A Bit Lit A Bit Lit

The Tower of London is hosting an immersive experience that combines live performance and digital technology to explore the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to kill the King and Parliament. Audiences get to decide whose side they are on as they encounter the world the plotters inhabited.
In this film, historian Tracy Borman, joint Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, tells us about the Gunpowder Plot experience, its place at the Tower of London and the research and creative work behind the show. Tracy offers us a history of the Tower itself, from its early purpose to 'subdue the evil inhabitants of London' for William the Conquerer, to its emergence as a tourist attraction and its later Victorian revamps. Finally, we hear about Tracy's own extensive publishing career, her 15 books ranging across fiction and non-fiction, with a focus on the cultural impact of the British monarchy.
For more information on The Gunpowder Plot, and to book, go to: https://gunpowderimmersive.com
For more information on Tracy Borman, go to: http://www.tracyborman.co.uk

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Sacha Coward tells us about life as a queer tour guide, graveyard explorer, folklore expert, escape room designer and mermaid enthusiast - what a CV! All of these things, he tells us, are rooted in storytelling, in a conversation that ranges across 'the strange tension between life and death', Zelda and the Muppets.
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Engendering the Stage are re-investigating the evidence base for early modern theatre, and using these findings to make space for an inclusive performance history that involves female-identified and gender-non-conforming performers as well as performers of colour. We discuss failed performance, the porousness of theatre, the politics of domestic performance, rope-dancing, tumblers, sword-dancing, performing masculinity, dynamic femininity, androgynous clothing, the famous ‘Jumping Judy’, cocoanut shies, forbidden students, The Roaring Girl, the Fortune playhouse, female shareholders, archival research in an age of Covid, practice-as-research, and more...
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Richard O’Brien discusses his new collection, The Dolphin House, a poetic exploration of “a failed NASA research project to teach a dolphin the English language in a flooded apartment on a Caribbean Island.” He introduces us to this strange and compelling story and the people involved, and reads from the collection, while also discussing his other poetic hats, including his tenure as Poet Laureate of Birmingham (2018-20), which features the first public reading of his poem written for Warstone Lane Cemetery. We also hear about the benefits of poetic forms, the relationship between indie music and poetry, and visual and material elements of printed poetry pamphlets (by way of Broken Sleep Books and the Emma Press).
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Mira Assaf Kafantaris (Butler University) talks to her mentor, friend, and collaborator Jennifer Higginbotham (The Ohio State University) about the politics of racialization and the embodied threat of foreign ruling women in the early modern period. They discuss how early moderns grappled with the racialized presence of foreign queens and how they became loci of competing ideologies. Finally, Assaf Kafantaris and Higginbotham reflect on the conversation surrounding Meghan Markle’s marriage into the British royal family, which sparked transatlantic, even global, conversations about race, nation, belonging, and reproduction. For more details on our films and further resources, go to our website at https://abitlit.co
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Ronan Hatfull speaks with Rebecca MacMillan and Tom Wilkinson from Impromptu Shakespeare about improvisation.
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