Left: London-born performer, poet and storyteller, Abraham (Abe) Gibson will be introducing London's Transport Museum to his imaginative work and interesting characters. © London's Transport Museum.
As anyone who has ever tried it will tell you, it'll take something pretty creative to make travelling around one of the western world's most crowded cities a more pleasurable experience.
At London's Transport Museum, they've certainly done their bit to improve the situation by appointing local boy Abraham Gibson as their first writer in residence.
Funded by Arts Council England, the performer, poet and storyteller won't be solving the capital's travel problems, but he will create new works based on London's public transport, give performances and run workshops for adults and children.
“I am really excited to be part of this new initiative by London's Transport Museum,” explained Abe.
Right: Abe as bus conductor Cedric, a performance that can be watched now on the Internet by clicking on this link. Webcasting sponsored and powered by CTN.
“I want visitors to enjoy the performances, join in the different workshops and discover that poetry is for everyone.”
A Hackney Council caretaker, Abe received The Voice newspaper's Poet of the Year Award in 1986. As well as being resident poet at schools in Hackney and Tottenham he has also performed his work for communities all over the country.
With his energetic movement and intonation, Gibson's poetry has the ability to capture the attention of even the toughest audiences and a book of his work, Violently Tender was published in 2001.
A spokesperson at the Covent Garden institution told the 24 Hour Museum how Abe had come in originally to add his talents to an event and so impressed everyone, they asked him back.
“We are quite open to explore different things and one day we will have an artist in residence, but it just happened that Abe came in and he was just really appropriate.”
Left: London's Transport Museum opened in 1980 and is dedicated to all forms of travel in the capital.
A resident until late September, the writer has plenty of events and workshops dealing with all aspects of life in the capital's transport system planned. Among other things, he'll be taking kids on an imaginary Underground ride and telling a moving account of how the city was kept going during the Second World War as seen through the eyes of a black British serviceman.
Abe's work will also feature in a series of webcasts that have been made possible by the production company, CTN, and can be viewed by clicking on this link.
The first webcast is now live and shows Abe performing the role of Cedric, a bus conductor recruited from the Caribbean in the 1950s.
Entitled 'I am a public servant - and so is the Prime Minister,' the piece takes an affectionate look at working on board one of London's famous Routemaster double-deckers.
