Art, Community, Documentary, Film, Literature, Music, News, Social Media, Television, Theatre, Visionary Honours

Visionary Honours 2020 shortlist announcement

Posted on by Adrian G.
19
Feb

The second annual Visionary Honours celebrating inspirational culture, media and entertainment takes place on Wednesday 6th May during an online broadcast hosted here and on Facebook Premiere 8pm @VisionaryArtsUK. Below are this year’s nominations: BOOK Crossfire by Malorie Blackman (Penguin) One of the most successful YA authors of all time, Malorie Blackman is the author […]

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Art, Film, Music, Theatre

Vault Festival 2020: 14 fantastic shows to book now

Posted on by Adrian G.
27
Jan

It’s been eight years since the Vault Festival, London’s scrappiest, most sprawling arts festival, began. And this year there are eight whole weeks of it. A ridiculous number of shows are on offer between 28 January and 22 March this year, and you can see everything from new work by new voices to Edinburgh success […]

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Community

National Youth Theatre awarded £2m from Mayor of London grant

Posted on by Adrian G.
20
Jan

The National Youth Theatre (NYT) has been awarded £2,000,000 from the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund to undergo a major renovation to its Holloway Road building in North London. The radical development will enable NYT to double the number of young people they engage in the building through their annual programme which provides, free […]

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Community, Theatre

Modupe Salu on queer female friendship and The Girl with Glitter in her Eye at The Bunker

Posted on by Adrian G.
17
Jan

Hi Modupe. Where are you now? Hi! I am on my bed, I have to point out that it’s a new bed and mattress as the excitement of this is still very real! What were you doing five minutes ago?  I was listening to a new podcast called ‘Modern Love’ which features the popular New […]

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Community, Theatre

Athena Stevens on disabled rights in new show Scrounger and putting language to trauma

Posted on by Adrian G.
06
Jan

Olivier award-nominated writer and performer Athena Stevens has written Scrounger, a no-holds-barred look at Britain’s treatment of people with disabilities. Scrounger is the first show in the Finborough Theatre’s 40th anniversary year, 2020. In October 2015 I was due to take a British Airways flight out of London City Airport, when I was removed from […]

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Theatre

Q&A with director Anastasia Osei-Kuffour about knife crime play Seeds

Posted on by Adrian G.
04
Jan

Shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award, seeds embarks on a UK tour in 2020. Sensitively written by Mel Pennant, it tells the story of two mothers united in sorrow, unable to escape the tragedy and violence of knife crime. Together, they try to face the hardship of protecting their sons – one in life, and […]

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Literature

Here are just 10 of the Outstanding YA Books from 2019 written by people of colour, there are many others too

Posted on by Adrian G.
23
Dec

A tonne of great YA books have been released over the last 12 months. It would be impossible to shortlist some and rank them to find ‘the best’ because there were so many gems, excellent in their own distinctive ways. Instead, I’d like to highlight ten that I find still circling around in my head […]

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Art, Community, Documentary, Film, Literature, Music, Theatre

Climate Change: Plays, books, films and music tackling the environmental crisis

Posted on by Adrian G.
06
Dec

According to a recent report by environment in the arts charity Julie’s Bicycle (juliesbicycle.com), Over the past six years, theatres, galleries, museums, music venues, festivals and other cultural organisations across the country have taken great strides to improve their environmental practice. From Royal Court Theatre and The Poetry Society, to Turner Contemporary and Glyndebourne Opera […]

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Film

Black Books Club: The Illuminae Files – You can get away with murder in space

Posted on by Adrian G.
29
Nov

It’s the year 2575 and mining company WUC has been illegally digging for hermium on the tiny planet of Karenza. When rival corporation BeiTech gets wind of this, it launches four dreadnought ships with orders to blast Karenza to kingdom come.  In Illuminae, book one of the trilogy, a handful of Karenza residents manage to […]

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