Riviera FM. David
Hammond’s interview with James Tyson. 29.06.17
Part One of Four:
An introduction to the festival.
DH: You’re are listening to Riviera FM. It’s Thursday
morning with me, David Hammond, through to 11 a.m. I’m pleased to say I’ve been
joined in the studio by James Tyson, who is the Director of the International
Agatha Christie Festival. Good Morning James.
JT: Good Morning David.
DH: Thank you for coming in.
JT: Thank you very much.
DH: Let’s talk about the festival. It’s back for 2017.
JT: That’s right.
DH: It’s running between the 13th and 17th September.
JT: Yes.
DH: And a lot of listeners will know the Agatha Christie
festival. They know all about Agatha Christie of course. She was born here. Ah,
now it’s a biennial or biannual festival, every two years. Shall we start with just
by saying, why there has been the break and why it’s gone to being every two
years now, rather than an annual festival?
JT: Why I think, erm, err. I think that the thinking was
really to try and really try and re kind of establish the err festival. Really
kind of try and reinvigorate it. Really and try and make it really something
special for Torbay and also, really, really kind of so it sings out about the
message of the creativity in Torbay and erm, and so I think the thinking to do
that, it was really well, let’s really make it happen. Maybe every two years,
we can really make it something special. Each of those the alternate years, we
have err, something special, a celebration, which is traditionally the Agatha
Christie Festival. It takes place in September when her birthday was, which was
the 15th September, so, the new plan is to have every alternate year, we have a
big kind of five-day festival and on the other year we have a one day event, to
kind of celebrate her birthday as it were. But this year is the actual festival,
so I think erm. It’s a small arts charity and so we work, it’s a small team, so
really so we are putting together a festival and making it something special,
with a lot of artists and bringing artists from across South Devon and Torbay Internationally.
It, you know, it takes some time to do that, so if we are going to do that properly,
so let’s do it every two years and make it really good.
DH: And what has changed? I looked at the website yesterday
and a lot has changed and there is words on there like, projects and
residencies, platforms for new works etc. But as a layman, I mean I get the
impression it is more of an arts festival. OK, and again as you said they’re
focusing on drawing out local talent.
JT: Yer, that’s right.
DH: Which is obviously amazing.
JT: Yer. I think it’s the key thing and I think it’s about
one of the things that the festival, when it was set up as a charity, the board,
which consist of the Agatha Christie family, The Riviera Company, Torbay Council,
as well as publishers such like HarperCollins, erm. I think one of their thinking
was the festival and how the festival can be a platform to enable to creativity
across Torbay, and so one of the things, as well as having this once every two
year festival, is actually to rethink about what you are doing around the year
and having and actually throughout the year, and providing opportunities first for
young people, or actually people of all ages, to engage in literature or in
arts and so the festival, as well as having this sort of five-day event, which
take place every two years. We were quite keen to think about how can we really
get involved and kind of make platforms, and make projects, which enable people
to think about arts and literature, whether it’s specifically Agatha Christie,
or so much broader than that, as well in terms of their own stories and their
own kind of inspirations as well. So, that’s why we have introduced a few
programmes, one of them is our residency programme, which is really
specifically to be able to bring international writers from around the world actually
to Torbay, and Torbay being a place which has always as we know been a place
where visitors have come to, to seek inspiration, or to reinvigorate, or rejuvenate,
and that’s been very much part of its history. So, I think it seemed to make
very straight forward sense, in a way, to re-establish that, actually and think
what that can mean for some of the most exciting writers around the world today,
much like it was in the late nineteenth-century. So, we have the residency
programme and then when we talk about projects, there is a kind of a, a, it’s a
kind of somehow, a kind of catch term for, for really any arts event, or project,
which we are doing, which involves either commissioning or making a performance
or doing a writing project or a workshop. So, for example, we are working in
October this year, during the October half term, we are doing a series of
projects with there’s Play Torbay, who
are very well known across Torbay, which are doing projects with children and young
people, doing arts events and making their own performances. They are going to
be in Torre Abbey for a week and we are going to be making a performance during
the week and that’s half term. And we are also working with Doorstep Arts erm and who are, we are
working with their Youth Theatre, so they are preparing a performance for their
Doorstep
Arts Festival in November. So, we are working with them. So, it’s
really kind of these, kind of trying to make these moments where people can actually,
it helps support tries and helps the cultural community in Torbay to really make
new exciting performances and literature and writing and really encouraging that.
DH: Yer. It seems like an ongoing thing, instead of just one
celebration for Agatha Christie every year, or every two years.
JT: That’s right.
DH: Obviously, Agatha Christie themes there and I’m sure she
would have approved everything that was going on.
JT: I hope so.
DH: Something for the diehard Agatha fans and I know there
are lots of those around the world and they all come to Torquay before the
festival, so nothing is going to be lost there.
JT: No.
DH: That’s still a main focus as well?
JT: Yer. I mean, we’ve got some, I guess you might say special
key events, some kind of favourites as well as. We are quite lucky to have Janet Morgan, who is actually, has
actually been the only actually official Agatha Christie biographer. She has
not been to a festival before, they are actually republishing the err, edition
of her, err, which was published in the mid-80s actually. So, she is coming. She
is really quite a personality and really erudite, and erm, and kind of
inspiring person to talk to. So, we are very happy to welcome her, and as well
as some of the other kind of err experts, as it were, and specialists. There is
John Curran, you know is obviously very famous for writing her Secret Note Books,
of Agatha Christie. There is Mark Aldridge, who is an expert on Agatha Christie’s
cinema. Julius Green who’s one of the key people who has been promoting Agatha
Christie stage work. So, they’re all coming and err, also some interesting new
ones as well. So, there’s actually Anna
Martinette & Guillaume Lebeau from Paris, and they erm, last year they
published a really lovely graphic novel biography of Agatha Christie, actually,
which really kind of tells her life through, rather than through a written page,
it’s actually through a kind of illustrated graphic novel book and it erm, it’s
really is a lovely book, kind of, it really gives a sense of the atmosphere of
the times and the places that Agatha Christie lived in and travelled through,
and also the kind of artistic questions she had, as well into her own life, and
what her pressures in terms of being a commercial writer, her family or
personal life, in a very kind of, in a very sensitive way. So, it’s really
lovely to have Anna and Guillaume to come and talk about the process of writing
that quite extraordinary book.
DH: Yer, Yer, Excellent and this is all happening the 13th
to 17th September.
JT: That’s right.
DH: This year. And the hub again, is Torre Abbey?
JT: That’s correct.
DH: Brilliant. OK, we’ll come back in a moment and talk
about it a little bit more.
Riviera FM. David
Hammond’s interview with James Tyson. 29.06.17
Part Two of Four: How James found himself as Director of
IACF.
DH: Let’s talk about the festival this year and how it’s
different and bringing in new projects, involving people in South Devon of all
ages and all different arts projects for a festival. A bigger and err, more
varied really, and err, involving local people, so they can have a say and an
input? So, it goes on and on and links between the years as well all of that. I’d
like to start this section again. How did you become Director of the festival,
what’s your background?
JT: Sure, erm. Well I err, I guess I have quite a, err. I’ve
had quite a long link with Torbay I suppose I. I guess, it’s like many people,
I used to come here when I was a kid and err, have continued to and I have some
family who are often are here, and live here, and so it’s a place I’ve kind of
seen over the last twenty years or so or more and erm, and err. It’s always a
place that I think, like a place for many people, that I think it has so many
stories to tell, has inspired so many people and as this place that something,
something quite special about, and err. As well as that, and when you scratch
under the surface a bit you find so many things, whether its geology or coastline
or its kind of Dartmoor and all these kind of histories and err, and some of
the history of the people that lived here, Agatha Christie being one, and err
so it was actually really just a coincidence that I was, err. It just happened,
and I think I just saw an announcement actually, and err, the Agatha Christie Festival
was looking for a new Director, and I erm, not necessarily being someone who,
who’s, who’s, I think saw themselves as a err, an immersed fan in her work, but
actually I guess also, like many people, feels that one grows up with Agatha
Christie and is somehow surrounded by her work, and err, one feels somehow very
connected to it in all kind of ways. So, err, so, I think the most, thinking
about Agatha Christie, but then particularly Torbay actually, erm, and what
that place was, and I think of the festival, they were quite keen that if it’s
going to grow and continue it really needs to engage with Torbay as a place and
its history, and its geography, and archaeology. And also, how that connects to
Agatha Christie’s own interests in beyond the writing of her kind of crime
stories and that the err, things that she was very passionate about, or specially
interested about, which is specifically was archaeology being one and her kind
of almost lifelong fascination, partly through her second husband Max Mallowan,
in terms of archaeology of the middle east and going on digs, like over three
decades in Egypt and what is now Syria, Iraq and discovering these ancient civilisations.
But also, how she trained as a classical pianist in her early 20s and her love
of music and dance and art. So, I think it was really was, thinking about those
interests and actually taking that as a starting point and what could really
then become a more multi art form festival. Erm, which rather than focusing on
the works themselves, was she was really thinking about the world she saw and
the things that she was curious about and try to sort of inspire that curiosity
in other people too. So, I think that for me was a way of actually meaning that
this festival, whether you are or not necessarily a fan of Agatha Christie, or
not, it can actually it can mean something to you, because erm, either everyone
has a kind of story to tell, everyone enjoys something the arts and even if it’s
not something familiar to them and erm. So, I think that’s what drew me to the
festival, erm, and I guess myself, someone who has worked in, whether it’s in, making
international cultural relations or projects or organising theatre festivals or
literature and music festivals and erm, there was something about what this
could provide and offer, where that, what that journey could take us, I found well
yer, why not let’s try and see what we could make of that.
DH: Yer. Is that your brief in a way then? When the job was
announced, that to make it broader or appealing?
JT: Yer, Yer. It was very much the decision of the festival
and I think it just erm, err, just about two years ago the festival became
officially an actually an arts charity and before it hadn’t been that, so it
had been organised differently, so, it was organised through by Torbay council
or the Riviera Company and I think erm, it gained actually charitable status to
which I think is actually quite significant too, because in terms of its
mission it should be a festival which is really working to provide access and
develop public appreciation of the arts and almost as an educational charity.
DH: Yer.
JT: So, this kind of remit of the festival has been
something which is inclusive, which can be educational it can be something
which can inspire people in the arts and develop people understanding of the
arts whether from Torbay and internationally that became quite key to what the
festival could be if it could continue. So, I think that’s something very
exciting which we should really celebrate as well.
DH: Yer, Yer. Cos in the past people might be looking
thinking again Agatha Christie Festival it’s all I wasn’t really interested in
Agatha Christie Festival, yer, I know she came from Torquay and I appreciate
that I know, but it’s not really for me. I get the impression here that it’s
for everyone and there is something for everyone an all-encompassing.
JT: Well I think also for me, also, I think Agatha Christie
loved Torquay and Torbay and she came here, I mean she lived here obviously she
grew up here and then as she in her career and so on she enjoyed living in so
many places in her life alive and then end up kind of during most of her
working life living in London or Oxford and Torquay I mean Torbay was a place
she always came back to and particularly when she bought Greenway in the late
1930s so that became her kind of retreat, in many ways I think it was a place
she was very fond of and I think it was somewhere quite special about, that a link,
so in a way, it’s an acknowledging this kind of fascination and what Torquay and
Torbay hold and trying to sort of bring that to the surface in a way that
Agatha Christie obviously had some connection to and so it’s how we can
celebrate that actually in what Torbay has and what‘s special about it. And err
just like Agatha Christie could see that so let’s see through her eyes and in
her spirit somewhere let’s see what that means for us today.
DH: Brilliant, yer, yer. A Hundred and Twenty-seven-years-old
this year she is isn’t it. Borne in 1890 on the 15th September why its
celebrated around that time. Yer. 1890.
JT: That’s right.
DH: I’m sure she would approve. We’ll come back in a little
while and talk about the content, of the programme.
Riviera FM. David
Hammond’s interview with James Tyson. 29.06.17
Part Three of Four: What’s in the festival this year.
DH: James Tyson here in the studio with me, who is Director
of the International Agatha Christie Festival, which is happening this year. The
hub being Torre Abbey, between the 13 – 17th September. Err, I can
imagine it’s erm, erm, what’s the word I’m looking for, err, demanding is one
word I’m thinking of, liaising with a lot of people, but rather like putting a
big jigsaw puzzle together, the festival together err.
JT: A jigsaw puzzle together, that’s very apt as well I
think. There is always a missing piece isn’t there. Ha, ha, ha.
DH: OK.
JT: Yer. It’s coming together.
DH: Yer. Great support locally.
JT: Yer. It’s just a small team, based at the Abbey, and some
working of the Abbey staff, but also you know a fantastic as well, you know
getting to know also some of the amazing people around Torbay and err, and all
different things happening whether its Doorstep
Arts, whether it’s Play Torbay, Dancing Devon all these great
organisations that are actually helping us and working with them on the
programme. So, it’s coming together in that way.
DH: Yer, yer. OK. So, we open, or it opens, the festival on
13th September and runs for five days again always this time of the year to coincide
with Agatha Christie's birthday, which is the 15th September.
JT: Hmm, hmm.
DH: So, may be just go through some of the err the
highlights. As we’ve said already, err, there’s a lot of the err, so called
traditionally Agatha Christie events are going to be there for the Agatha
Christie diehards, but we’ve got more of a sort of boarder, culture and arts
based programme this year.
JT: Yer, yer.
DH: Culture and arts based programme this year. It’s fair to
say.
JT: I guess one of the themes this year for the festival,
which we are using for the festival this year is one of the titles of one of
Agatha Christie’s books which is one of the unusual books she wrote, because what
she describes it as an archaeological memoir, which is a kind of travel account
really, these journeys that she made in the 1930s beginning of the 1930s, to one
of these archaeological digs she was doing with her husband and erm, it’s called
Come,
Tell Me How You Live. And err, we thought this was a really kind of
lovely title really, just to be able to start a festival, which is about, any
festival is about often bringing people together and inviting them to a gathering
for plays and share their stories and erm, talk about where they’re from or
what interest them and what they’re inspired by and err, so, I think we tried
to take that as a starting point both for the festival and the kind of year
round programmes that we are doing, but erm, in terms of September specifically,
so, I think we have erm, it’s erm, Wednesday to Sunday programme so we are beginning
and as you mentioned David, we are taking over Torre Abbey and so there are all
the collections there and so we are kind of adding some kind of extra sort of
installations and exhibition works but erm, on the Wednesday night our opening
event is actually with Anna Martinette
& Guillaume Lebeau. They are graphic
novelists who have made this really beautiful biography of Agatha Christie erm,
that was published last year. So, they’re going to be giving a talk about their
process of writing, drawing in that book and with them is actually Lois Pryce who is a really remarkable err,
lady who erm, who’s I guess, her err, in the last few years what she’s been
writing in her books, what she’s been wring books about, is how she, I guess
like many people had a fairly ordinary office job, was working as a, for the BBC
and err, getting on with things and then I think she decided one day, you know what
I’ve got a motorbike I always wanted to ride a motorbike and maybe I could just
go somewhere to go on a journey. So, she got on her motorbike and then ended up
in particular, this was one of her first journeys she made was actually erm,
she parked her motorbike in London and someone left a note on it saying, come
and visit Iran, err, it’s a, you know, it’s err, a place that err, a place that
may be you have to be there to understand it and err, it’s not like how it gets
represented on the news and so on, so she went there and she spent a good part
of a year travelling round the country and she wrote this remarkable book called
a Revolutionary
Ride, which she talks about really the everyday encounters the people
she met and how in a way the disparity between that and often what gets sort of
communicated between the worldwide media and err, really her own discovery
through that place. So, she is coming to give a kind of talk about her travels
and her life and her choices and which I think will be really inspiring and the
book is really fantastic as well and it’s a Revolutionary Ride and erm,
then the following day we are doing a mixture, on the Thursday we’ve got lots
of Agatha Christie specialists talks. Janet Morgan her biography like I’ve
mentioned erm, John Risdon the local historian is doing a really wonderful talk
and lecture and also be doing a bus tour around South Devon, kind of looking at
all the Agatha Christie sights of interest as well as really talking about the this
very particular kind of cultural context that, in a way Agatha Christie grew up
here and in a way in which I think is quite important about why we think about,
why was she so conversed and so able to access important writers, whether it
was Henry James or Rudyard Kipling, or you know, why was, why was this world
around her, whether it was music and going to dance classes in old way, going
to dances in old way, where Isadora Duncan one of the greatest choreographers of
the twentieth-century was living and so it was like, I was thinking about that
content is actually quite particular to erm, a person like Agatha Christie and
the breath of her interest that kind of continued to absorb throughout her
throughout life erm, but then on the first night we have actually got some
quite special events like a new event as well we have err, Chanje Kunda who’s a poet based in Manchester, actually a poet,
well a performance artist really, she’s made this really beautiful performance
called Amsterdam, which is based on a book of poems that she wrote, which
is really about her own kind of again, again, a kind of story of travel and a
kind of ambition and life choices and how she kind of decided to pack up her
bags and move to Amsterdam and discover this place, and the different people
she encounters and err, and how that connects her own feelings of her own home
and whether to return or go back or whether to stay and it’s a very beautiful kind
of quite tender story really, of all those kind of complexities that I think people
have, many people have in their ordinary lives and erm, then also on that Thursday
we’ve got Philip Hoare, who is err, a kind of special bit really, because err, he’s
erm. We will be hearing more from him over the next few months because as well
as being a great writer and author he’s erm, a, he’s actually a writer. This event
that is also happening in September called The Tale, which is being produced by
a company in Bristol, called Situations, that has worked with many
organisations also around Torbay and it’s kind of, a, adventure, culture
adventure really, that will be happening throughout September. He’s really, it’s
really based on this kind of story that he’s written, which is really a kind of
a journey through Torbay and its history as well. So, he’s going to give a talk
about his work and introducing The Tale. In the museum, and then
through the following days we’ve got some, we err, we actually have an all-night
reading of one of Agatha Christie's erm, kind of late books, which is one of the
books I particularly like, called Endless Night and so its erm, not just for
the title, but we kind of err, said let’s see with all the fans and enthusiasts
and other curious people who might want to try and have this as their Agatha Christie
immersive experience, well why not spend an evening listening and taking part
of an entire Agatha Christie Novel. So, a we will be doing that erm and then we've
got some other interesting things in terms of throughout the week, actually we
are doing Chanje, who I mentioned,
the poet who is doing a workshop actually about writing, encouraging people to
write their own travel stories and how you make that into a performance. We’ve
got, we are working with the Poetry Translation
Centre and erm, who specialise in the translation of world poetry and they
are doing a three-day workshop on translating Arabic poetry, which is err a really
such an incredible erm, tradition and something which Agatha Christie
particularly interested in as well. So, I think they can work with the key
poetry for Egypt and Iraq and err, looking at the how we write poems and how we
translate poems and how through that we get to know our culture and its history.
So, erm that’s something quite special. Then over the weekend it’s kind of opening
up for the Torre Abbey and we have this kind of Garden Party ticket, which is a
sort of erm, quite accessible, it’s just a £10 ticket, which will get you
through and to enjoy the whole Abbey, whether it be music, stalls and book
fairs and food from around the word, and erm, as well as enjoy the Abbey and
enjoy some of the events taking place there.
DH: Mm. All good, that’s the 13th it starts on
the Wednesday the 13th September all the way through to Sunday 17th
September and for more information and tickets they are I believe, available
now and that’s via the website.
JT: And also, they will be available from Torre Abbey. So,
you can buy them over the counter there.
DH: OK. We’ll have one more brake then we will come back and
listen to a little more.
Riviera FM. David
Hammond’s interview with James Tyson. 29.06.17
Part Four of Four: James, what are you looking forward
to?
DH: Thank you once again to James Tyson for coming in this
morning, Director of the International Agatha Christie Festival. Those dates
once again Wednesday 13th September through to Sunday 17th September. The hub
is Torre Abbey. The website is IACF-UK.org and all the information is up there
and I guess more will be added as we get nearer the event as well.
JT: Yep, Yep.
DH: And Tickets wise, as James says you can buy on line via
that website or at Torre Abbey itself?
JT: That’s right. Yes.
DH: And what sort of events are going to be ticketed again,
is it most of the events you’ve talked about there, the talks workshops etc.
Obviously, the Garden Party as well.
JT: That’s right. Where basically, we’re doing day tickets,
so it’s err, it’s a bit like you can come err and you can come for the day or come
for the evening and erm, enjoy anything that’s on and get a festival ticket.
DH: Yer. OK. What are you looking most forward to bringing
it back to a personal level?
JT: Hmm. err Hmm. Well I wonder. I’m mean I’m very looking
forward to the, on the Sunday we have a dance event.
DH: OK
JT: It’s going to be in the Spanish Barn at err and it’s
really err, it’s gonner be, we are working with Dance in Devon and they have some really fantastic choreographers
and dancers and they have some dance groups, where they work with err, people
of all ages and so what they are doing is putting together event that begins
really as a tea dance. So, it’s obviously really inviting and welcoming, dance
groups across Torbay and South Devon who love to come and show off their best
moves and erm, but as part of it they do. Dance
in Devon are working on projects they are doing, they been working on kind
of inter generationally as in being able to share dances both from whether it’s
quite young people, teenagers, who are interested in hip hop, Bollywood dance,
street dance, free dance, and that’s actually trying to tell a story with those
dance and also how those dance can be shared with between people of that age
group and an age group that enjoys more tea dances and how both these ages
actually tell, and have this passion for dance and how we can actually share
that. So, I hope, hope that we can share that a really lovely event where
people can just come and enjoy watching dance or participating and dancing as
well as I think telling, people sharing a story around dance and why dance is
important to them and whether they’re kind of, you know, whether they are late
80s or whether they are eighteens. So, I think that might be quite special.
DH: Yer. Thanks for your time today. Sounds a wonderful
event, and I love the sense that it’s more, it’s broader and it’s opened up its
containing more culture art and focuses on Torbay as well, and again what’s seeing
it through Agatha’s eyes as well, what her interest, what she’s into. Sort of bringing
that out and developing that out, celebrating Torbay much as her as well, so
yer. Excellent
JT: You got it there, that’s fantastic. Thanks for having me
very much.
DH: Any time and may be come in again nearer the event. Talk
about it a bit more. Thank you very much James. Thank you.
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