Author Archives: Beth Astridge

Magnificent! Spectacular!

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Visit our new exhibition in the Templeman Gallery showcasing the Magnificent! Spectacular! David Drummond Pantomime Collection

  • Templeman Gallery, Templeman Library, First Floor, A Block
  • Running from December 2024 to 14th March 2025 

The David Drummond Pantomime collection is a treasure trove of fascinating material that highlights the unique British pantomime tradition from 1800 to the early 21st century. The exhibition revealed the incredible programmes, posters, photographs, scripts and other extraordinary items, telling the story of the history of pantomime from the early days of the Commedia dell’Arte to the modern extravaganza we know today. See our online exhibition pages here: https://www.kent.ac.uk/library-it/special-collections/our-exhibitions/pantomime

A variety of pantomime programmes splayed out overlapping each other on a table. Titles visible include Aladdin, Mother Goose and Dick Whittington.

A selection of programmes from the David Drummond Pantomime Collection

In 2022 Special Collections and Archives were awarded a grant from the Archives Revealed programme to catalogue the David Drummond Pantomime Collection. Archives Revealed is a funding partnership between The National Archives, The Pilgrim Trust and The Wolfson Foundation.

Our project – Oh Yes It Is! – was dedicated to getting this collection catalogued and available to researchers and members of the public with an interest in pantomime.

Between 2022 and 2023 the Project Archivist, Daniella Gonzalez, began the mammoth task of establishing order, listing everything in the collection (as far as possible!), and creating detailed catalogue records for a large part of the collection.

In the course of our research into this collection over the last few years we have made some remarkable discoveries!  One example is this wonderful self portrait of Dan Leno created for the matron of a home where he was recuperating after suffering from a period of poor mental health in 1903.

David Drummond Pantomime Collection, University of Kent

It was not long after his performance in Mother Goose at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and the drawing shows Leno’s transition in character from the old and homely Mother Goose into a glamorous 16 year old, an event that took place after the titular character was immersed in a magic pool. He notes on the page that the transition time for the costume change was 6 minutes. Leno returned to panto in the 1903/4 season, starring in Arthur Collins’ Humpty Dumpty at Drury Lane, but sadly died not long after in October 1904.

To see this item and many more, visit the Magnificent! Spectacular! Pantomime exhibition in the Templeman Library. The exhibition opened in December 2024 and will run until the 14th March 2025.

Click here to see the exhibition featured in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine! 

Guided Tours! 

You can also book a guided tour of the exhibition on one of the following dates. Please contact us on specialcollections@kent.ac.uk to book your place.

  • Thursday 23rd January – 12.30pm
  • Tuesday 28th January – 12.30pm
  • Thursday 30th January – 12.30pm
  • Monday 3rd February – 12.30pm
  • Wednesday 26th February – 12.30pm

Tours of the Memories of Hopping Exhibition

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Exciting news!

We will be running a couple of guided tours of the Hops Exhibition: ‘Local Stories: Memories of Hopping around Brook and Wye, Kent’.

Join us to find out more about the exhibition, the oral history project behind it, and to speak to our partners from Brook Rural Museum.

The tours will take place on:

Wednesday 27th November at 12.30pm and Thursday 28th November at 12.30pm 

They will be led by Philippa Mesiano from the Brook Rural Museum, and will last about 30 minutes.

Email engagement@brookruralmuseum.org.uk to book your place!

Image of an exhibition board titled Introduction Local Stories: memories of hopping around Brook and Wye

Introduction panel at the Memories of Hopping exhibition in the Templeman Gallery

 

Black and white image looking down a row of hop poles, with a man on tall stilts attaching strings to the hop poles

Ted Trush Stringing Hops at Spring Grove Farm in Wye, 1950s. Image courtesy of Liz Amos.

 

Fabulous First Editions – Drop In

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This is your opportunity to see some amazing modern first editions in the wild, at our Archives Show-Off event for November.

Drop in to Special Collections and Archives (A108, First Floor – Templeman Library – A Block) on Tuesday 26th November 2024 between 12pm and 2pm.

View the incredible first edition of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy – ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ – published in 1954. (including a gorgeous fold out map)

Front cover of the JRR Tolkien book The Fellowship of the Ring. The book is light beige, with an image of a red eye, and a gold ring and some runes

The Fellowship of the Ring, by JRR Tolkien (First edition, 1954) Reference: MOT.05

Take a peek at DH Lawrence’s privately published edition of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, part of a limited edition run of 1000 copies printed in Italy in 1928 and signed by the author. This book was not openly published until 1960 after it was the subject of an obscenity trial against its publisher, Penguin Books.

Image of a book with brown paper covers on its side showing the spine with title label and DH Lawrence's Phoenix motif

DH Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Private Printed Edition, 1928) Reference: MOL.A97

Marvel at the delicate uncut pages of TS Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’, in its first publication in the UK in book form in 1923, published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press.

Front cover of TS Eliot's The Waste Land which shows blue marbled paper covers and a white label in the centre

TS Eliot, The Waste Land (First edition, 1923) Reference: ELIOT PS3509.L43.W3

Also on display will be Graham Greene’s ‘Our Man in Havana’ (1958), Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ (1932), Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Brideshead Revisited’ (1908), Ernest Hemingway’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ (1940) and many more.

Image of a book with a cream coloured cover and red label on the spine - reading For Whom the Bell Tolls, with the embossed signature of Ernest Hemingway printed on the front centre

Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (First edition, 1940) Reference: MOH.E5

 

Local Stories: Memories of Hopping around Brook and Wye, Kent

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Next exhibition in the Templeman Gallery – 18th October to 29th November 2024 

Our next exhibition in the Templeman Gallery and will be installed over the next few weeks. Join us for the exhibition launch on Friday 18th October at 6pm! 

This is a partnership with Brook Rural Museum following an oral history project where local people were interviewed about their memories of hopping and hop production in Brook, Wye and the surrounding areas.

The exhibition features extracts from the oral history recordings alongside items from Special Collections and Archives, and from the Brook Rural Museum, including hop tokens and tally sticks, photographs, newspaper articles and rare books – telling the story of what hop farming and hop picking was like in Kent, and describing the history and future of hop production.

Contact us on specialcollections@kent.ac.uk if you have any questions or would like to attend the free launch event.

Poster about the Brook Rural Museum exhibition - Local Stories: Memories of Hopping around Brook and Wye, Kent. The poster features a black and white image of a hop worker on stilts working on the hop frames

Reclaiming Narratives: Finding Black History in the Archives

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Sign up to our workshop on Wednesday 6th November 2024 – 1pm to 4pm

Location: Templeman Library, Room A108 (A Block – first floor)

Join the team in Special Collections and Archives for a workshop exploring Black history in the University’s archive and book collections.

Image showing 4 documents including two copies of a newsletter of the West Indian Students Union in London, and Ballet programe for a performance of Black Africa, and an advertisement for a lecture by CLR James chaired by Faustin Charles in 1968

Selection of items from the 1960s in the Faustin Charles Archive collection – including an advertisement for a lecture by CLR James chaired by Faustin Charles, two issues of newsletters from the West Indian Student Union in London, and a programme for a Ballet performance titled Black Africa. (Reference: UKA/ALU/CHARLESF/7/1)

 

In this workshop you will learn more about the University’s special collections, and have the opportunity to view some of the archive collections that highlight aspects of Black history. Workshop participants will learn archive research techniques, and be able to participate in our ongoing work to reveal and showcase the stories and experiences of people of colour that feature in our archive collections.

Through the workshop, participants will consider the challenges of trying to uncover hidden stories in the archives, touching on issues such as changes in terminology and the use of outdated language, and the lack of detailed cataloguing providing barriers to successful research.

Participants will be invited to spend time exploring archive catalogues to locate items of interest in the study of Black history, surfacing evidence of the activities and experiences of people of colour held within the archives. Your discoveries will be added to our list of sources supporting the study of Black history in the archive collections.

There will also be some free pizza at the end of the workshop as a thank you for your hard work!

To book a place on the workshop please contact Special Collections and Archives: specialcollections@kent.ac.uk

Black and white image of Faustin Charles, a Black man, standing at a lectern delivering a reading, wearing dark trousers, a lighter colour jacket and a roll neck jumper.

Faustin Charles reading poetry in 1970s (Reference: UKA/ALU/CHARLESF/7/9)