But I Know This City! (50)

Following the success of But I Know This City! in 2015 there were many calls to restage the event and this year, the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of B.S. Johnson’s ‘The Unfortunates’ seemed like the time to do it.

This time we had 120 volunteers situated in twenty five venues across the city ready to share this deeply moving and evocative work which, with its separately bound chapters, can be read in any order.

The event started and ended at the Broadway Cinema and ran from 10am through to 10pm, with a combined audience of over 2600. A map of the venues (including a car, a church, and a living room) can be found here, along with the instructions that were given to the audience as they navigated the novel.

For this project we engaged with many of Nottingham’s cultural venues and the response to the event was wonderful. Members of B.S. Johnson’s immediate family also came up from London to see the performance.

The event was part of Being Human: A Festival of the Humanities 2019 and was funded by The University of Nottingham