Byron 200 a poetry reading by poet and screenwriter Jan Noble

‘Byron 200’ is a mini, verse-drama written and performed by poet Jan Noble. A work in three acts that describe three occasions in which Byron, a famed and fabled swimmer, took to the water. Told from the perspective of a narrator looking down on the Dardanelles the action carries us from contemporary settings to historic locations: From a modern English seaside to the coast at Viareggio, from the Hellespont to tourist flooded Venice. This poetic investigation into a divisive figure offers a sympathetic critique of the poet with the benefit of a #MeToo lens. Byron is reimagined as a dandy libertine, a haughty Ian Dury, a style icon caught by Mapplethorpe. Wrestling with his disability, his sexuality, his title and privilege he ultimately finds both freedom - and poetry - out in the water. 

Jan Noble, poet and screenwriter, lives and works actively between Italy and England. He has taught creative writing in prisons, several psychiatric hospitals and performed at various festivals (at the ICA in London, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York, Teatro Filodrammatici in Milan and Teatrino Di Palazzo Grassi in Venice). Always passionate about music and sounds, he has worked alongside composer Donna McKevitt and recorded with legendary producer Craig Leon at the famous Abbey Road studio. His major works include: 'My name is Swan'(2017), which was adapted into a film, 'Body 115' (2022), and 'Speaking Dante' (2022), in which he performed together with stars like Ralph Fiennes and Helen Mirren, among others. His latest poetic works 'Poetry for Shelley's Bicentenary' and 'Byron 200' mark the 200th anniversary of the deaths of English Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron.