02 October 2021

A Bit of a Stretch - Life of a prisoner 14 October

A Bit of a Stretch- Diaries of a Prisoner

Based on the popular book By Chris Atkins*  presented with the participation of Debbie Moggach

"A shocking and darkly funny account of the reality of Britain's prisons."

Thursday 14th October 2021  at 19.30 (doors 19.00)

Tickets are still £10 from the Library - Online sales click the link  http://www.wegottickets.com/event/525955

Where can a tin of tuna buy you clean clothes? Where is it easier to get 'spice' than paracetamol? Where does self-harm barely raise an eyebrow?

Welcome to Her Majesty's Prison Service. Like most people, documentary-maker Chris Atkins didn't spend much time thinking about prisons. But after becoming embroiled in a dodgy scheme to fund his latest film, he was sent down for five years. His new home would be HMP Wandsworth, one of the largest and most dysfunctional prisons in Europe.

With a cast of characters ranging from wily drug dealers to senior officials bent on endless reform, this powerful memoir uncovers the horrifying reality behind the locked gates. Filled with dark humour and shocking stories, A Bit of a Stretch reveals why our creaking prison system is sorely costing us all - and why you should care.

(*Chris Atkins was sentenced for a stretch of 5 years for tax fraud, he spent around 2 years in prison and 9 of those months in the notorious HMP Wandsworth. Atkins is a documentary maker and writer which puts him in an ideal position to confidently convey his experiences to his audience - and this he does extremely well.)

Read the Review from the Guardian HERE

A Bit of a Stretch Quotes

Shocking, scathing, entertaining...If you thought you knew how bad British prisons are, you haven't read this book... It's an inside story to make you weep at the incompetence, stupidity and viciousness of the current system. ― Guardian

An incredibly compelling account, not just because of Atkins' incongruity and his knack for black, observational humour, but because it lays bare a system that has become utterly dysfunctional. Atkins is thrust into the heart of Britain's prison crisis and can never quite believe what he is seeing. It's a sort of Kafkaesque haplessness. A bleak catalogue of absurdity. ― The Times

Surreal, darkly funny, at times horrifying but always humane account of what it's like to be locked up. ― Observer

A soul-searching account... A pacy memoir which is imbued with a dark humour... heartbreaking. [Atkins is] honest enough to have left in the parts that would make his mother wince.

― Sunday Times

A razor-sharp and darkly funny memoir... ― Spectator

A highly readable and thought-provoking account, which illuminates a failing and anachronistic institution in dire need of a radical overhaul. ― Daily Mail

Powerful... a dispassionate record of the grinding down of the human soul, deliberate hopelessness, insane and moribund bureaucracy, the whims of bullying guards, roll calls, curses, kicks and punches. ― Roger Lewis, The Telegraph

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