Past event
Date:
14-15 July 2017
In July of 2017, Letters Live’s first London shows of the year took place at the remarkable Union Chapel, a working church and award-winning venue which has been open to the public since being saved from demolition 25 years ago. Over the course of two evenings an impressive array of talent took to the pulpit to breathe life into letters both new and old.
Our chosen literacy charity for these two shows was First Story, to whom we subsequently donated £12,100.
(Click dates to expand/collapse)
You killed my cat
Guy Davenport to the drivers of Lexington
I’m still here, trying to make it
Jimi Hendrix to his dad
Diversity guarantees our cultural survival
Martin Scorsese to the New York Times
You will not have my hatred
Antoine Leiris to His Wife’s Killers
I do occasionally eat
Lucian Freud to Lynn Barber
I am awfully comfortable
The Kipling Family
My letters are the greatest
Terry Vaught to the Tampa Bay Times
Save the land of your birth
Nicholas Cummins to the Duke of Wellington
New rubbish dialogue
Alec Guinness to Anne Kaufman
Two legs are an extravagance
George Bernard Shaw to John Ervine
A strange species we are
John Steinbeck to Adlai Stevenson
To My Grandchildren
Tony Benn to his grandchildren
Thinking of you to the end
Rose Schlösinger to Marianne Schlösinger
Straighten up and fly right, Banky!
Billie Holliday to Tallulah Bankhead
For my Diego
Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera
I will treasure your letter
JK Rowling to Sacia Flowers
Everyone has to be a child
Jessica Morley to The Economist
Along with this letter comes a play
Shelagh Delaney to Joan Littlewood
Life itsef is life
DH Lawrence to Katharine Mansfield
Love and garlic
Groucho Marx to Chico Marx
How Beautiful!
Salvador Dali to Federico García Lorca
Ye have made me such a pisser
Lord Edmund Howard to Lady Lisle
Nothing is ours, except time
Lucius Annaeus Seneca to Lucilius Junior
Get at the very heart of it
Ludwig van Beethoven to Emilie
I have had my eye on you
Simon Fallowfield to Mary Foster
Darling, I love you
Dylan Thomas to Pamela Johnson
Call you Home
Message in Bottle
We are ridiculous
Kenneth Williams to Andrew Hathaway
Seat 29E
A Customer to Continental Airlines
What do you want from life?
David Lavelle to The Telegraph
You Babylonian scullion
Mehmed IV to the Zaporozhian Cossacks
Dear Princess Leia
Carrie Fischer to Princess Leia
The survivours will envy the dead
Jacqueline Kennedy to Nikita Khrushchev
Between death and perfection
Violet Trefusis to Vita Sckville-West
Meeting Picasso
Edith Sitwell to Cecil Beaton
Are you supposed to be normal?
Harold Pinter to A Confused Theatre Goer
In Brotherhood
Claude Eatherly to Reverend N.
I am unable to accept your rejection at this time
Paul Devlin to Various colleges
He is a most exemplaty young man
Sidney Lanier to Charley Lanier
A man has to BE something; has to matter
Hunter S. Thompson to Hume Logan
The Cat Ranch
Jack Lemmon to Walter Matthau
Tears don’t flow the same in space
Frank Culbertson to Earth
Brown is as pretty as white
W.E.B Du Bois to Yolande Du Bois
It’s the trip of a lifetime
Buzz Aldrin to Barry Goldman
He has nothing but his poker
A.T. Harris to Atlantic City Railroad
People simply empty out
Charles Bukowski to John Martin
You are your father
Saul Bellow to Martin Amis
BRUCE IS GREAT
Joe Strummer to Mark Hagen
The grandest looking child
Alfred Tennyson to Robert Monteith
Sleep well, my love
Brian Keith to Dave
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus
Virginia O’Hanlon to the Editor of The Sun
A few matters of etiquette
Fanny Burney to Hetty Burney
Janis Joplin Lives!
Janis Joplin to her parents
We are the gift
Melissa Harris Perry to Richard Mourdock
By Your Side
So Easy