Events to mark the 250th birthday of Samuel Taylor Coleridge include a performance of his poem the Rime of the Ancient Mariner near his Highgate grave.
Actors Richard Hansell and Sam Fairbrother give a dramatised rendition at St Michael's Church in South Grove on October 22. The day before, a statue will be unveiled at 11am on October 21 at St Mary’s Church in Ottery St Mary, on the anniversary of his birth in the Devon village.
The statue is funded by the Coleridge Memorial Trust, while the separate Coleridge Trust is raising funds to refurbish the derelict cellar beneath St Michael’s where the Kubla Khan poet, his wife Sarah, daughter Sara, son-in-law Henry and grandson Herbert are buried.
Valerie Doulton, Dartmouth Park-based director of the Live Literature Company, said the performances are a modern climate change interpretation that reimagines one of English language's best loved poems.
She said: "At the beginning of The Ancient Mariner, Coleridge writes: 'And listens like a three years' child.'
"This is perfect for parents and carers to bring their children of all ages to, so they can imaginatively participate in this inspirational story.
"I hope children and adults will fall under Coleridge's spell anew in these landmark performances. It is particularly moving that we are able to perform this work in the very church where Coleridge worshipped and in whose crypt he and his family were reinterred in June 1961."
Coleridge came to London in spring 1816. While trying to get his play Zapolya produced, his health took a turn for the worse, and he moved in with Dr James Gillman on Highgate Hill. He moved with the family in 1823 to 3 The Grove and was a regular worshipper at St Michaels until his death in 1834.
He was initially buried at The Old Highgate Chapel but in 1961 with the graves open to the elements and vulnerable to vandalism, they were reinterred under St Michael's in a crumbling cellar that is in need of refurbishment.
Performances of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner are at 3pm and 7pm, October 22 at St Michael's Highgate www.ticketsource.co.uk/theliveliteraturecompany
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