Escape talk at the Bavard Bar

Last night, I popped over to Eastbourne to speak at the Bavard Bar. It’s a fun event with a friendly crowd. The format is borrowed from Brighton’s Catalyst Club, but with a few additions. I was there to give my talk ‘How to Escape from a WW2 POW camp‘.

I spoke first, which meant that I could relax with a glass of wine while I listened to the other speakers. Becky Edwards spoke about To Be Continued, a multi-media storytelling project based on the diaries of Dick Perceval. Becky found these diaries lying beside a bin in the 90s, and has been tracing the story of their writer. There was also a discussion of atonal music, particularly the work of Arnold Schoenberg. It was a great introduction to an area I’ve never thought about, and never realised was worth thinking about. So, all-in-all, a great night. Thanks to Tim for inviting me along!

Crowd from the Bavard Bar

(The image above is by Cliff Crawford, the Bavard’s resident artist)

The talk I gave was from my first appearance the Catalyst Club back in January 2010, also coincidentally the first time that Tim attended. I also gave the talk at 2011’s White Night (the year of the zombie riot in the aquarium). I think I might have done it at Wilderness Festival in 2015 too. It’s a good talk, and one I always planned to do something with. Like so many things, I abandoned it rather than develop it further, but it’s good to finally revive it after almost ten years.

The most difficult thing was fitting everything into 15 minutes, which I just about managed. Some of the material from this talk has been folded into my Amateur Escapology show, but less than I expected. Meanwhile, I’m going to look for more places to give this talk.

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