Rebecca Bligh
'The Courtenay Bubble' or 'To Kick a Sick Lion'

Coastguards Lookout

13:00 / 14:00 / 15:00 Saturday 26 June

Writer and academic Rebecca Bligh's research into local history has led her to contemporary 19th century accounts of the life, eccentric times, and peculiar celebrity of the impostor and "false Messiah" Sir William Courtenay, otherwise known as John Nichols Thom, maltster of Cornwall, aka "Mad Thom". From his first marvelous appearance, and thanks in no small part to his own gifted oratory, remarkable dress, imposing stature, and rousing publication ‘The Lion’, this self-styled Knight of Malta was to take an unsuspecting Canterbury by storm. For the Biennale, Bligh will present her own version of his story, entitled 'The Courtenay Bubble' or 'To Kick a Sick Lion'. The readings will contrast the flamboyance of Courtenay himself with the quiet comfort of intimate storytelling.

Rebecca Bligh is currently undertaking a PhD at Goldsmiths University. She has written for Inventory, The High Horse, The Mock and The Coelacanth Journal, and in 2009 she contributed four essays on Libraries of London to Guestroom’s book The Reader. More recently, she has been working with artist Samuel Dowd to ghost-write the remainder of an unfinished film script by the late architect and visionary Frederick Kiesler, and has contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue of Bonnie Camplin's forthcoming Railway Mania show at MIMA (Middleborough). She has lectured at the Frankfurt Staedelschule and given readings at the Grant Museum, FormContent, the South London Cultural Centre and the Royal Academy, in London.