The Ireland Funds GB 35th Anniversary: Honouring Founding Chair Josephine Hart
Extracts from the W.B. Yeats Poetry Hour read by Bob Geldof, Lennie Goodings and Denise Gough.
Bob Geldof was born in Dublin, he is a musician, songwriter, philanthropist, activist, and the lead singer of The Boomtown Rats. In 1984 in response to the famine in Ethiopia he produced Band Aid, followed by Live Aid and Live 8. He co-wrote his recent documentary film A Fanatic Heart: Geldof On Yeats with Roy Foster. Amongst his many awards are an honorary knighthood from HM Queen Elizabeth II, the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and several nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Lennie Goodings was born in Canada, and came to London at the end of the 1970s, where she began working at the feminist publishing house, Virago, she has been there since in various roles, and now Chair of Virago. She is the editor of among others, Marilynne Robinson, Natasha Walter, Sarah Waters, and, most importantly, Josephine Hart. She edited Josephine’s last novel, the brilliant and haunting The Truth About Love, and published the three poetry collections inspired by Josephine Hart’s Poetry Hours: Catching Life by the Throat, Words that Burn and Life Saving.
Denise Gough is a two-time Olivier Award Winner for People, Places and Things and Angels in America at the National Theatre, for which she also won acclaim and an OBIE Award in New York. Her television work includes Star Wars: Andor, Under the Banner of Heaven, Too Close opposite Emily Watson, the title role in Conor McPherson’s mini-series Paula. Her films include Colette, Monday, and Steel Country.
Shevaun Wilder, a Dubliner, began work as an actor at The Abbey Theatre, the RSC, and the BBC. She then read English at Cambridge University. She has worked widely as a producer and director in regional and West End theatre, and on film. And produced festivals and events for the Directors Guild of GB, the Writer’s Guild of GB and BAFTA. She was Inaugural Artistic Director of the Mayfair Literary Festival in 2018/19. As Director of The Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation since 2017, Shevaun has produced, cast, and directed 26 Poetry Hours, and taken the Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, and W.H. Auden Poetry Hours to The Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
30 November 2023
Irish Embassy London