale Usher is David Collard, who organises these gatherings.

The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.

   Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

At the next Leap in the Dark on Friday 28th August we reach the final canto of Spring Journal by Jonathan Gibbs. This has been a regular Friday highlight since Michael Hughes read the first canto at the start of April.

To mark the completion of this important literary response to the Covid-19 crisis Jonathan and Michael will be joined by eleven guest readers: Kevin Boniface, Season Butler, Marie-Elsa Bragg,  Susanna Crossman, Kevin Davey, Emma Devlin, Rónán Hession, Amy McCauley, 

J O Morgan, Aea Varfis-van Warmelo and Eley Williams. Together they will read the complete poem, culminating in the final canto. 

Music especially composed to accompany the readings by Helen Ottaway will be performed by Helen and Melanie Pappenheim.

Be sure not to miss the thrilling climax of this epic poetic commentary on our times. 

NB This Leap will be recorded and we’d like all members of the audience to be visible on screen, so take a bath and brush your hair.

Stay well!

The Pale Usher