Afternoon Tea with Barbara Pym at The Library of Birmingham

On Saturday afternoon Liz and I attended an event at the lovely and still sparkling new Library of Birmingham. It was a ticketed event called Afternoon tea with Barbara Pym. I knew the Barbara Pym archivist Yvonne Cocking was involved with it, and that there would be a dramatised reading of Pym’s work. I obviously had then misunderstood what the event was – because somehow I had understood that there would be a talk by Yvonne Cocking, I was looking forward to it. Yvonne Cocking was there – however she didn’t speak.

In fact Yvonne Cocking had adapted the novel ‘An Unsuitable Attachment’ for a dramatised reading by local drama students. What I had assumed would be readings of short extracts turned out to be a dramatised reading of the entire (abridged of course) novel. I had to smile to myself – wondering whether any of the students had even heard of Barbara Pym before being sent the script. An Unsuitable attachment is actually really quite a humorous novel- which I thoroughly enjoyed when I read it recently – and it lends itself to being read aloud by a cast of actors rather well. I particularly liked the performances of the young men playing the parts of Rupert Stonebird and Mervyn Cantrell.

At the end of the performance – which was about an hour and twenty minutes or so – we were treated to tea and scones – there were cakes too – served on nice little tiered cake stands – and more than enough to go around. I can report there were no unseemly fights over the tea urn –just a long line of patiently waiting Pym fans fairly determined to get their tea. The one extravagance of the afternoon was the purchase of Yvonne Cocking’s book – published by the Barbara Pym Society – Barbara in the Bodleian: Revelations from the Pym archives – well I had to didn’t I? Actually it looks rather good.

All in all it was an enjoyable afternoon, and so marvellous to see that it was sold out – there are just so many Pym fans out there.