As part of the Brent2020 London Borough of Culture, the Mapesbury Residents’ Association presents a celebration of one if its most eminent figures.
Described by The New York Times as ‘The poet laureate of medicine’, Oliver Sacks was a neurologist and a world famous, bestselling writer, the author of fourteen seminal, beautifully written books, which have inspired films, plays and operas.
They include: Awakenings, about a group of patients who had survived the encephalitis lethargica pandemic of the 1920s, but were left in a frozen, catatonic state from which Oliver aroused them. It inspired the 1990 Academy Award winning film starring Robin Williams and Robert de Niro and a play by Harold Pinter; The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, stories of patients struggling to adapt to often bizarre worlds of neurological disorder, which inspired the opera by Michael Nyman;Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain; Hallucinations and two memoirs – Uncle Tungsten, which describes his early life in Mapesbury and On the Move, which recounts his life and work in America from the early 1960s to shortly before his death at the age of 82.
Oliver Sacks: Made in Mapesbury delves into the story of Oliver’s early life and the relationship he had with his family home. He was born at 37 Mapesbury Road, London NW2 on 9 July 1933 and it remained his London home for almost sixty years. The film explores the house (now the British Psychotherapy Foundation) and followed by a discussion of his life and work by Kate Edgar, his long-standing editor; Bill Hayes, a writer and photographer who was Oliver’s partner during his later years; Professor Jonathan Cole, a consultant in Clinical Neurophysiology at Poole Hospital and a Professor at the University of Bournemouth; and Suzanne O’Sullivan, a consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and author, most recently of the highly acclaimed The Sleeping Beauties.
The event is free and will be streamed from 1830 on 21 September (and available to view for a week afterwards.) When registering for the event, you will also have access to screenings of two documentaries on Oliver Sacks from the BBC Imagine series.(those only available at the day/time) All are free (just need name and email address)
- 21 September 2021 at 18.30 – Oliver Sacks: Made in Mapesbury
- 23 September 2021 at 20.00 – Imagine: Tales of Music and the Brain
- 27 September 2021 at 20.00 – Imagine: The Man Who Forgot How To Read and Other Stories
The link for registration is: https://www.fane.co.uk/oliver-sacks
I hope many members and others (not restricted to MapRA members!) will register and watch these very interesting films and delve into his writings. Many thanks to Jacqui Graham who has done a tremendous amount of work putting all this together.
Date/Time
Date(s) - 21/09/20216:30 pm
Location
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