New Courses
From boxercise to writing about music, we are regularly expanding our offering and adding more courses for you to choose from. Don't forget to check back to see what's new at City Lit.
Whether you are looking to take up a new hobby, pick up a new skill or learn more about your area of interest, we have the course for you.
Featured Courses
- The Birth of English TragedyCourse start date: Tue 23 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Alexander Fairbairn-DixonCome and explore three pioneering tragedies of the early English Renaissance commercial stage (1585-1592): The Spanish Tragedy (1586), Arden of Faversham (1588-92), and Tamburlaine Part I (1587). These plays were to become the models setting the standard and blueprint for three influential sub-genres: Revenge Tragedy, Domestic Tragedy, and Heroic Tragedy. We’ll look at their dramatic inventiveness, creativity in handling sources, and why they enthralled contemporary audiences.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Mozart's ViennaCourse start date: Wed 24 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Pauline GreeneMozart’s music has come to stand for the greatest and most beautiful aspects of the Western classical tradition. But who was he? And what exactly did he do? Come and discover more about this famous Vienese composer. break week 29 Oct 2025.Full fee £269.00 Senior fee £215.00 Concession £188.00 - Tai Chi Wu style beginnersCourse start date: Wed 30 Apr 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Neville CoteThis ten week course provides an introduction to Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan as practiced by the Wu family, from its origins in the Forbidden City of Ching dynasty China to this day. It will enable you to build the foundations of what is for some a lifetime of practice and begin to experience the many benefits that this practice brings.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £118.00 - Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £125.00
- Full fee £249.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £162.00
- What is a Short Story?Course start date: Sat 18 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Alexander Fairbairn-DixonWhat is a short story? Come and discuss its characteristics, its length, design, mood and style. What distinguishes it from other kinds of short narrative? We’ll compare short stories to other forms, such as myths, legends, anecdotes, fabliaux, parables, fables, and ‘tales’. We’ll look at some of the greatest practitioners including Edgar Allan Poe, Katherine Mansfield, and O’ Henry.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00 - Big Band: from 1920s Chicago to London 2000sCourse start date: Mon 3 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Albi GravenerWe will explore the history and evolution of the big band and large ensemble in jazz throughout the 20th century.Full fee £89.00 Senior fee £71.00 Concession £62.00 - Shakespeare: King Lear and The TempestCourse start date: Thu 6 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sophie OxenhamJoin us to explore two of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, his tragedy King Lear, and his late ‘romance’, The Tempest. We’ll consider the connections – and differences - between these works, thinking about Shakespeare’s use of genre and language, the historical contexts, changing critical perspectives, and aspects of the plays in performance.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - Great works: Mendelssohn's OctetCourse start date: Tue 2 Dec 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Katy HamiltonStudy the history and form of this famous work in a short, enjoyable music history class.Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £29.00 - Great musicians: Berio and BerberianCourse start date: Tue 2 Dec 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Trish ShawComposer Luciano Berio and singer-composer Cathy Berberian were the power couple of contemporary music in the 1950s and 1960s, collaborating to discover new sounds and musical techniques and structures in works from Tema: Omaggio a Joyce and Sequenza III to Stripsody.Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £59.00 Concession £59.00 - Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £29.00
- 'Foreign films': European cinema from the fiftiesCourse start date: Mon 28 Apr 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: John WischmeyerThey were called ‘foreign films’ in the fifties, the first films to emerge from Europe and further to a wider British and American audience: Bicycle Thieves (1948 Vittorio De Sica) Rashomon (1950 Akira Kurosawa), Pather Panchali (1955 Satyajit Ray), Seven Samurai (1954 Akira Kurosawa), The Seventh Seal (1957 Ingmar Bergman), Plein Soleil (1960 Rene Clement). They played at The Academy Oxford Street or The Everyman Hampstead. Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you discover a whole world of amazing films. Too many filmgoers are scared off by the notion of international cinema. In cultural shorthand, ‘foreign film’ was a euphemism for snootiness, a stereotype that kept audiences from experiencing some of the greatest movies ever made. Once you open yourself up to them you’ll find there’s nothing to be intimidated by.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £129.00 - Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £99.00 Concession £99.00
- Embodying Culture: An IntroductionCourse start date: Wed 30 Apr 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Katie GossThis Culture course will give you an opportunity to explore the variety of ways that embodiment has been thought and theorised. Across six weeks we will cover a variety of influential approaches to embodied life in the twentieth and twenty-first century, including biopolitics, psychoanalysis, posthumanism, affect theory, science and technology studies, feminism and queer theory.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00
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