In the cathedral - for Any Questions?

My wife Jan and I were delighted to have an evening off on Friday night when we were invited to the BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions?.

The topical discussion in which a panel of personalities from the worlds of politics, media and elsewhere are posed questions by the audience came last week from Lichfield Cathedral.

It was fascinating to see what is involved in producing a live radio show.

We had to be in our seats by 7.15pm for the show which goes out live at 8.02pm.

The cathedral looked dramatic outside against the night sky and very atmospheric inside with its subdued lighting and a packed audience of almost 1,000 people.

Producer Victoria Wakely explained that the Any Questions? show is one of the longest running radio programmes.

It started as a six-week pilot and is still going strong 74 years later.

Tony Benn holds the record for most guest appearances having been on the show more than 80 times.

Every member of the audience is invited to submit questions as they arrive and the authors of the nine questions picked by the producer are then invited to take their seats in the front two rows.

The panellists are kept well away from the audience and have no idea of the questions until they are asked live on air by chairman Jonathan Dimbleby.

The panellists last Friday were David Blunkett, the former Labour Cabinet Minister; Daniel Finkelstein, Executive Editor of The Times; Anna Soubry, a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department of Health and Sunder Katwala, Director of the Think Tank, British Future.

Topics ranged from the Olympics opening ceremony to the cap on Benefits and bankers’ bonuses.

The only heated debate was the HS2, the proposed new London to Birmingham fast rail link, which drew the only slight heckling of the night.

On the whole the evening was a credit to Radio 4 with a high level of debate conducted very politely in the atmospheric setting of a beautiful cathedral - and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you to the Rev. David Primrose, the Lichfield Diocesan Director of Transforming Communities, who gave us the tickets.

A book order from Australia

I never cease to be amazed how far away this blog is read and the benefits it brings.

This week I had an email from John Driscoll, of Queensland, Australia, who asked me: “Is it possible to order a copy of Four Centuries at The Lion Hotel in Australia?”

John told me he had stayed at the hotel while he was over in the UK.

I told him unfortunately it wasn’t possible to buy a copy of the book Down Under but if he sent me the money I would post him a signed copy.

He replied that the money was on its way so I posted him a book on Friday and also asked him to let me know more details about his visit to Shrewsbury.

When I hear back from him I will put his comments in a further blog.

If you live abroad and would like a copy of Four Centuries at The Lion Hotel for £6.99p plus postage email John@jbutterworth.plus.com, and I would be delighted to send you a copy.

Great Expectations for a great weekend

Great Expectations about the weekend of celebrations at The Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury, next month to mark the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens have been realised already.

Organiser Chris Eldon Lee emailed me this week to say that Friday night is completely sold out, 60 per cent of the Saturday night tickets have gone and there are already 80 people coming to the Sunday events.

It is great news that tickets have gone so well and so quickly, so if you want to come book your seats now.

Charles Dickens is believed to have stayed at least three times at the hotel in the mid 19^th century, performed at the nearby Music Hall and most likely gave readings from his novels in The Lion’s Ballroom.

Actor Gerald Dickens, the great, great grandson of Charles, pictured below, will headline a weekend of celebrations in Shrewsbury’s famous coaching inn on Friday, February 3, Saturday, February 4 and Sunday, February 5, 2012.

He will perform two of his most popular one-man-shows about his great, great grandfather in The Ballroom over the weekend, just two days before the great man’s big day. 

On Friday, February 3 at 8pm there is Mr Dickens is Coming, which is a light-hearted and varied look at the life and character of Charles Dickens. Gerald includes in the play scenes from the great author’s works, diary extracts and observations from those who knew and worked with him.

On Saturday, February 4 at 8pm, programme pictured below, it’s Sikes and Nancy, which is Victorian theatre at its most dramatic. Most of Charles’ readings were safe, well-known and often comic passages from his novels, but in 1869 he introduced Sikes and Nancy to his repertoire.

When Dickens performed what he called The Murder, he judged the success of the evening by the number of ladies who had fainted with horror. Today it has lost none of its power.

Both performances will be followed by Gerald reading excerpts from A Christmas Carol on the very stage Charles read from two centuries ago!

Tickets for the Saturday evening performances are £8.50 each.

On Sunday, February 5 it is Christmas Carol Day, programme pictured below, which recalls the celebrated George C. Scott’s film of A Christmas Carol which was shot in Shrewsbury in 1984 and the cast and crew stayed at The Lion.

The day’s programme is:

10.30am: The Making of A Christmas Carol, which is an illustrated talk by historian David Trumper.

11.30am: A Guided Town Walk - Enjoy a walk around various local film locations.

2.30pm: A Christmas Carol - a large screen showing of the famous film.

Tickets for the day are £10. Tickets for individual Sunday events may be bought separately.

Gerald Dickens has worked as an actor, director and producer for many years and is fascinated by his great, great grandfather’s life and works. He regularly performs in major theatres, arts centres and stately homes.

Gerald will be staying at The Lion in the same rooms Charles stayed in; which he described as “the strangest little rooms” with windows that “bulge out over the street as if they were little stern windows of a ship”.

The weekend is being arranged by Chris Eldon Lee, veteran BBC Radio 4 producer and former director of the Shrewsbury Summer Season and the events will be open to everyone.

Special package deals are available for guests wishing to spend the weekend in Shrewsbury in the company of Mr Dickens.

For details, tickets and package deals please ring The Lion Hotel on 01743 353107 or email info@thelionhotelshrewsbury.com 

Lion Hotel's link with the Antarctic

Today is the centenary of Captain Robert Scott’s arrival at the South Pole.

But when he arrived there on January 17, 1912, Scott was shocked to discover that Roald Amundsen had beaten them to be the first to reach the pole.

Tragedy then struck when Scott, pictured below, and his four companions died on their journey back from the South Pole.

A dinner was held by the Scott Polar Research Institute at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, to celebrate the centenary this Tuesday evening.

The guest of honour at the dinner was the Duke of Edinburgh who was undertaking his first public engagement since the 90-year-old had been taken to Papworth Hospital, also in Cambridge, when he suffered chest pains two days before Christmas.

Journalist and colleague Chris Eldon Lee told me the other day about another celebratory Antarctic dinner – this time at The Lion Hotel just before Christmas.

A group, who had worked in the 1970s for the British Antarctic Survey at Halley, the most southerly British base, met at the Shrewsbury hotel, because one of their leaders lives nearby.

They enjoyed their weekend so much they have already booked another one at the hotel – in 2013.

Darwin replica ship plan unveiled

I was delighted to read that a £5 million project has been launched to rebuild MMS Beagle, pictured below, the ship which Shrewsbury’s Charles Darwin made famous on his epic round the world journey.

Organisers hope the ship will set sail from England by December 2013 travelling the same route as Darwin did in 1831.

The £5 million project, which is hoping to use the same materials as the first Beagle, will cost considerably more than the original price of £7,803 to build the ship.

Twenty-two-year-old Darwin left The Lion Hotel on Monday, September 5, 1831, by stagecoach to London to see Captain Robert FitzRoy about the job as ship naturalist.

Charles accepted the position and was told to report to Plymouth in time for the sailing date of October 10, although the ship didn’t eventually leave until 11am on Tuesday, December 27.

The journey, which was due to last two years, in fact, took four years, nine months and five days, led to Darwin writing his book on evolution,  On The Origin of Species.

The ship called at the Canary Islands, the Cape Verde Islands, Brazil, Uruguay, Tierra del Fuego, and the Falkland Islands, before reaching the Galapagos Islands on September 16, 1835.

He then travelled on to Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa and returning up the Atlantic, docking at Falmouth on October 2, 1836 where he caught the stagecoach to Shrewsbury.

He arrived so late in the evening, it is believed he spent the night at The Lion before arriving at his home for breakfast to a surprised but delighted family at the family home at The Mount, Shrewsbury.

With no surviving plans for the original HMS Beagle, the rebuild by German firm Detlev Loell and Partners will be based on knowledge of the general vessel class, recollections and drawings from the crew recollections, and records of purchases and refit works.

Organisers hope to relay satellite images to pupils during the trip and afterwards open up the ship to paying customers and schools.

For more details of the project see www.hmsbeagleproject.org and to read more about Darwin’s link to The Lion Hotel email John@jbutterworth.plus.com to buy a signed copy of Four Centuries at The Lion Hotel for £6 including postage within the UK.