Tales of the Weird 2025 – All the Fear of the Fair

Описание: This event took place on 2 November 2025. The information below is correct as of the publication date.

A new British Library Tales of the Weird collection edited by Ghostland author Edward Parnell has brought back to life sixteen enchanted, nightmarish tales of circus, spectacle and sideshow. Step right up if you dare as he is joined on stage by comedian and clown Elf Lyons and writer and performer Kit Green.

About Tales of the Weird:

Tales of the Weird: An Autumnal Festival is the British Library’s celebration of strange, uncanny and horrifying writing. Inspired by the Library’s cult Tales of the Weird series of gothic, supernatural and horror fiction, the event features some of our finest writers, directors and fans of the strange, as well as the very latest Tales of the Weird editions.

To join more online and in person events visit our website: https://events.bl.uk/

Discover more of our past events at our playlist:    • Public talks, discussions and performances  

Browse the Tales of the Weird book series at our online shop: https://shop.bl.uk/collections/tales-...

Thumbnail credit: Design by Mauricio Villamayor

Speaker Bios:

Edward Parnell is the author of the novel The Listeners, and the 2019 narrative non-fiction Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country, which was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize for memoir and autobiography. For the British Library’s Tales of the Weird series, he edited Eerie East Anglia: Fearful Tales of Field and Fen, an anthology of classic ghost stories, and the new collection All the Fear of the Fair: Uncanny Tales of Circus and Sideshow. He also contributed introductions to Unquiet Slumbers, a folk horror story collection published by Nepenthe Press and a new edition of Ithell Colquhoun’s classic Cornish travelogue The Living Stones from Pushkin Press.

Elf Lyons is an award-winning comedian and theatre practitioner using mime, stand-up, clowning, Bouffon and verbatim theatre in solo shows including Horses, Swan, Raven and Chiffchaff. These have won multiple accolades, including Best Comedy at Sky Arts Awards 2025, Best Show at Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2024 and Best Comedy at Adelaide Fringe 2024. They include anything from re-enacting classical ballet using found items, musicals about the economy whilst dressed as a Lion, a mime show about a bank robbery and a comedy horror extravaganza inspired by the work of Stephen King. Elf directs and teaches artists of all creative disciplines around the world.

Kit Green is a writer and performer whose work includes comedy, cabaret, theatre and live art. Amongst much else she has toured widely as the irrepressible characters, country music singer Tina C and pensioner-rapper Ida Barr, and won an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment in 2004 as co-creator of Duckie's C'est Barbican!. In 2025 Kit was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2025 National Film Awards for her portrayal of Tinker Bell in the horror film Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare. She was the British Library Artist in Residence 2012, investigating the history of hypnosis in its collections.

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