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Speaking in tongues
Words captivated me first: then stories. As a small child, I didn’t always follow the story or care if I didn’t understand a word. The incantatory sounds were enough to feed my imagination:...
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The artist’s eye
Words last time: pictures today. Rosie Redzia, the wonderful artist with whom I’m working on ‘A Wider Horizon’, has been drawing rural theatre performances, among other things. Here are some images...
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A painful edge to oral history
The Light Ships is proving to be a revelation. An exploration of the church’s place in a community’s artistic life, it focuses on 14 villages in the Lincolnshire fenland. I’ve been meeting people...
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Can you see beyond the tent?
Nicole & Martin live in a caravan: it may be the least interesting thing about them. People who live settled lives – most of us nowadays – have always regarded those who don’t with a mix of...
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Christian art in a post-Christian society
‘If I say that this is a post-Christian nation, that doesn’t mean necessarily non-Christian. It means the cultural memory is still quite strongly Christian. And in some ways, the cultural presence is...
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Sharing the stage
Yesterday the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation hosted a conference about participatory art at the old Town Hall in Shoreditch (London). All the organisations who’ve been long-listed for funding in the...
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The spirit of independence
The Independent Theatre Council is celebrating its 40th birthday today, with an event at the Royal Festival Hall in London. In that time, their membership has grown from 25 to over 400 – striking...
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Dark matter
The title of Sardul Gill’s exhibition refers to the unknown material whose presence physicists deduce from gravitational data. Like much contemporary science, it’s complex, heady stuff that is beyond...
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The Light Ships: First Words
The fourth Regular Marvel is called The Light Ships: Church, art and community in the Lincolnshire Fens. It will be published on 8 November 2014 by Transported, at an event in Whaplode Church. In the...
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An antidote for visual satiety
In a world saturated with pictures, the work of artists is very vulnerable and very important –vulnerable because it is so easy to lose one’s way in this hall of mirrors, lured by money, fame and...
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Come to Whaplode Church on Saturday afternoon…
Originally posted on The Light Ships: Rosie Redzia, 2014, ‘Whaplode Church’ (detail) The first of the Light Ships events will take place this Saturday, 8 November, at St Mary’s Church in Whaplode. As...
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The Light Ships launch
Last Saturday was windy and cold. A good part of my drive from Nottingham to Whaplode was through torrents of rain, but as I got closer, the weather grew calmer and I grew more anxious about The Light...
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Oh yes it is!
Jeanie Finlay’s Pantomime The atmosphere at the Première of Jeanie Finlay’s lastest documentary, Pantomime, lived up to the film’s title. The main auditorium at Nottingham’s Broadway Cinema was packed...
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January skies, wide horizons
The Light Ships voyage is completed and, with the turn of the year, A Wider Horizon comes into view. It’s the slowest Regular Marvel yet, and it has given me some difficulty. Partly, it’s been about...
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Welcome to the house of fun
JOE: …small town. I suppose. You have to make your own fun. ANN: Everybody makes their own fun. F’you don’t make it yourself, it ain’t fun, it’s entertainment. David Mamet, State and Main, (2000)...
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Singing in the ambulance
Everything is Connected At the end of his hour long set in the Federation Hall last night, the singer introduced the musicians who’d accompanied him, before booming out: ‘I’m Fred Brookes and I’ve...
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Chalkie’s Demon Diary
I have written about Mike White before. He belongs to the quiet army of artists and creative people who’ve nurtured socially engaged arts practice at the heart of community life today. A hugely...
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A pause on the landing
The Regular Marvels idea started in 2011, with the project about West Bromwich Operatic Society that became Where We Dream. Actually, that’s not strictly accurate: I had the title before I met the...
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A perfect delight
A delight in useless beauty is part of what makes us human. Walking down a street in Mannheim yesterday, I noticed this inscription above the entrance to a swimming pool. Could any script better evoke...
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Flowers for Kazuo Ohno (and Leonard Cohen)
Is artistic excellence really incompatible with social purpose? It’s an argument I’ve heard throughout my working life but it has never seemed coherent—unless art is defined in such malnourished terms...
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