New Plunder to be found in Ramsgate
Plus marathoning Shakespeare for charity, comic shop celebrates small publishers, upcoming Kent events, and more
With nearly a quarter of shops in Ramsgate empty, launching a new business, particularly a pirate-themed bookshop, is a daunting venture. We’ve talked to one half of a team that is doing just that. Further down, we hear about a marathon Shakespeare performance in Whitstable for charity, a comic book shop in Folkestone supporting small publishers, and upcoming Kent events. Let’s get to it.
New Plunder to be found in Ramsgate
Melissa Todd is a writer, sex worker and dominatrix. She is also now the co-owner of a book shop in Ramsgate. We caught up with her to talk about Plunder…
Plunder is a brand-new bookshop on Ramsgate High Street. “It's mainly the brainchild of Seb Reilly, my business partner,” says Melissa. “We've been talking for ages about setting up a publishing company together.” Seb had left his job, had time and money, and decided now was the time. They found a large shop that had been empty for some time. “We got a deal on it, right in the middle of Ramsgate.”
Ramsgate has a number of empty shops at present, with the highly recommended Isle of Thanet News telling us that there is a 24% vacancy rate, compared to a national average of 14%. “There's an awful lot of shops that are empty, but somebody's got to be brave and say, ‘Let's try and make something happen and build a resurgence.’” They opened at the end of June, and Melissa found the experience “wonderful. It was insanely busy.”
Melissa highlights that people were always saying “unpleasant things about Thanet, that they are illiterate scumbags,” and to find people queuing to enter a book shop was “genuinely heartwarming.” With books flying off the shelf, having to restock so soon is a good challenge to have. “It's been a real labour of love,” though Melissa admits that the majority of the labour has been Seb’s. “I have done absolutely nothing, because I have no practical skills whatsoever.” Seb has essentially built all the shelves on the walls and “the incredible piratey signs.”
Seb is currently focused on building a smuggler experience around the back of the shop. “It's going to be a massive pirate ship and museum-y,” the space leaning into Ramsgate's pirate and smuggler history. “He's got all sorts of plans. He keeps telling me, and it's too much for me to take in.” It is intended as a family experience, but “there'll be places for children to play, while mums sit back and have a coffee.”
Seb is building whilst Melissa and I speak, intending to have the space open for the summer holidays. “He’s building a ship out of nothing. It's magic.” Plunder was chosen as a name and theme, with Melissa and Seb wanting something “vaguely piratical and a bit naughty.” There was already a nautical theme, with Seb, a born and bred Thanet resident, running a literary journal called Seaside Gothic. “He's just obsessed with the sea and sea tales.”
Plunder has a nautical section, including classics Moby Dick and Treasure Island, but non-nautical books are also available, including Melissa Todd’s books, which feature “very little mention of the sea.” They also stock other local writers, including Medway’s Sam and Barry Fentiman-Hall. “We've got all our mates' books in as well. Why else would you open a bookshop?”
Melissa and Seb met when he was the editor of the now-defunct Thanet Writers, a local writing group that published online every day for years, before coming to an end during covid. Seb had published Melissa, and she became managing editor for a time. Ultimately, the plan “is for Plunder to become a publisher. We will be taking on manuscripts and hopefully, publishing one under the Plunder name. How we do that, I don't know. But that's the dream.”
Marathoning Shakespeare for charity
Emma Dewhurst is an actor and the founder and former editor of WOW Kent magazine. She is organising a marathon reading of Shakespeare plays in Whitstable to raise money for the British Red Cross Gaza Crisis Appeal, so we spoke to her to find out more…
Bard Aid is a 14-hour Shakespeare play reading marathon, with five of the “most well-known and best loved plays,” read from 8.30am until 10pm. Though Emma admits, some have been chosen because “they’re not quite as long as some others, because there is no way we could read five of some of them.”
The plays in question are Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, with A Midsummer Night's Dream, “in the evening, the one everybody knows best in a way.” This isn’t the first time Emma has attempted such a venture. “It grew out of something I did a very, very long time ago, in the late 1990s, actually,” when she did a smaller version in a friend’s house to aid the Kosovan refugee crisis.
With Bard Aid, there will be something being read almost all day. “There will be a very quick 20-minute turnaround, which is fast, because the cast will change, the readers will change”. Some readers will be involved in more than one play, with some involved all day, “but nobody, probably apart from me and my husband Simon, will have to do something in all of them.”
Emma is organising the event largely on her own, “and it's turned out to be enormous and I must be mad.” She does have the support of her partner, playwright Simon Mendez de Costa. He's a fan of Shakespeare and “a fan of me, so he's helping me.” Emma has been focused on gathering a core group of professional actors who will be joined by members of the community “who love Shakespeare.” Though she does need readers for Julius Caesar, because “I'm struggling to find people to come out and read at 8.30am on a Saturday,” she laughs, noting that “women can play men's parts, by the way.”
Emma runs a theatre workshop for adults at the Whitstable Umbrella Centre, “which is a real community-based class.” They started from scratch in September, forming a regular group, and Emma is encouraging them to come and join on the day. She is gradually bringing the project together. “I am slowly but surely in my five Excel spreadsheets creating casts for each play.” There will definitely be roles that are not cast on the day. “I will literally be saying, ‘Is there a member of the audience who can read?’” So, be prepared for audience preparation.
Despite Emma’s planning and spreadsheets, there will be elements that are “going to be a bit ad hoc”. The readings will occur in a circle, “where it's not an us and them situation.” Emma knows the audience will also be fluid, with people coming late or leaving early and moving around the room if they want to. “The actors can create a lovely communication and contact between each other while they read. If you read in a row to an audience in front of you, it's just not going to have the same communal community feel as two circles.”
There will be some element of actors being able to handle props, or have a costume, if they want, but largely the expectation is that they will “read the play beforehand and know what you're reading and get on with it on the day.” Emma is also organising a team of volunteer stewards so that the audience will be “welcomed and directed as to where to go and take donations. Emma is also hopeful of refreshments. “There'll be some food, definitely tea and coffee. Good coffee because I love coffee.”
The Red Cross are supporting the event. “They've been fantastic actually. They've assigned me a person, the regional fundraiser is supporting me, and he said this is completely unique.” The event is not ticketed, with “entrance by donation. People can come and go. They can come to a play in the morning, then a play in the evening. It's very fluid.” Emma is aware that “if by some miracle there's an enormous audience, we will have to cap it in the room at about 100,” which includes the readers. “That would be a really good problem to have, to be honest. We'll just send them away and say come back for another play.”
Emma chose Shakespeare because he “speaks to the human condition more than any other playwright.” She was raised on Shakespeare; her mother was an actress, and her father was a writer. “They took me to Shakespeare, they talked about Shakespeare, my mother quoted Shakespeare, Shakespeare was part of my life.” Emma’s mum became part of the Royal Shakespeare Company and spent a lot of time in Stratford-upon-Avon. “Literally, she could get comps for anything. I went to all the shows. Shakespeare's been part of my life for a very long time.”
Emma is a Buddhist, noting that “there is in the Buddhism that I'm a member of a driving principle of standing up saying ‘I'm here to be counted.’” She is focused on doing something for the community “where you live to make it better in some way, shape or form, using your talents and skills.” Bard Aid is Emma using her knowledge and skills of theatre, Shakespeare, and organising and galvanising a community. “I got to the point where I felt, given the whole principle of my Buddhism is promoting peace in individuals and the world, I have to do something.”
All actor readers are being asked either to sponsor themselves to read, or to raise sponsorship for their efforts, Audience members will be able to donate on the day to gain entrance to hear the plays. “There'll be QR codes to the donation page on the day, and good old-fashioned collecting tins for cash!” They are accepting online donations for “people who just want to support the British Red Cross Gaza Crisis Appeal and can't attend on the day.”
Bard Aid is at the Wesley Hall, part of St John's Methodist Church in Whitstable on Argyle Road, with doors opening at 8.15am on Saturday 19 July, with donations accepted for the British Red Cross Gaza appeal.
Folkestone comic shop celebrates small publishers
Saturday 19 July is Small Press Day, so we spoke with Jake Tomlin of Lighthouse Comics in Folkestone to learn more about it and his plans for the day.
Lighthouse Comics is a small, independent comic shop based on the Old High Street in Folkestone. They have been open for just over six months, intending to show people new things, stocking a wide range of titles from Batman to Bunny vs Monkey, trying to have something for everybody.
Jake himself inspired the shop, as he was frustrated with his inability to buy graphic novels for himself without resorting to a multinational technology company. Jake had been made redundant and was looking to start his own business, and had fond memories of helping his Dad deliver comics to newsagents when he was younger.
Things have changed since then, with a diverse creator base of graphic novels, comics and manga. Whilst some comics have gone digital, the physical object can be a beautiful and intriguing thing. Small press titles provide opportunities that are not available in the mainstream. Anybody can be a comic creator, you just need some paper and a pen (or a tablet, or some cardboard or... you get the idea).
Small press includes anybody who self-publishes and small independent publishers that publish a small number of titles. Despite dwindling sales numbers, it doesn’t include Marvel and DC, or publishers like Image and Dark Horse. Whilst there are advantages to publishing through a big company, self and small press publishing allow creators to tell stories they want to tell without restrictions or executives making editorial decisions.
Small Press Day is a nationwide event that has been set up to try to highlight the burgeoning independent comic scene, and this year is the 10th anniversary. It's not compulsory, but there are a number of shops running events, and these can be anything that helps to promote independent comic creation & creators. Lighthouse Comics has two confirmed guests for the day, signing books: Nicholas Woodhead, who makes Wetnurse, and Nick Bryan, who writes Death of Necromancer.
Jake is also organising a ‘Create Your Own Comic’ workshop, encouraging people to draw their own one-page comic, with the results on display in the shop. The event will start at 12pm, and Jake is offering a 10% off all small press titles. He recommends the aforementioned Wetnurse as “funny, gentle, autobiographical comic strips about a man and his cat,” Tales of Courier Z as “a great anthology of short sci-fi stories,” and A Fall From Grace, “a beautifully illustrated book about an Aztec God who falls to Earth and their efforts to get back to where they were.”
Upcoming Kent events
🎨 Until 20 Jul - Medway Open Studios // Artists across Medway throw open their studios and exhibit their work. Various locations. Free.
🎤 Mon 7 Jul - Matt Chorley// Political satire from BBC 5 Live presenter. Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury. Tickets £27.50.
🏴☠️ Sun 13 Jul - Faversham Pirate Festival // It’s a festival about pirates. Front Brents, Faversham. Free.
🏎️ Mon 14 Jul - Guenther Steiner: Unfiltered // Sweary former team boss of Haas F1 Team offers behind the scenes conversation into the sport. Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells. Tickets from £38.25.
More Currents
The Guardian picked up on our reporting on Kent County Council’s Reform administration claiming to remove trans literature from the children’s section of a Kent library. You can catch up on the story here.
First they came for the books
Kent’s Reform administration leapt into action this week to tackle what they called ‘trans ideological material’ on children’s library shelves in Kent. But is everything as it appears? We take a look at exactly what’s been going on.
As ever, we can only do this reporting with time and resources. To do that, we need enough readers to support our work. So far, the Kent Current isn’t generating enough income to make this sustainable, so please consider upgrading your subscription if you haven’t already done so, and we’ll be able to keep doing this.
Footnotes
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