Armed with a passion for literature, the English Department and a select few eagerly volunteered to spend our Saturday in Bath. When we arrived, we had the feeling of being thrust back into the 18th century, where Sheridan himself could walk the streets. It was even more apt that the festival was being held at Guildhall, a place where contemporary culture had always been prominent.
The first event we were going to see was a debate entitled ‘A woman’s place is…?’, a title which is relevant to the debate continuing to be held in the modern world. Hosting it was ‘Newsnight’s’ Kirsty Wark, with a panel of alpha women: author of How to Be Awesome, Hadley Freeman, Whistles CEO Jane Shepherdson and editor-in-chief of Red magazine, Sarah Bailey. Having had the honour of being chosen to introduce this event, I was able to meet these women in person before the debate in a private and very homely ‘writers’ room’. A quality of theirs which resonated throughout our initial meeting, and later the debate, was their intelligence and awareness of feminist issues which affect women daily. Apart from bringing their own personal experiences of the workplace and home life into the debate, these women managed to discuss a wide range of issues, ranging from the local to the global. When questions were allowed from the floor, one from our party caused a prolonged discussion on whether it is a woman’s duty to look after the child, and whether it is necessary for the mother to be a role model in a domestic surrounding to truly influence the attitude towards women that the child develops. After the debate itself, our school was given a chance to speak to Jane Shepherdson and Sarah Bailey directly and ask them questions and request their advice on careers. Overall, being all girls and benefiting from the perceptiveness of these women, we were left at the end of the debate and our own session with a sense of positivity and a gradual sense that we had found ourselves some new female role models.
The second event that we were lucky enough to attend, for it had been sold out at the Edinburgh Fringe and so had been here, was ‘Austentatious’. Bath itself is riddled with reminders of Austen’s life and characters and so we felt the play to be of special significance. The newness of the actors’ approach intrigued us from the very beginning, for they promised to perform a title suggested by the audience that ‘could have’ been written by Jane Austen, and to do so in the manner of improvisation. In total there were three women and three men, accompanied by a cellist who played to the mood of the scene being performed on stage. It was not long before one of them, presenting himself as a Jane Austen scholar, revealed the name of today’s play, which by chance was ‘Badminton Sparks’. Having a more personal connection to Badminton than most of the audience we waited with bated breath as the action commenced. The play lasted for an hour, but we were caught up in a whirlwind of joy which made it seem as if only a few moments could have slipped by. The actors were masterly in their accents, comic in their anachronisms and made the audience feel remarkably at home, with what had initially seemed a bizarre and dull topic. As the last bow was taken, a friend confessed to me that she would be willing to see them another time or even continuously as they continued touring.
The trip had been a marked success, and even though there was not much time in between the two events there were still some marked highlights throughout the rest of the day. A personal one for me would have to be a conversation with Viv Groskop, the artistic director behind the festival who turned out to be fluent in Russian and had much to say on the topic of literature. Another highlight was a rushed visit to the Pump Rooms, which exuded Georgian elegance, and the sophistication of English tradition. Finally, my friends and I also decided to acquire a signed copy of Hadley Freeman’s ‘Be Awesome’ feminist manifesto which proved to be a thrilling read and a worthy reminder of that Saturday’s debate. The Independent Bath Literature Festival is an even which opened our minds to new ways in which we could understand and enjoy literature and would be an experience I would feel glad to repeat.
Sofia, Year 13
