The Keats Project

The Keats Project was created to mark the events in the last three years of the life of the great romantic poet, John Keats.

Explore

Welcome to The Keats Project

A charged, interesting and lively view into the past. It brought to life a moment in time, and made both men, their motivations for their long walk to Scotland and the stories of the era come alive.

B Calvey: The Wordsworth Trust.

In late June 1818, John Keats and his friend Charles Brown set off on a walking holiday from Lancaster to Dumfries. The two men stopped off at the The King’s Arms Inn, in Burton in Kendal, Cumbria. It was here that two friends, in 2017, decided that this was a visit worth celebrating.

The piece would take the form of a twenty minute play. The actors would re-create the conversations that might have taken place between Keats and Brown. They would walk into public houses – the first of these being The King’s Arms – and the re-enactment would begin.


Why Keats?

The story of John Keats is one that inspires me every day. The power and beauty of Keats’ poetry should be shared with everybody. That’s what The Keats Project aims to do.

Marion Plowright, Director


The story so far…

Over two nights, locals and visitors piled into the pub ready to greet Keats and Brown. The play was a success, being reprised at the end of September 2018 at The Royal Oak in Keswick. Keats and Brown were looking forward to climbing Skiddaw the next morning, before walking on to Ireby, their last stop in The Lake District.

After the positive response to the first performance, director Marion Plowright decided to explore the remaining years of Keats’ short life in two further pop-up theatre pieces. On the 200th anniversary of the writing of To Autumn, a second piece was performed at The Robert Gillow pub in Lancaster. In May 2020 the group will perform all three plays, from 1818 to 1820, at The Heron Theatre in Beetham, Cumbria.

An extraordinary evening and an experience not to be missed.

K Pelling: Writer and Poet

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool’d a long age in the deep-delvèd earth, Tasting of Flora and the country-green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

Ode to a Nightingale