16/07/2026
Dear Members and Friends of ArtsNational Armidale,
Our sixth lecture in the 2026 Season will be held this evening: at the
TAS Memorial Hall. (pictured)
Please arrive at 5:45pm for a 6pm start.
Please note the change of venue just for this evening.
Our Lecturer in July is Mary Sharp.
Mary is an experienced broadcaster and teacher with particular expertise in literature and drama. She worked for many years for BBC Radio 4 producing some of its most popular programs including Start the Week and Woman’s Hour, before joining the senior management team as a commissioning editor.
Mary has subsequently worked as a teacher and director of sixth form at a leading girls’ grammar school. She now runs her own company 'Opening Up Literature' which offers literature courses for adults including studies of Shakespeare and Creative Writing.
Her most popular course is 'Telling Tales', which explores how writers and artists have reinvented classical stories. Mary is a professional bridge teacher and lecturer.
The Title of our July Lecture is IS THIS THE REAL LIFE? How writers and artists have challenged our Perceptions of Reality.
When Lucy goes through the wardrobe into Narnia, when Harry Potter opens his letter and when Neo takes the red pill, they all discover that the worlds they thought they knew are only part of the truth.
From Plato onwards, writers and artists have been inspired to push beyond the everyday and to create other worlds that inspire our imaginations. This
lecture explores what these stories tell us about how we view our lives and what it is that we most desire.
The Prize for the July lecture is The Art of Fantasy by S. Elizabeth, a Visual Sourcebook of All that is Unreal in support of the Young Arts Grants Program
(Attribution: Siegfried Nugent at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10522694).
