Latest news with #MichaelMorpurgo
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Gavin & Stacey's Ruth Jones gets award at Hay Festival
Actress and writer Ruth Jones has been awarded this year's Hay Festival medal for drama. The Gavin and Stacey co-creator was honoured in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, where she was speaking about her new novel. War Horse author Michael Morpurgo won the fiction medal, while British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak won the medal for prose. "We are honoured to celebrate three exceptional storytellers," said Hay Festival chief executive Julie Finch, who said the three winners had "each done much to push the boundaries of contemporary writing and spread the joy of stories here and around the world". Jones, from Bridgend, writes about finding joy in unlikely connections in her new book, By Your Side. Morpurgo is one of UK's best-known children's authors, writing more than150 books and serving as Children's Laureate. Shafak's most recent novel, There Are Rivers in the Sky, is the story of three lives – in Victorian London, 2014 Turkey and 2018 London – connected by a single drop of water. Postbox topper marks Gavin & Stacey festival talk Why Ruth Jones accepted Nessa's Bafta in bare feet Ruth Jones hints at new project with James Corden
BBC News
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Hay Festival: Gavin & Stacey's Ruth Jones gets award
Actress and writer Ruth Jones has been awarded this year's Hay Festival medal for drama. The Gavin and Stacey co-creator was honoured in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, where she was speaking about her new novel. War Horse author Michael Morpurgo won the fiction medal, while British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak won the medal for prose."We are honoured to celebrate three exceptional storytellers," said Hay Festival chief executive Julie Finch, who said the three winners had "each done much to push the boundaries of contemporary writing and spread the joy of stories here and around the world". Jones, from Bridgend, writes about finding joy in unlikely connections in her new book, By Your is one of UK's best-known children's authors, writing more than150 books and serving as Children's Laureate. Shafak's most recent novel, There Are Rivers in the Sky, is the story of three lives – in Victorian London, 2014 Turkey and 2018 London – connected by a single drop of water.
BBC News
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
War Horse actor's school visit makes 'core memory' for pupils
A former school caretaker brought some of his new stage colleagues - including a large horse puppet - to Derbyshire to meet the children he used to work the Covid-19 pandemic, actor Karl Haynes, from Ilkeston, worked as a classroom assistant, cleaner and handyman at Ladywood Primary in nearby Kirk he is now back on stage and plays the role of Ted Narracott in the touring production of Michael Morpurgo's War Haynes returned to the school on Friday with fellow actors, puppeteers and a foal model, and head teacher Melanie Lawson said the visit "made a core memory" for the children. Miss Lawson said the idea came after the school booked a trip to see the production during its visit to Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall. She said: "It was incredible - we're a small school in Kirk Hallam but we have big hopes and dreams."We were really lucky to have incredible puppeteers, actors and production staff come to the school."Mr Haynes has multiple roles when he joined us in lockdown, so the children who saw the show knew who he was."The kids were able to interact with the baby horse called Joey, it did feel like there was a real baby horse in the hall." The novel was first adapted for the stage in 2007, and has toured the West End, Broadway and around the UK Haynes said the puppets like the one he helped bring to meet the schoolchildren in Kirk Hallam "are immense", and took eight months to build and three people to added: "I've invested a lot of time into this school as a cleaner, caretaker and handyman, so to see the children's reactions was one of the best moments of my acting career."
The Guardian
16-04-2025
- Climate
- The Guardian
I thought seasonal affective disorder was a myth. Then I saw the joy that spring can bring
I've always thought seasonal affective disorder, what with its convenient acronym and all, to be a load of tosh. But that's because I don't live with Sad. It's shamefully easy to dismiss something when you don't feel it in your own bones. Sad, me? No, I can be grumpy whatever the weather. Also, just as without despair there is no joy, the staggering beauty of a blue sky over the British Isles would be less staggeringly beautiful if it was always there. Blue skies all year round? Nah, not for me. In fact, I find dismal winter weather somewhat liberating. When the weather's good, the opportunities it presents are overwhelming. A paralysis of choice takes hold. So many places to go and things to do with the sun on your back. That urgent need to be out there. Every sunny day leaves me with this feeling that I haven't quite made the most of it. And much as I love my job, being in an office or a studio, I love it a little bit less when the sun is shining outside. In a way, life is more straightforward when it's grey, windy and wet, as then I can forgive myself for staying at home and being still and calm, essentially doing bugger all for a bit without feeling bad about it. Still, while winter is fine, spring is finer. Seeing so many people of my acquaintance – especially older people – perk up no end these last couple of weeks, I am now quite sure that Sad is a thing after all. My mum's a changed woman – and why wouldn't she be after a long, dark, wet winter sitting in front of the fire watching endless quizshows, cooking contests and Michael Portillo pottering here, there and everywhere? The lifting of the health and spirits of her and those around her is as brightening as any spring flower. I spoke to Michael Morpurgo regarding the book he's written about spring. 'There's something about spring that makes you deal with what's difficult better,' he says. Nicely put. I asked him what writing about it had taught him that hadn't occurred to him before. 'I suppose the thing I've learned most is – it sounds rather dreadful – that if you're really concentrating on spring, you know it might be your last one. You get the wrong side of 80 and that thought does occur to you from time to time.' It wasn't his intention to strike any kind of morbid note, but there's surely something in this. If I throw myself backwards or forwards to last autumn or next, lurking somewhere deep down is the hope that I'll be around to see the leaves appear back on those trees. It says something positive about Morpurgo that it's taken more than 80 springs for this idea to strike him. It's been on my mind since I was a teenager. I used to look at the horse chestnut tree out the back of our house and fret a little that I'd not see it turn green again. I don't know what this negativity was all about. I suppose I could put it down to the football team I support, and also to reading more Thomas Hardy than was good for me. Daft, really. Back then, any bookmaker would have given me short odds indeed on making it safely through to the other side of winter. But perhaps this is the point – year upon year, those odds lengthen. So why wouldn't the coming of spring be so special? I'll come back to this idea in the autumn, by which time I hope to have found a way of putting a more positive spin on the falling of the leaves. Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Labour's tractor tax proves ‘they do not understand the countryside'
Sir Michael Morpurgo has said Labour's family farm tax proves the party 'don't really understand what the countryside is about'. The children's novelist, who has lived on a farm in the village of Iddesleigh, Dorset, for the past 50 years, said the Government's reforms on inheritance tax are 'completely wrong'. Under new rules announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the October Budget, agricultural assets worth more than £1 million, which were previously exempt, will be liable to the 20 per cent tax. The announcement led to widespread protests from farming communities across the UK. More than 1,000 tractors pitched up at demonstrations outside Westminster. Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers' Union, said last month that the tax has wiped out hope for many farmers and that it threatens food security. The Government has refused to back down or modify the policy, despite intensive lobbying and widespread protests from farming and rural groups. Weather shocks, low profits and the move away from direct subsidies have created a crisis for farmers that could cause many to go out of profit by the end of the year, the NFU has said. Sir Michael, whose latest novel Spring is his first book for adults in almost 50 years, said of the reforms: 'You don't have a go at the pensioners and the farmers. I know because I live in the middle of the farming culture.' He continued: 'To threaten one particular group seems to me to be completely wrong. It's done by people who are fundamentally urban, who don't really understand what the countryside is about.' Sir Michael, 81, who is best known for books such as War Horse and The Butterfly Lion, also said Britain is full of sociological and geographical division. 'We exploit them,' he said. 'There is a massive division between town and country. It's understandable: it's part of having our industrial revolution earlier than other countries. 'If you go to Italy or France, where their industrial revolution came rather later, where they are more in contact with their food, with their farmers, it's different. 'When French farmers have a protest there is considerable support among urban people.' Despite the policy, Sir Michael declared himself a fan of Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Government. Discussing the Prime Minister, he said: 'He's not a shouter and he's not a show-off. I'm fed up with show-offs. 'I don't care if they're from Russia or America or here. I want people who really do have some experience of the world, and have developed a care for other people.' He also claimed Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have open 'disrespect' for others. 'If you start talking about other people as if they are less important, that their culture is less important, then you're on a road to confrontation.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
