The Diary of Samuel Pepys - Site News

INCENDIARY - Samuel Pepys in Words & Music

Phil Gyford — Sat, 23 May 2026 10:06:10 +0000

On Saturday 30 May 2026 there’s a special Pepys event at his old local church in London, St Olave. You can buy tickets at TicketSource (£32.52 upwards) and here’s more info from the press release:

Power. Corruption. Plague. Fire. War - and the fall of Kings. Pepys’ immortal account of ordinary life in extraordinary times, with Edward Bennett (RSC Associate, Bridgerton, SAS Rogue Heroes) and leading Baroque soprano, Grace Davidson (Max Richter’s Sleep, Tenebrae, Wolf Hall Live and film/TV, including Hamnet, Frankenstein, The Mirror and the Light), accompanied by acclaimed lutenist, Daniel Murphy.
Prior to a UK tour, this very special performance takes place under Samuel Pepys’ and his wife, Elizabeth‘s, gaze, in the church where they both worshipped and lie buried.
Adapted by Deirdre Shields, INCENDIARY is Pepys’ own words, from his diaries, letters and music, spanning beyond the famous Diary. Pepys’ inimitable work is brilliantly brought to life by Edward Bennett, woven with Grace Davidson‘s sublime singing. Music flows through Pepys’ writing, from the earthy Broadside Ballads of London’s streets, to the Baroque. Celebrated for her haunting soprano, Grace also takes the role of “my wife” - Elizabeth Pepys.
Music and words combine to ignite Pepys’ enduring flame, and fame, in a story that is as familiar - and incendiary - as the times we live in.
INCENDIARY will play for one night at St. Olave Church, City of London on Saturday 30 May, as a special premiere performance, prior to touring in Autumn 2026.

When there’s more information about the tour I’ll hopefully be able to post the news here.

Read the comments

Please keep diary annotations on-topic

Phil Gyford — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:48:28 +0000

I’ve just removed several recent annotations from the site because they were discussions that were clearly off-topic – the topic being that day’s diary entry. For the record, I’ve removed this many annotations from these entries:

It might be worth re-familiarising yourselves with the annotation guidelines which include:

Keep it relevant
All annotations should be relevant to the Diary entry or Encyclopedia topic they are posted to. Any annotations referring to present-day events should directly help our understanding of the diary.
This isn’t a discussion forum.
While personal anecdotes can be illuminating they should be brief, on-topic and contribute to other readers’ understanding of the diary.

If you wish to discuss anything that isn’t directly relevant to that day’s diary entry, you’re free to do so in the discussion group. Annotations on a diary entry should, hopefully, still be of interest to people wanting to understand that entry in ten or more years time.

Read the comments

Do not use AI for annotations

Phil Gyford — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 11:42:05 +0000

I’ve just updated the annotation guidelines for the first time in many years to add this rule: “Do not use or quote from any form of ‘AI’ tool in your annotations.”

As far as I know we haven’t had much of this on the site so far but I wanted to state a position on it before it (possibly) becomes common. Any annotations that appear to use AI / LLMs will be deleted.

Why?

While they’re improving all the time, they are often unreliable. While they may sound confident you should still verify every fact. In which case, just do the research yourself.
It’s very “low effort”. Anyone can ask an AI a question to get the same answer you have.
Similarly, it removes much thinking about the content or format of your annotation. Make your annotations concise and to the point, don’t simply paste in paragraphs from an AI.
All the ethical issues related to AIs in general: the hoovering up of copyright material, the environmental concerns, the complicity of many AI founders with the far-right.

These tools add nothing to our discussions here, and detract from the decades of human conversation that’s been taking place.

If you spot any AI annotations, feel free to use the Flag link to report them. Thanks!

Read the comments