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[Image description: embroidery: we need more working class stories told by working class voices]
Theatre to book now
GIFT 2024
Gateshead International Festival of Theatre (GIFT) lands at the start of May (3-5), offering a long weekend packed with installations, performances and workshops across Gateshead. I’m told this year is particularly special, as it sees the fruition of relationships and works that have been in progress since 2020 (when the festival had to switch, at very short notice, to online, and did so pretty nimbly).
Spread across Gateshead’s libraries, Vane Gallery, St Mary's Heritage Centre, Dunston Staiths, and The Glasshouse (which you may still be thinking of as The Sage), the festival features local and international artists working in a range of media. Some of the productions are drop ins, some require booking, and many are aimed at intimate audiences – some only catering to one audience member at a time, which for some people is invigorating and thrilling while for some (OK, just me?) their absolute worst nightmare. So do check the programme for details to find shows that match your comfort levels (or to provide the ideal chance to nudge you beyond them, if that’s what you would like to do! Hey, that’s what makes theatre so exciting!).
Chloë Smith’s This Endless Sea is a six-screen film installation at Dunston Staiths, exploring grief and the sea. The show is drop-in with no booking required, though only caters to one or two people at a time.
Another intimate show is je suisse (or not) by Collettivo Treppenwitz / Camilla Parini, exploring our sense of selves. Catering to one audience member at a time, this is at VANE Gallery, a venue I have been dying to check out. Another one-at-a-time performance is MANUAL, by Adam Kinner & Christopher Willes, which takes place at Gateshead Central Library and Kittiwake Multilingual Library.
Over at St Mary’s Heritage Centre, you can check out Navis by Ziza Ngabonziza Patrick, an extract from a new durational piece from an artist that uses multiple media.
There are a number of evening performances at Gateshead Central Library including Greg Wohead’s In Floods, a new show that takes the form of a live screenplay reading in which Greg fictionalises himself; The Talent by Action Hero and Deborah Pearson; and The Beginning by Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas.
There are also workshops for adults and families, talks and conversations, including on making theatre for intimate audiences, choreography and movement direction.
Now in its 14th year, GIFT is a really exciting addition to the local theatre scene, bringing the kind of chances to see international work and experience experimental, international voices that is so often missing outside London. You can find details on shows and tickets here.
Shows at Live
A few more shows from Live’s new season that sound worth your time: Vincent Gambini’s This is Not a Magic Show is billed as a “performance of and about sleight-of-hand magic: its invisible mechanics, its clichés, and what it tells us about live theatre and make-believe”. I’m fascinated by the technicalities of magic – especially as I am so cack-handed the idea of doing up-close tricks just seems literally magical to me – so I am very much hoping to see this when it lands in July.
I mentioned Red Ladder / Unite The Union’s We’re Not Going Back when it was on at Washington Arts Centre, but if you missed this show about 3 sisters during the Miners’ Strike, you can get another chance to see it when it comes to Live (also in July).
Live also continues to add some interesting In Conversation nights to its line up, with Chris Mullins talking about (and signing copies of) his book about the Birmingham bombings and the wrongful convictions that followed, Error of Judgement.
The theatre also just added an In Conversation with the National’s Rufus Norris (In Conversation with Chi Onwurah MP), which is sure to be a draw for local theatremakers and creatives.
Theatre Royal
Coming to the Theatre Royal in July is a show I saw at Northern Stage a while back, Unfortunate, a raucous retelling of the Little Mermaid from the POV of Ursula the sea-witch, which is an awful lot of fun.
One thing that is sure to be a big ticket and sell out fast is Player Kings, featuring Ian McKellan as Falstaff in a new version of Henry IV, alongside Toheeb Jimoh and Richard Coyle. While Jimoh is an unknown quantity to me, I’ve seen both McKellan and Coyle on stage before, and you likely don’t need me to tell you they are always worth your time. General release tickets go on sale on 25 April so put that in your diary. (Though be warned, while there’s no run-time listed on the Theatre Royal website yet, according to Time Out it’s nearly 4 hours long, which I confess turns it into a massive nope from me. Yes, I am aware this is basically me admitting I have less stamina than an actual pensioner.)
Another show sure to be a hit is Wor Bella, the story of how local football team Blyth Spartans Ladies won the Munitionettes Cup in 1918. This is only on for a couple of nights at the end of April, so I suggest booking fast!
One show I heard good things about – though I admit a nearly two-hour, no interval run time has so far put me off booking – is Come From Away, the story of stranded plane passengers on 9/11 and the community that took them in.
And speaking of the Theatre Royal, I was super excited to visit the newly refurbished studio space last week to see Limelight. This engaging slice of local history was a perfect fit for the space, but I really hope we get to see more, smaller shows performed there.
It’s a tricky balance for a big theatre – you are inviting people to see small-scale shows, but there’s all the big-theatre rigmarole for visitors to navigate (bag checks on the door, not-particularly cheap drinks: though to be fair, the Theatre Royal isn’t worse on that front than a lot of smaller venues). But it also offers a chance to get people into what is a genuinely gorgeous venue who otherwise wouldn’t (or couldn’t afford to: those big touring shows ain’t cheap) come along. But this seems like the theatre has a genuine commitment to tackling that, so I shall watch what they do with interest.
(You can check out touring details for Limelight here.)
Opening at Alphabetti
I’ve mentioned this before, but this week sees the opening of hope is a 4 letter word, a play by gobscure, which is pay what you feel for the first week. There will also be response pieces throughout the later run.
Writing with Care
There seems to be about a million things I really want to see happening the very week I can’t see them, but one I am particularly gutted to miss is New Writing North’s Writing With Care, a free event featuring readings from work created during the Newcastle Hospitals Writer-in-Residence programme with Laura Lindow. I’m a huge fan of Lindow’s work - I think her writing and direction has a lyricism, tenderness and thoughtfulness that enables her to tackle sensitive subjects with real care - so she seems perfectly suited to this role. The fact that the wonderful Katie Doherty is also singing makes me doubly disappointed to miss out! But hey, you lucky people can book your tickets here.
What I am reading
I mentioned that I had started A History of Rome in 21 Women by Emma Southon a while back, but now I’ve finished it, I must report back that it’s a total riot. Historically rigorous – while admitting there’s a lot we can’t know definitively from the sources – the book’s conversational style makes it a particularly easy read. It takes a while to get used to it if you are used to drier, more conventional historical narratives – Southon is quite happy to editorialise on how awful some Roman customs were, and draw parallels to the modern world, or throw in the odd pop culture reference – but it makes for the kind of book you can’t put down, as the stories feel so fresh and compelling.
[Image description: 300,000 Kisses book]
On a related note, I finally got around to 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World by Luke Edward Hall and Seán Hewitt. A gorgeously illustrated hardback book aimed at showing ‘queer was always here’ with tales from myths, history and philosophy, it’s more to dip into than to read in one sitting – it’s quite snippety (and unsurprisingly, given the sources, way more focused on men than women) but I’m enjoying it so far.
Two other books I also bought because they were pretty (I am shallow, sue me) but which are very different: How to Be Old is by Lyn Slater, the ‘Accidental Icon’. I admit I had never heard of Slater before I picked this up, but it’s an engaging story of reinventing yourself as you age and why fashion isn’t just for the young.
And it will be surprising to precisely no one that I also bought CJ Tudor’s The Gathering because of its delightfully vampiric cover (did I mention I wrote about vampires? DID I?). It combines smart world-building – creating a reality where ‘vampyrs’ have always lived alongside humans, albeit uneasily – with the vibe of the most recent True Detective (the crime is in an isolated small town in Alaska), and I pretty much spent all of Sunday reading it from cover to cover, which speaks for itself.
[Image description: The Gathering book]
What I have been watching
Last night I finally got round to watching Tish, a documentary about North East photographer Tish Murtha. Presented with genuine warmth by her daughter Ella, who interviews Murtha’s contemporaries, teachers, friends and family members about her late mother, it’s a testament to Murtha’s phenomenal talent and personality, while also a searing commentary on how working-class communities and artists are marginalised and ignored. It’s grimly ironic that Murtha died poor – too scared to put her heating on because she wasn’t sure she could afford it – while her work now hangs in the Tate Britain. So be warned, it’s a great film but you are likely to leave it feeling really, really angry.
Thanks again for reading – please do share with your friends! Every new subscriber (free or paid) really does give me a boost. And remember if you want to support this particular working class creative but a paid subscription isn’t for you (times are hard, I get it!), you can buy me a one-off Ko-fi or buy one of my books.
Remember: everything included is my personal preference / opinion, and while I strive to be accurate, I always advising checking with the relevant venue.