Human:Nature Events, 15-20 June

Please scroll down to find out about all our events.

Sunday June 15th, An Afternoon at the Bishop’s Garden
The Bishop’s Garden (Cathedral entrance on Palace Street), 2pm-6pm, £2.50 at entrance. In Partnership with the RSPB

An afternoon of readings, book stalls, children’s activities, refreshments and more in the beautiful setting of the Bishop’s garden.

Bring a picnic to savour on the lawns or enjoy fresh Norfolk produce from our café whilst you listen to the writers, who all relate to the region to nature in some way.  Browse the stalls of local publishers whilst storytellers entertain the kids, buy some books from the stalls or plants from the Bishop’s own nursery, and find out find out what the RSPB does and how you can get involved in their work.

2.15 – 3. 00 Mark Cocker and Joanna Guthrie
Mark Cocker’s passion for crows came to a head when he moved from Norwich to the Norfolk wilds; as documented in the brilliant Crow Country. Jo Guthrie is a young Norwich poet whose first collection, Billacks Bones, has just been published by Rialto.

3.15 – 4.00   Richard Mabey and Jay Griffiths
Richard Mabey, is the respected nature writer who wrote Birds Britannica with Mark Cocker, and whose new book Beechcombings, is a fantastic exploration of our relationship to trees. Jay Griffiths’ best-selling and insightful book Wild: An Elemental Journey, was written after seven years of traveling the world.

4.15 – 4.45  Charles Rangeley-Wilson
The author and TV Presenter, will entice the audience with some of the charm he brought to the world with The Accidental Angler.

2.45 – 3.15 and 4.15 – 4.45 Children’s storytelling with Charlie Crickcrack
Charlie Crickcrack specialises in telling stories to children using rhythm, rhyme, music, and lots of audience participation.

BOOKING INFORMATION: Pay at entrance (no pre-booking). Please come early to avoid disappointment.

ACCESS: The Bishop’s Garden and the Café (CHECK) are accessible to wheelchair users though some areas of the lawn and grounds may be difficult to access depending on the weather. Wheelchair users and visually impaired customers are entitled to one complimentary ticket for an escort. Please contact NWP if you have any further access queries.

Monday June 16th, Future Perfect? The Debate at The Norwich Playhouse
42-58 St. George's Street, Norwich, NR3 1AB. 8pm-9.45pm. £12 (£10 concessions). In Partnership with the RSPB

With the statistics on the environment looking alarming, who will save the planet - writers, scientists, politicians or activists? And is it all really as bad as it seems? Come and join the debate.

Norfolk‘s world renowned reputation in the fields of creative writing and environmental science will be represented by writer Giles Foden (author of The Last King of Scotland and professor of creative writing at UEA) and acclaimed environmentalist Andrew Watson, an expert on the atmosphere of earth and other planets. They will be joined by RSPB scientist Rhys Green, local MP Ian Gibson and panel chair; Graham Creelman OBE.

In the second half, the audience will grill the panel and make their own views felt so please come and join us and contribute your thoughts to a global debate that is being driven by this region.

BOOKING INFORMATION: Seated. Book at Playhouse Box Office on 01603 598598 or visit www.norwichplayhouse.co.uk and choose the "Buy Tickets Online" link next to each show. (Booking Fee applies - 75p per transaction)

ACCESS: All public areas of Norwich Playhouse are accessible to wheelchair users and people with mobility issues. Wheelchair users and visually impaired customers are entitled to one complimentary ticket for an escort. There are two systems in place to assist those who are hard of hearing. Please contact the venue for more details.

Join us for a night of performance, celebration and intense heat as we turn up the temperature inside Norwich Arts Centre in support of Refugee Week and the City of Refuge Shahrazad programme.

Featuring Ben Mellor, Kei Miller and Samia Malik in an exciting programme of Live Literature and music.

Ben Mellor

“One of the country’s biggest emerging talents."  Latitude Festival

Ben is a poet and performer whose fantastic stand up poetry set tells the story of one man’s epic UK bicycle odyssey giving plentiful opinions about our environment along the way. Ben’s blend of hip-hop and poetry has proved very popular at his many performances, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Latitude and the RSC’s New Work Festival.

Kei Miller
“Kei Miller’s is a voice we will hear much more of, for it speaks and sings with rare confidence and authority.” Lorna Goodison

Kei's poetry tells stories from Jamaica that concern us all; rooted in the West Indies, his work speaks to all who care for great narratives and the people who inhabit them. The Fear of Stones, was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize and There Is an Anger That Moves, was published by Carcanet in 2007.

Samia Malik
"A unique experience that is bound to stir and move." The Times of India

Hailed as a 'powerful new voice', Samia Malik's hauntingly beautiful lyrics weave tabla, violin, tanpura, keyboards, bass, and flute with the sitar. Writing from her perspective as a British Asian woman from a Pakistani/Muslim background, Samia creates a beautiful fusion of musical styles and languages.

BOOKING INFORMATION. Seated. Tickets available from the Box Office on 01603 660352 Mon-Sat 10am-7pm. Online booking at www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk (booking fees apply)

ACCESS: The auditorium and café are accessible for wheelchair users. The auditorium is fitted with a hearing loop. Please contact NAC on 01603 660352 if you have special requirements. Wheelchair users and visually impaired customers are entitled to one complimentary ticket for an escort.

Join us for an evening of exploration, discovery and global perspectives against a backdrop of stunning exhibits and objects.

Featuring readings from Mia Couto, Geoff Dyer, Gretel Ehrlich and Jose Eduardo Agualusa and the chance to watch a set of short films made by some of Norwich’s young people, including refugees and asylum seekers.

Geoff Dyer cannot write a boring sentence. His passions are art, photography, travel and what make a place a place. Tonight he’s presenting an illustrated talk on Land Art in Mexico that will be published shortly in Granta.

Gretel Ehrlich is perhaps the world’s greatest writer about Wilderness. From Wyoming, to Alaska and across both Poles, her work is a celebration of the wilderness’ apparent emptiness and how it fills the human psyche.

Mia Couto is a Mozambiquan poet, novelist, short story writer and environmental biologist. By turn comic, savage and sympathetic, his latest novel in translation from the Portuguese, A River Called Time, is published in the UK this summer.

Jose Eduardo Agualusa was born in Angola and writes in Portuguese. His latest novel, The Book of Chameleons, won the Independent Foreign Fiction prize in 2007 and is a fascinating account of the landscape of memory and the fault lines that can be found there.

Booking Information: No need to book.

Access information: There is ramped access to all galleries but wheelchair users may need assistance. A manual wheelchair is available on request. Please contact SCVA on 01603 593199 if you have particular requirments.

Thursday June 19th, JM Coetzee at UEA Lecture Theatre 1
7.30pm, Lecture Theatre 1, UEA, Norwich. £5 (no concessions).

"It is in exploring weakness and defeat that Coetzee captures the divine spark in man.” Swedish Academy

New Writing Worlds is honoured to welcome the Nobel prize winner J.M. Coetzee to Norwich to read from his work at the UEA.

One of the world’s greatest living writers, J.M. Coetzee is a South African novelist, essayist and translator whose portrayal of South Africa is designed to raise questions not only about his homeland, but of all of us: “He has an amazing human passion that is very clear even when he's describing the worst things people do to one another. He's asking what are the conditions of our salvation and damnation." Jonathan Lear

Coetzee’s work includes Waiting For The Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood: Scenes From Provincial Life, Youth, Disgrace, Elizabeth Costello and, most recently, Slow Man and Diary of a Bad Year. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 and is also the only author to win the Booker Prize twice.

We recommend that you book tickets early for this event.

Booking Information: Tickets available in advance from the Box Office, sited in the Union House, UEA (10am-5pm week days in term time, 12 noon – 3pm vacations) or by telephone on 01603 508050 or by post from Box Office, Union House, UEA, Norwich NR4 7TJ (cheques payable to SUS (E.A.) Ltd. Please enclose a stamped addressed envelope).

Access: UEA Lecture Theatre 1 is accessible to wheelchair users. Please contact NWP on 01603 877177 if you have access requirements you would like to discuss further.