Arts Council support for academic's literary work

A Teesside University academic and group of local musicians have received Arts Council England support to tour a performance based on the Anglo Saxon Heritage of Teesside.

The performance is based on creative writing lecturer and poet Bob Beagrie’s latest book, Leasungspell, an epic poem set in 657AD which describes the journey of a monk walking from the monastery on the Hartlepool Headland to Whitby, carrying secret letters from St Hilda.

Venues included in the tour include The British Museum, Bamburgh Castle, Durham and Ripon Cathedrals, Bristol Poetry Festival, Wolverhampton University, the Trincomalee at Hartlepool Historic Quay and the Dorman Museum in Middlesbrough.

Bob's poem, which draws upon local myth and legend and is steeped in the history of the region, is written in a hybrid of Old English and Northern dialect forms.

Bob has worked with musicians Sara Dennis, Peter Lagan, Kev Howard and Stewart Forth to create a haunting and enchanting soundscape for the poetic story which lasts an hour and together they are preparing to take the piece on a national tour.

He said: 'We are delighted to receive the grant from Arts Council England. It is important to bring greater attention to the richness and importance of our area’s cultural heritage. It will be a wonderful experience to perform this work in such awe inspiring venues.'

Leasungspell was published by Smokestack Books in February this year and has proved popular despite being a challenging read due to the archaic language used. However, the musical accompaniment, the dramatic recitation and physicality of the performance all help to make it easier to understand, transporting the reader or listener to an earlier period of history where early Christianity rubbed shoulders with paganism and the land was full of omens and inhabited by wild creatures and spirits.

The tour starts at the British Museum’s Folk Horror Revival on 16 October where the team will be performing alongside actors such as Reece Shearsmith and academics including Iain Sinclair. The appearance at the Trincomalee in Hartlepool on 22 Oct coincides with Hartlepool Folk Festival and ends with a show at Musicport in Whitby in October 2017.

Bob, creative writing lecturer in the University's School of Design, Culture & the Arts, added: 'While it is important to take the work out to wider audiences we also wanted to retrace the monk’s footsteps by performing at some strategic local events and help celebrate the contemporary talent here now, as well as drawing attention to the lives that lived here long, long ago.'

Audio recordings of the epic poem are available at www.leasungspell.com

The book Leasungspell is available from smokestack-books.co.uk

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• creative writing
• English