This was a return visit at the request of the residents and we tried to put together a varied programme of old favourites and poetry which could be read in parts. We also asked the residents to help us out with the chorus, ‘Heigh ho! How pleasant it is to have money’ from a poem of the same title by Arthur Hugh Clough
This time we provided our own audio equipment and the room was arranged differently so that we were closer to the residents and they were all facing towards us.
There was only one request, the same as before, from a gentleman who was delighted to hear us once again read John of Gaunt’s speech from Shakespeare’s Richard !!.
We only had one disgruntled member of the audience who had come expecting to be shown a Western film. She stayed for the duration and when asked if she had enjoyed the reading conceded that it was ‘All right’.
Our Programme:
Trees by Philip Larkin
A Date With Spring by John Agard
A Am The Song by Charles Causley
How I Do Love Thee by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Adlestrop by Edward Thomas
The Listeners by Walter de La Mare
How pleasant it is to Have Money by Arthur Hugh Clough
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day by William Shakespeare
Poem For My sister by Gillian Clarke
Please Mrs. Butler by Alan Ahlberg
Woman’s Work by Maya Angelou
The Soldier by Rupert Brookes
Sky in The Pie by Roger McGough
I Remember, I Remember by Thomas Hood
In the Ning Nang Nong by spike Milligan
Shortlands Poetry Circle 