Crime and Twitterment – #VPT Novels next
Latest #vpt twitter challenge seeks novels in a tweet
Ben Winger, Keith Macpherson, Vari Sylvester & Jenny Hulse in David Greig’s #vpt twitter thriller Here’s The Plan. Photo © Sophie Good
By Thom Dibdin
An epic novel in a single tweet is the latest twitter challenge from the Village Pub Theatre, with the best being staged before the performance of Crime and Punishment at the Royal Lyceum this Friday 8 November 2013.
It’s a tall order. Mark Ravenhill has just finished tweeting Voltaire’s Candide. In its entirety. It took just under 720 tweets and appeared on twitter – under @TweetCandide – from June 26 to October 26.
Now #VPT would like him to do it in a single tweet – including the hashtag #vpt – and do it before midnight on Wednesday.
The challenge follows VPT’s Lyceum debut during Ian Rankin’s Dark Road, when tweeters were asked to write a thriller, inspired by the play, in a tweet.
“We’re looking for 140 character adaptations of epic novels – or any novel really”, Sophie Good told Æ. “A selection of our favourites will be performed on the Lyceum stage before the performance of Crime and Punishment on the 8th of November.
“The challenge is to write a few lines of dialogue that tell the story of a whole novel in just 140 characters. To add to the fun, other tweeters will be able to try to guess which novel you’ve squeezed into two or three lines of dialogue.”
The challenge is open to anyone, anywhere. All you have to do is tweet your adaptation of a novel, any novel, including the hashtag #vpt. There is no need to include the name of the novel in the tweet – part of the fun of following the hashtag will be working out which novel a tweet encapsulates. And if you can’t work that out, then it probably hasn’t done it’s job.
The best ones will be chosen and performed live by a cast of actors including Vari Sylvester, Jenny Hulse and Keith MacPherson on the Lyceum stage at 7.15pm on the 8th of November before the evening performance of Crime and Punishment.
So what makes a great #vpt tweet play? It’s not just a clever synopsis of the book, although that is important, but something a bit more, as Sophie Good explains:
“We still want mini plays, as it for performance,” she says. “But ones which are also a clever synopsis of the story. Or, alternatively, they could look at a tweet play which is inspired by a novel – more like an abstract adaptation which is not just a direct summary of the story. I’ve already seen people get quite creative with these.
“This one by @Litadoolan of Gone With the Wind is pretty good. She even got a bit of wordplay in there! And @TVBomb’s Lord of the Rings is also pretty clever. They are not direct summaries but are strongly inspired by the books. There are loads more if you look at the hashtag!”
Here’s Gone with the Wind:
Lita Doolan
@Litadoolan
We lost Tara
-U lost Rhett
I was careless
-It’s curtains
No it’s my new dress
-With no bonnet or battalion our lands gone#vpt
And Lord of the Rings:
TVBomb
@TVBomb:
G: Frodo, I’ve got a wee favour to ask. Don’t worry, it’s not too hard & should be over pretty quickly. Now you see that ring…#vpt
Anyone with a ticket to that performance of Crime and Punishment can see the plays free.
Follow the hashtag #vpt on twitter for inspiration.
Follow Village Pub Theatre at @PubTheatre on twitter for details: @PubTheatre
See Village Pub Theatre on Facebook for the lowdown: www.facebook.com/PubTheatre
Look at the Lycuem Theatre’s website for more details: www.lyceum.org.uk
ENDS
