Reg. Charity No 1191108: Bringing J.M. Wilson back to public consciousness.
As reported on the ‘Dinner’ section, tickets for the 2023 memorial Dinner are now available, either by emailing wilsonstales@gmail.com or fro the shop page, where full details and the programme are available.
You can click here for the programme and Menu. A vegetarian option is available.
Following the success of the 2023 competition, which attracted entries from across the world, we are again running a competition to write an entire Tale in exactly 100 words.
Grand Prize of £50.00.
Closing date September 2nd 2023
Full details on the website. www.WilsonsTale.co.uk
A printable poster is at https://www.wilsonstales.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/2023-100word-poster.pdf
After the necessary absence, the annual Dinner hosted by the Wilson’s Tales project in Berwick has returned, and thrown open its doors to the public, inviting everyone to buy a ticket and attend.
This year the event is at the Maltings, Berwick’s premier theatre venue, on October 3rd, close to the anniversary of Wilson’s death. Andrew Ayre, the Project Director, and MC for the evening said “We are delighted to be back in the public view, our prize winning production of the “Freebooter of Coldstream”was a huge success in Duns, and our annual dinner has been gathering momentum since 2019, so we thought it time to invite any and all of our supporters and the public to come along and enjoy some of Wilson’s work together with a meal fit for a pauper.”
The pauper reference is to the poem by Wilson entitles “Beans and Bacon: The Tale of Toby Toothpick,” a comic tale which is assumed to be commentary on Wilson’s time in London when he was extremely impoverished. The poem will be performed in the course of the evening, together with a dramatisation of the Tale of Kate Kennedy. New this year will be the announcement of the winner and shortlisted entries from the 100 words prize challenge, a competition now open to worldwide entrants to write a Tale in exactly 100 words.
Full details of the dinner, tickets, competition, and a sample of 100 word tales can be found at www.wilsonstales.co.uk.
This year being held at The Maltings your evenings entertainment includes a performance of ‘Kate Kennedy’, readings of 100 Word tales, a recitation of the ‘Beans & Bacon’ poem which provides inspiration for the meal (and a challenge to chefs!) The Winner of the 100 Word Competition will be announced.
Tickets and details can be found elsewhere on the website, and reservations may be made in the shop, or by email to wilsonstales@gmail.com
The popular 100 Word Tales challenge is going mainstream with a £50 prize challenge competition.
For 2022, a prize is being offered to the ‘best’ Tale submitted, as judged by the editorial team of the Project.
Full details are available here
At last the wait is over.
Volume 8 has arrived. Another 6 Tales, rewritten illustrated and researched, and again containing a mixed collection that is humorous, incredible, and informative.
Get your copy now from the Wilson’s Tales shop at https://www.wilsonstales.co.uk/shop/
and there’s a special offer. Because last year’s suffered from shops being closed, you can buy both for a special price here and get 12 Tales plus the additional editorial.
|
||
|
Local retired Doctor wins playwriting prize.
Berwickshire writer, Dr Michael Fenty’s reinterpretation of the “Leein’ Jamie Murdeiston” Border Tale has won the competition co-run by the Wilson’s Tales Project and Duns Playfest. This week he was presented with a commemorative artwork based on an 19th C. edition of the orginal Wilsons’s to celebrate his win.
Wilson’s Tales are a series of border stories written by Berwick Advertiser editor John McKay Wilson in the 1830s. The tales, many written while Wilson was living in Tweedmouth, were published by Wilson as a free standing weekly publication, which proved a run away success and they were then seldom out of print for the next 150 years.
The Wilson’s Tales Project partnered with Duns Playfest, the annual drama festival, to present a competition for playwrights to reinterpret one of Wilson’s Tales. Part of the prize was intended to be a public performance of the winning submission, but inevitably, Covid meant those plans had to change.
Michael’s wining work had to be premiered online. Instead of performing on stage in the Duns Players’ usual venue, The Volunteer Hall, it was filmed on a freezing day in Polwarth Church. “Not quite the premier I had envisaged ” said Michael, adding, “While I’m amazed at what we managed to do in such difficult conditions, I’d still love to put the play on live, as I wrote it with audience participation in mind, which, obviously we couldn’t do in a filmed version.”
John McEwen, of Duns Playfest, commented “ Many of us have worked before with the Wilsons tales project on these border tales and it great to have a more formal arrangement of partnership for the festival, particularly given Wilson’s connection to Duns” (His father was from Duns) Andrew Ayre, from The Wilson’s Tales is also keen to repeat the cross-border creative collaboration, saying . “There are some great tale’s in this body of work and it is wonderful that new eyes are looking at these and presenting the tales in new and exciting ways for todays audiences”
The play can still be watched online via the Duns Playfest website. Duns Playfest intends to return to in person performances in 2022, and you can find out more at www.dunsplayfest.org.uk/
Wilson’s Tales run several events across the year: you can find out more at www.wilsonstales.co.uk/ or buy books featuring selected stories illustrated by local artists from the website of Grieves’ bookshop in Berwick.
Wilson’s Tales return home to Tweedmouth after 200 years.
Local writer, John MacKay Wilson would be proud to know that almost 200 years after he originally wrote his Tales of the Borders, his stories will come to life on stage at The Radio Rooms in his native Tweedmouth this week.
Forming part of The Radio Rooms’ “Journey Through Genres” programme, on Friday 2nd July The Wilson’s Tales Project will present an evening of music and drama inspired by some of the hundreds of stories that were published in the 1830s.
Joe Lang and Jackie Kaines Lang will give a light-hearted retelling of “Grizel Cochrane: a Tale of Tweedmouth Muir”, complete with a touch of Covid-secure audience participation. Musicians Eilidh Campbell, Iain Petrie and Carol Whinnom will perform traditional and new songs and ballads inspired by the tales and their setting in the Borders.
The evening is the first in The Radio Rooms’ programme “A Journey Through Genres,” a series of twelve events showcasing different musical genres and featuring local performers. Supported by the Arts Council Grassroots Live Music, free tickets are available for people aged between 16 and 21 on application to The Radio Rooms.
“It is wonderful to bring MacKay’s tales back to his home in Tweedmouth,” said Andrew Ayre of The Wilson’s Tales Project. “He is buried in Tweedmouth Parish Churchyard, which is very near to The Radio Rooms, so he’d almost be able to hear what we’ll be doing on Friday evening. I wonder what he’d make of the venue’s name, though, as the radio wasn’t invented for almost a century after he wrote the stories!”
Tickets are available in advance at www.radiorooms.co.uk . The event is on Friday 2nd July at 6pm, at The Radio Rooms, 95, Main Street, Tweedmouth, TD15 2AW
Sunday 8th November – 6.00 p.m. in conjunction with the Berwick Literary Festival, and in celebration of the anniversary of the first edition of “Wilsons tales of the Borders”, Berwick’s own 19th century international best seller, we will be hosting…
’Intoxicating Tales of The Borders’
Register at https://berwickliteraryfestival.com/event/wilsons-tales-intoxicating-tales/
Visit the registration page, collect your ticket, and at the appointed hour:
Pour a glass of something for the Toast, settle back in the comfortable chair, and direct your browser to the link:-
Proceedings start at 6:00 p.m.
Introduction – Andrew Ayre
6-05 A Toast to Wilson – have your glass charged and to hand!
6-06 “Beans & Bacon” edited recital of the poem on which our literary dinner is based. – Joe & Jacqui Lang.
6-10 Wilson’s intoxicating tales – a whistle stop tour of tales involving booze. – A. Ayre
6-14 “The Heir of Elphinstone” – Stuart MacHardy
6-22 “The Pentland Smuggler” – Stuart MacHardy
6-30 Wilson’s Tales Revival Edition launch of Volume 7 – A Ayre/J Lang/R Wilson. The WTP Committee pick their favourite and give some comment on it
6-40 100 word tales – Richard Wilson
6-45 Q & A
6-55 Farewell; The temperate mans song – Joe Lang.
Notes:
Andrew Ayre is Project Director of The Wilson’s Tale Project
Stuart MacHardy, aka “Bloke in a Bunnet,” is a professional storyteller and author. Contributor to the Edinburgh Storytelling Centre and others.
Joe Lang and Richard Wilson are Directors of The Project
Proceedings will start at 6:00 p.m.
The website shop at
https://www.wilsonstales.co.uk/?product=wilsons-tales-revival-edition-volume-7-template-copy
Will remain open to sell Volume 7 at a launch special price for 48 hours after the event.
Volume 7 is also available from:-