The Sillitoe eBook now available.

The eBook comes in the form of a Factory Handbook. The publication is packed with facts about Sillitoe’s Nottingham and features essays by our commissioned writers as they visit the location of the book and discuss the themes from a modern perspective.

The publication is lavishly illustrated with superb photographs from the Karel Reisz collection, BFi, Nottingham County archives and Picture The Past and some of Nottingham’s best photographic talent.

Download your copy of the Sillitoe Trail eBook (16MB PDF).

The eBook is part of a suite of digital publications designed to make the trail as widely available as possible and was revealed at the Sillitoe Day held at Nottingham Contemporary on 27th October – you can read a review of the event here.

The trail’s production process is being shown in a special BBC East Midlands ‘Inside Out’ programme on Monday 29th October which contains details about our forthcoming App release for iPhone. The Sillitoe Trail iPhone App is now available on the Apple app Store as a free download The iPhone version of the trail has been developed for walkers and cyclists and features audio, essays, Maps, a built-in QR Code scanner and high resolution picture galleries especially designed to take advantage of the new iPhone 5 16:9 display. Follow our twitter feed @sillitoetrail for release information.

You can also view a mobile optimised web-app that will work on non-Apple smartphones such as Google android, Blackberry and Microsoft.

View Sillitoe Trail Web-App on your smartphone.

Sillitoe iPhone 5 App Preview

The Alan Sillitoe Memorial Committee are launching a Mobile Trail App and Handbook – (a book with a digital heart) at Nottingham Contemporary on Saturday 27th October

The launch event will be hosted by TV and film writers Billy Ivory and Michael Eaton with special contributions from Al Needham, Derrick Buttress, James Walker, Neil Fulwood, Pete Davis, David Sillitoe, Ann Featherstone, Paul Fillingham and Frank Abbott.

The mobile trail features the work of leading contemporary writers revisiting the themes and spaces of Sillitoe’s Nottingham and is the culmination of our work with The Space – the experimental digital arts platform commissioned by Arts Council England in association with the BBC.

The rolling programme of talks, film, presentations and lively discussion is from 11am to 5pm. The Sillitoe Trail App will be available for smartphones and an native iPhone App with high-resolution picture gallery especially designed for the new iPhone 5 will be shown.

At 8pm till midnight Sillitoe Day becomes Sillitoe Night when Nottingham Contemporary plays host to an evening of spoken word from Mulletproof Poet Andrew Graves, John Marriott, Sarah Shrugs and beatboxer Motormouf as well as music from the Sleaford Mods and local legends Gaffa.

Admission to Sillitoe Day is £15 including limited edition Handbook.
Tickets are available from Nottingham Contemporary

SILLITOE DAY

Online Booking Recommended

Admission to Sillitoe Night is free (Suggested donation of £3 to the Alan Sillitoe Memorial Fund).

Download the Sillitoe Day Poster:

Alan Sillitoe felt held back by a literati that in his day had the power, through newspapers, radio and (a little later, TV) to define culture for the massesand, in doing so, ignore an entire way of life.

In the late 50′s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning represented a huge cultural shift – giving validity to a world that was previously denied a voice.

However, Sillitoe’s powerful voice posed a dilemma to people like our commissioned writer Derrick Buttress who felt eclipsed by him.

Now in his eighties, Derrick Buttress eventually found his own ‘authentic voice’ and recently had his first short story collection published. Derrick talks to us about his past experiences as we consider ‘who are the modern gatekeepers’ and whether in a digital age, the literati’s days are numbered?

Derrick Buttress interview with James Walker on The Space

Have your say – your photos, opinions and ideas may be selected for the iPhone App and book

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Arthur Seaton – the anti-hero of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning joins us at each featured location to comment on our commissioned writer’s work

Interpretation for the Market Square location is read by actor Tom Keeling who played Arthur in the recent musical adaptation of the novel at Nottingham Playhouse. Tom trained at Central School of Speech of Drama and Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. He was born in Nottingham and loves it warts n’all.

Tom’s delivery is softer, youthful and quite distinct from Albert Finney’s flat Lancastrian accent that permeates the film version of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

“I wasn’t born yesterday nor the day before, but Ode Man Buttress were born yonks ago and knows a fair bit about this city. I’ve got respect for Buttress because he’s still grafting away at eighty, banging out words on his typewriter instead of collapsing in front of the gogglebox like our ode man every day from six till eleven.”

Arthur Seaton – June 2012

Listen to Tom Keeling reading Seaton Rifles – Market Square on The Space.

Share your experiences of The Market Square:

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Tom Keeling – Biography

Theatre credits;

Arthur Seaton in the World Premiere of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning: A New Musical (Nottingham Playhouse), Aladdin in Aladdin (Nottingham Arts Theatre), Oliver in Family Circles (Nottingham Arts Theatre), John in John and Jen (Rosemary Branch Theatre, London), Baker in Into The Woods (Embassy Theatre, London), Denys in The Go-Between (Workshop for Perfect Pitch, Urdang Academy), Ensemble at Royal Festival Hall, Soloist in Wimbledon at the Shaw (Shaw Theatre, London) Soloist in Deja Vu (Landor Theatre, London), The Stable Boy in Hagridden! (dir. by Stephen Clark, Embassy Theatre, London), Don in Summer Holiday (Nottingham Playhouse) and Chino in West Side Story (Nottingham Playhouse). Adverts include ‘Colgate Max Fresh’, ‘Vodafone’ (The Young Socials) and the ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ ident for Channel 5.

Picture: Tom Keeling as Arthur Seaton in ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – The Musical’ at Nottingham Playhouse. Picture Credit: Graeme Crawford, Graphics Paul Fillingham

From Eisenhower to Brian Clough the Old Market Square has hosted many civic parades

Local writer Derrick Buttress explores how folk have marched through Nottingham’s Old Market Square over the decades.

Read his essay on The Space

Click the image above and take a closer look at a very dapper Duke of Edinburgh inspecting a guard of honour by the 8th Battalion Sherwood Foresters outside Cecil Howitt’s Council House in 1949.

Picture Credit: Courtesy of Nottingham Evening Post and www.picturethepast.co.uk

Share your Market Square pictures and tales

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In the late 50′s, the establishment literati were quick to condemn the work of new wave writers and even Sillitoe received his fair share of criticism. 

Here’s a corker from 1958 that attacks Saturday Night and Sunday Morning;

“Essentially the novel is a series of vignettes, like a succession of movie stills without much continuity or climax. Its faint pretence of a plot rests on little more than Arthur’s final decision to drop his wild-cattling and accept the restraints of domesticity”

Irving Howe – New Republic

Have you ever been severely criticised or rejected?

Share your rejection nightmares with us:

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Local writer Derrick Buttress describes how the Market Square was once populated by exuberant American GI’s.

Read his poem ‘Yanks’ on The Space.

Click the image above and take a closer look at the wartime scene. The posters on the back of the Army truck are advertising a Baseball game taking place on the Forest Recreation Ground between two American teams. In the background you can clearly see the distinctive balcony of Yate’s Wine bar.

Picture Credit:  www.picturethepast.org.uk

Share your Market Square pictures and tales

Post on Flickr: www.flickr.com/groups/sillitoetrail/

Post on Facebook: www.facebook.com/sillitoetrail

Follow on Twitter:  www.twitter.com/sillitoetrail

Listen to BBC Radio Nottingham’s Mark Dennison talking to Susannah Simons Project Executive at The Space and Paul Fillingham Creative Director at thinkamigo as they discuss the Alan Sillitoe Trail.

Live interview conducted by Mark Dennison at BBC Radio Nottingham on 25th May 2012. Discussing The Space; an experimental arts service designed to showcase the events of the summer of 2012 and build digital capacity within the BBC and the arts sector. Paul also discusses how the Sillitoe Trail component is engaging the public both locally and more widely via the internet.

Can’t access the media player? Play on Soundcloud instead.

Local writer Derrick Buttress may have been only 14 years old at the time but the VE celebrations in the Market Square left a lasting impression on two Broxtowe Boys who found themselves amongst the ecstatic crowds.

Listen to Derrick’s graphic account of VE celebrations on The Space in this interview with LeftLion writer James Walker.

Picture Credit: Nottingham Evening Post and www.picturethepast.org.uk

Listen to BBC Radio’s Alan Clifford talking to Creative Director Paul Fillingham about the BBC’s new experimental digital arts platform The Space and the forthcoming Alan Sillitoe iPhone Trail App.

Impromptu radio interview conducted via mobile phone at The Space launch event at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank, London on 1st May 2012 and broadcast on BBC Radio Nottingham’s ‘Drive time’ show.

Can’t access the media player? Play on Soundcloud instead.