Gwrach/Witch: A Fairy Tale Retold

Gwrach/Witch is an Oriel Myrddin exhibition opening this year of the artist’s explorations and projects of over a decade on the theme of the fairy tale Hansel & Gretel. It will contain original drawings made as illustrations for his V&A Award winning work on Hansel & Gretel : A Nightmare In Eight Scenes by Simon Armitage, puppets and model sets for the 2018 stage production which the artist directed, animations which were screened during the performances and many of the vintage toys used as props. There will be artworks made for the Hansel & Gretel Toy Theatre, commissioned by Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop in Covent Garden, and artworks from the Hansel & Gretel Picture Book published by St. Jude’s. The exhibition is curated and designed by Meriel Hunt and the Guest Curator is Simon Costin.

Dates to be announced.

Born of Man and Woman

Clive Hicks-Jenkins has made seventeen illustrations and wraparound cover artwork for the forthcoming republication by Suntup Editions of Richard Matheson’s anthology of science-fiction and horror, Born of Man and Woman, first published in 1954.

Matheson's career spanned decades of writing weird fiction and producing screenplays, and he's probably best known as the author of the novel I am Legend, adapted for the screen three times, most recently with Will Smith starring. He wrote 16 episodes of The Twilight Zone and produced screenplays of several Edgar Allan Poe stories for Roger Corman and American International Pictures: House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, Tales of Terror and The Raven. He adapted his 1971 short story Duel as a screenplay for Steven Spielberg. This new edition is currently on pre-order at the publisher’s website.

Hansel & Gretel: The Laureate and the Illuminator

2024 Hay Festival
Event 335. Simon Armitage and Clive Hicks-Jenkins
Hansel & Gretel: The Laureate and the Illuminator
Saturday 1 June 2024, 8.30pm – Wye Stage.

Tickets are £15.00 and are available from the Festival website.

Simon Armitage’s reinvention of a fairy tale, Hansel & Gretel: A Nightmare in Eight Scenes, was published by Faber & Faber in 2023. It’s the third book by the Poet Laureate to be illustrated by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, following Sir Gawain & the Green Knight in 2018 and The Owl and the Nightingale in 2021.

The Poet Laureate and the artist/illustrator hold a conversation with pictures, talking about their experiences of working together and reading favourite passages from the three books. Hicks-Jenkins directed and designed the music theatre production with actors and puppets of Armitage’s Hansel & Gretel when it premiered in 2018, and two members of the original cast make a special appearance.

Original illustrations from the books can be seen in Clive’s exhibition at local art gallery The Table, Hay-on-Wye, from Thursday 23 May to Saturday 22 June.