The Sillitoe Trail App for iPhone is a mobile interpretation of Alan Sillitoe’s first novel, ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’ (1958).

The App makes Sillitoe’s work accessible using a wide range of different  media. It explores and celebrates British values and identity using images, maps and audio.

Commissioned by Arts Council England in partnership with the BBC the Alan Sillitoe Committee use the Silltoe Trail to explore the themes, locations and scenes from the novel and Karel Reisz’s film adaptation made in 1960. The trail focuses on five locations from the novel that are based in and around Nottingham: The Old Market Square, The White Horse, Raleigh, the River Trent and Goose Fair.

Features:

• Audio commentary by commissioned writers.
• Picture Galleries optimised for Retina and iPhone 5 (16:9) display.
• Access to images from the BFI, Public and Private Collections.
• Built-in QR Code reader.
• Access to Maps.

At each location, some of Nottingham’s finest contemporary writers take you on a personal journey of the place and explore a range of themes inspired by it. The novel’s chief protagonist Arthur Seaton also joins in at various points along the journey, responding to the commissioned writers to ensure they don’t get carried away!

Themes:

At Old Market Square we explore how this location has a rich history of rebellion over the centuries. The White Horse was where Arthur would spend his Saturday nights but since this is now a curry house, we explored the demise of the British pub and what this means for community. Raleigh was the workplace where Arthur slugged his guts out over a lathe but it’s now gone the same way as the pub, so we asked ourselves what Arthur would be doing for a living in 2012. When he needed a little peace, Arthur would go fishing on the canals and the Trent but we wondered if it is possible to find solitude in the digital age, particularly when we are all constantly connected to some device or other. Arthur also prided himself on lying until he was blue in the face if it would get him what he wanted, so he was right at home among the sights and sounds of The Goose Fair where elaborate and fanciful stories are exactly what is required to draw people into the sideshows and exhibitions.

In this App we offer you a small insight into a six month journey that began on 31st May 2012, when the Alan Sillitoe Committee was commissioned to produce content for a new multimedia arts platform called The Space – a unique collaboration between Arts Council England and the BBC. Over the six months that followed, we produced videos, text, photographs, illustrations and podcasts. We asked poets, beatboxers, rappers, historians, journalists, authors and storytellers to help create this content. Using these many different ways to experience the novel we hope we’ve offered a variety of alternative routes through Sillitoe’s Nottingham.

It’s the kind of layering we think would appeal to a lover of maps like Alan Sillitoe.

The Sillitoe Trail has embarked upon a magical journey of its own and has written itself as the project has progressed. It is the product of comments, uploads and public engagement as well as the responses of our five commissioned writers.

We hope that you enjoy it and that you’ll keep the conversation going online or by joining the Alan Sillitoe Committee in the future. Explore the Sillitoe Trail App, visit the locations and scan QR Codes with the built-in reader to hear commentary from our commissioned writers. You can have your say about it on Facebook or follow Arthur Seaton on Twitter where you can indulge in Arthur’s colloquial accent or simply delight in short exerpts from Alan Sillitoe’s finest written work.

James Walker and Paul Fillingham – Sillitoe Trail Editors.

Download high-resolution screenshots from our Press Centre.