Action Fiction! An Evening of Performance, Discussion and Entertainment
An Evening of Performance, Discussion and Entertainment with actors Brian Cox and Nicole Ansari reading from “Pretty Ugly”, a new collection of short stories by Kirsty Gunn.
What makes a short story fun to read? Easy to dramatise? What is the real life secret, lie and truth of fiction?
We will be talking about these subjects and more in an exciting evening of dramatised story telling - with internationally acclaimed actors Brian Cox and Nicole Ansari reading from Kirsty Gunn’s new collection of short stories, “Pretty Ugly” and discussing with her the delights and horrors of bringing awful characters to life - in lovely ways.
Brian Cox is is an Emmy, Olivier, and Golden Globe award-winning actor, best known for the hit series Succession for which he won Best Actor. His many films include The Long Kiss Goodnight, Troy, Zodiac, The Escapist, Manhunter, Churchill, and The Bourne trilogy, and he has won Best Actor Awards for stage performances in Titus Andronicus for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Rat in the Skull for the Royal Court. In 2004, he was honored at the BAFTA Scotland Awards with an Outstanding Achievement Award and he is currently appearing in London’s West End stage production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
Nicole Ansari Cox is an Actor-vist, a tri- lingual Internationally working actor, director, writer and producer of TV, Film and Theatre who uses her platform to raise awareness for Climate Change and Human Rights abuses and whose awards include Best director for the Web series “Messy”, AFI best Ensemble for the Civil Rights movie “Son of the South”; and The Vanya Exerjian Award for empowering women. Nicole was most recently seen in “the Score” at Theatre Royal Bath, and in the feature Film “What a feeling”, which premiered at the BFI Flare festival.
Kirsty Gunn is the author of ten works of fiction that have been translated into multiple languages around the world, made into films, stage drama and dance pieces. Her work has been shortlisted for and won a range of international prizes and awards including The Frank O’Conner, James Tait Black, Scottish Book of the Year and Edge Hill prizes. She was Merton Visiting Research Fellow in the Creative Arts, 2020 and “Pretty Ugly” is her third collection of short stories, launched at this event.
