Burgess Events for October 2024
Find out what's going on at the Burgess Foundation in October 2024.
Highlight Event
We are delighted to be hosting the Manchester launch of Christopher Isherwood Inside Out, described by David Hockney as ‘A first-rate biography of the man, the writer and the lover.’ Katherine Bucknell will talk about her illuminating new biography of Christopher Isherwood, one of the most prominent writers of the twentieth century, whose writings about Berlin in the 1930s inspired the musical Cabaret, and made him famous.
Using a wealth of unpublished material, Christopher Isherwood Inside Out reveals the drama and complexity of Isherwood’s interior world. It tells how the traumas of his father’s death in the First World War and his failure to protect his German lover from the Nazis were healed by his life as a monk in the 1940s, enabling him to commit to an open relationship in the 1950s, and to become the ‘grand old man’ of the gay rights movement in the 1970s.
Katherine Bucknell is the leading authority on the life and work of Christopher Isherwood. She has edited all three volumes of Isherwood’s diaries, covering the years 1939-83; his memoir, Lost Years; and a collection of letters between Isherwood and Don Bachardy. She is also the author of four novels (more information).
Events at the Burgess Foundation
Concert: Eroteme Presents ‘un(an)kN-O-wn’ | Sunday 6 October, 4:00pm, £10 | Long-established experimental concert series Eroteme kicks off its autumn season with a mammoth session of newly commissioned sound works, moving image and South-East Asian food (more information).
Talk: Manchester Lit & Phil Presents ‘The Square Kilometre Array’ | Tuesday 8 October 2024, 6:30pm, £15 | Professor Phil Diamond CBE talks about the truly astounding next-generation radio telescopes, built by a global consortium anchored in North West England (more information).
Comedy: «О Любви» Сольный концерт Виталия Иванова | Friday 11 October 2024, 7.30pm, £15 | Стендап приход приглашает на исповедь, а именно сольный стендап концерт “О любви”, малоизвестного, но многообещающего и любимого нами комика Виталия Иванова (more information).
Literature: Manchester Literature Festival Presents Ekow Eshun | Sunday 13 October 2024, 3:00pm, £10 | In his inventive novel The Strangers, Ekow Eshun conjures the voices of five remarkable Black men: Ira Aldridge, Matthew Henson, Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X and Justin Fashanu (more information).
Talk: Manchester Lit & Phil Presents ‘How Should We Pay for Driving?’ | Monday 14 October 2024, 6:30pm, £15 | Professor Greg Marsden argues that, whatever you think of the current arrangements for paying for transport, there is a need for a new way forward because of the change to electric vehicles (more information).
Talks: The Cultural Welcome – Unboxing Anthony Burgess | Tuesday 15 October 2024, 1:00pm, free | Discover everything you need to know about Manchester's most prolific author, the polymath Anthony Burgess, as we explore objects from his archive held at the Burgess Foundation (more information).
Concert: Monday’s Child/Treske Quartet Double Bill | Tuesday 15 October 2024, 7:30pm, £15 | New music collective Monday’s Child and the Treske Quartet perform works by Steve Reich, Steven Mackey, Claire Roberts and more (more information).
Concert: Common Extraordinary Things — Music by Laurence Crane | Wednesday 16 October 2024, 8:00pm, £10 | Members of the Hive Sinfonia will perform Laurence Crane’s Octet and Piano Piece no. 23 ‘Ethiopian Distance Runners’ alongside works by other composers (more information).
Talks: Manchester Game Centre Presents a Games Workshop Research Day | Thursday 17 October, 9:00am, free | The Manchester Game Centre is pleased to announce a symposium dedicated to Games Workshop’s games and fictions, including Warhammer 40,000 and more (more information).
Talks: The Cultural Welcome – Modern Manchester Unveiled | Friday 18 October, 6:30pm, free | Join Manchester University Press for a panel discussion exploring the cultural tapestry of modern Manchester with local authors who have written extensively about the city (more information).
Concert: Ardentia Trio — Colours, Dances, Impressions | Saturday 19 October 2024, 7:30pm, £10 | The Ardentia Trio, an outstanding piano trio based in Manchester, present an evening of contemporary and classical music focussed on music inspired by dance and colour (more information).
Literature: Poets & Players | Saturday 26 October 2024, 2:30pm, free | Poetry from Sinéad Morrissey, Charlotte Shevchenko Knight & Tim Tim Cheng (more information).
Manchester Lit & Phil Present ‘Cognitive Robotics’ | Tuesday 29 October 2024, 6:30pm, £15 | Angelo Cangelosi, Professor of Machine Learning and Robotics, will use the case study of language learning to demonstrate the highly interdisciplinary field of Cognitive Robotics (more information).
The Burgess Foundation Online
For those who are not able to visit our venue in Manchester, the Burgess Foundation hosts many free online resources.
The Burgess Foundation Podcasts:
On 2 October 2024, we are launching our fourth series of the Ninety-Nine Novels Podcast, which explores Anthony Burgess’s favourite books of the twentieth century. It will include classics, under-read gems, and guaranteed new discoveries. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and catch up with past series beginning with our first ever episode on Finnegans Wake by James Joyce:
Learn more about Anthony Burgess, including his views on A Clockwork Orange, Shakespeare, Poetry, Music and much more.
Find out more about the collections at the Burgess Foundation in Manchester, and how you can visit the archive.