Belfast Book Festival 2016 | Page 24

Alec Connon The Activist Breakneck Hamlet With Tanya Jones With Timothy Mooney Crescent Arts Centre Sunday 12 June – 8pm Tickets: £6 / £4 Crescent Arts Centre Sunday 12 June – 8.30pm Tickets: Free In The Activist, Tom Durant believes that he can help solve some of the gravest problems facing the ocean by putting his life on the line. Chicago actor, Timothy Mooney recklessly slices Shakespeare’s four-hour masterpiece to a breathlessly inspiring and hilarious hour-long one-man romp! Removing a dozen actors and three hours of melancholy, Mooney resurfaces the impact of the greatest play of all time. No “melancholy Dane,” his breakneck performance reveals Hamlet as a complex, dangerous cat-andmouse, as two powerful players fight to the death over who gets to be king! Join author, Alec Connon, and local activist, Tanya Jones, as they discuss the role that activism can play in a healthy democracy. Alec has been involved in successful campaigns to stop Shell’s Arctic drilling, the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, and in the fossil fuel divestment movement. He also recently helped to organize one of the largest ever acts of civil disobedience in the history of the Pacific Northwest of the USA. This conversation will cover the history of social movements - from woman’s suffrage to the Civil Rights marches and the antiApartheid movement - and discuss their achievements, and how similar movements could affect our future. The Activist was recently named Book of the Month by Coast Magazine and Alec was featured in BBC Wildlife magazine. 24 “Breakneck Hamlet” has already appeared at fringe festivals in Kansas City, Minneapolis and Indianapolis. This summer Tim is interrupting his performance tour through the U.S. and Canada to try it out in the land of his forebears. KCMetropolis.org called it “A whirlwind of wonderful. Hold onto your seats and watch a master at his work.” Marc Gonzales calls it “one for the fringe festival ages… a one-man Hamlet done right!” while Nuvo Magazine describes it as running “rings around that other performance by Mel Gibson.” Monday 13th June