CULTURE CLUB
UP FOR A LAUGH
A round-up of uproarious comics you should catch HELEN BAUER: GRAND SUPREME DARLING PRINCESS CAMBRIDGE JUNCTION, 2 DEC A side-splitting show dedicated to the many women in her life, check out this performance from Live at the Apollo star Helen Bauer. CHRIMPROV ADC THEATRE CORPUS PLAYROOM, 6-9 DEC Cambridge Improv Factory returns for a comedy special that’s sure to deliver a laugh a minute. ED GAMBLE, FERN BRADY, JEN BRISTER - LIVE AT CHRISTMAS CAMBRIDGE CORN EXCHANGE, 16 DEC Don’t miss this festive spectacular hosted by some of the country’s finest comedians, headlined by the ever- popular Ed Gamble.
BLAKE REBORN
An independent publisher joins forces with a historic Cambridge college to release a limited edition of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience The Folio Society x King’s College
“Blake was a visionary artist as well as a great poet and his Songs of Innocence and of Experience is the pinnacle of illustrated texts.” For Kate Grimwade, production director at The Folio Society, William Blake’s technique of ‘illuminated printing’ is a prime example of the elegant combination of art and literature. As a tradition that the independent publisher endeavours to uphold, a project has been underway since 2022 to access the original manuscripts of Songs of Innocence... held at King’s College – known as Copy W – so they can be examined and rephotographed to create a limited edition book that’s as true to the original as possible. “There are different copies of the poem in libraries around the world, but we were drawn to Copy W because of its perfect condition, intense colouring and finally because the borders around each picture had been drawn by Blake’s wife,” Kate tells us. Collaborating closely with the college, the publisher worked with the rephotographed manuscript to trial different papers and compare proofs against the original pages to achieve the best colour match possible – a process which took three separate visits. Finally, in November 2023, the project came to fruition with a beautiful new book at the end of the process, delivered with intricate
binding and a clamshell box designed in- house to echo imagery from the manuscript. Although staying true to the original work, there are some changes. These include an introduction written by Patti Smith, who was inspired by Blake as a young girl. “We decided to keep the transcription of each poem separate from the imagery. Our aim all along was to get the reader as close as possible to the amazing experience of sitting with Blake’s original manuscript.” Kate describes the process of having intimate access to the manuscripts as a ‘huge privilege’ – and essential in understanding the weight, shade and texture of the paper Blake would have been working with. Not least, it revealed that the images were set within a large page, leading the team to reproduce these at full size – with a large border that allowed for a ‘more luxurious reading experience’ true to Blake’s work. “As WB Yeats said: ‘Every page is a window open in Heaven’. As a publisher of illustrated texts, The Folio Society had to pay homage to this part of our literary and artistic heritage.” The Folio Society’s limited edition Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake, introduced by Patti Smith and illustrated by the author, is exclusively available from foliosociety.com
12 DECEMBER 2023 CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK
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