A moment, a journey, an encounter have the potential to drastically shape the course of our lives, and in the case of National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre, it would be an encounter with the people of the remote Javari Valley in Brazil in 1969 that would change his.
Culture Mile: Radio Local: hyper-local radio broadcast to the world
Culture Mile, the City of London’s cultural district stretching from Farringdon to Moorgate will go hyper-local during the lockdown with Radio Local – a daily live broadcast, bringing the sounds and stories of the City, into people’s homes and broadcast to the world.
Radio Local, created by performance artists Hunt & Darton, will be an hour-long show every day from 1 – 2pm, Sat 30 May – Fri 12 June. It will be built with, by and for the City’s residents, workers and local businesses. The show will be streamed live here and here, on Resonance Extra (DAB), with a daily repeat show on Resonance 104.4FM at 10am. It will also go out live on community radio East London Radio and Barts Hospital Radio.
With Hunt & Darton’s signature deadpan, playful and inclusive approach, the daily broadcasts will celebrate everything from the charmingly mundane to the quite extraordinary. The line-up will include interviews with residents and businesses within Culture Mile, including local legends Barbican resident LSO violinist Maxine Kwok and accountant-turned artisan baker Matthew Rideout, who has been delivering daily loaves to NHS staff. Guest commissions come from artists Scottee, Victoria Melody and guest presenters Bourgeois and Maurice.
The shows will feature absurd gameshows, hyper-local news bulletins from the estate, where local residents can divulge anything from home DIY successes to births and restaurant reviews – sampling the best of the new takeaway scene. Other regular items include The Family – looking at lockdown life with five local families, an agony aunt segment, where strangers share their problems in a kind, supportive environment and a home-grown soap opera.
While Hunt & Darton would usually trawl the streets looking for local legends and the burning issues of the day, the duo has moved the hunt for stories online, using digital forums and social media as well as offline resident networks.
In the last few years, budget cuts and an ever-increasing centralisation of the media have led to a devastating demise in support for local radio, with tens of local shows closing their networks earlier this year. However, since the global pandemic took hold, listeners have turned to local radio in huge numbers, with many stations reporting record listening figures as a result. At a time when so many people are searching for entertainment and reassurance, Hunt & Darton’s hyper local approach highlights the role of local radio in the community, bringing people together and connecting them.
Hunt & Darton is a 10-year old collaborative practice between artists Jenny Hunt and Holly Darton, who both studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. Hunt & Darton make work that embraces the ordinary as extraordinary; they replicate, borrow, reframe and reclaim social space, facilitating ambitious Public Art that responsibly establishes itself as part of its new home. The award-winning Hunt & Darton Café, a pop-up interactive performance and fully-functioning café toured to the Barbican’s Level G in 2019 during the Barbican Art Gallery’s Into the Night: Cabaret & Clubs in Modern Art exhibition. Radio Local has toured to town squares, parks and remote locations across the UK.
Culture Mile is the City of London’s cultural district, stretching from Farringdon to Moorgate, led by the City of London Corporation, with the Barbican, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London Symphony Orchestra and the Museum of London. Together, the five partners are creating a vibrant, creative area in the north-west corner of the Square Mile.
For more information, visit here…
An open letter to theatre and performance makers
This is a letter to self-employed and freelance theatre and performance makers in the UK. To the actors, playwrights, directors, choreographers, stage managers, designers, stage crews and set-builders to name just a few.
We really miss being with you during this period of lockdown. Making theatre and performance is a collaborative endeavour, so we are particularly affected by having to be apart from one another right now. We’re not able to come together, in the same space, to share the experience of a live performance. We’re not able to practise and enjoy our artform in its most basic form.
It’s now looking increasingly likely that won’t be possible for months to come, and we recognise that many freelancers face real uncertainty about if and how they will be able to continue to work in theatre. 70% of people who work in theatre and performance in the UK are freelance or self-employed, and it’s for this workforce, in all its diversity and complexity, that the impact of the current situation is most acute.
During these past weeks we have had conversations with many of you to understand your needs and the ways you have been affected. We are writing to express our support for you, and to lay out some practical steps we are taking to improve the situation based on these conversations.
As well as exploring ways of producing work with freelancers during lockdown, and using this time to develop new projects with freelancers for the future, we are also are working together to coordinate our response to the government, to articulate clearly what we can offer and what we need.
Most urgently, we are calling for the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme to be extended in line with furloughing, for all self-employed workers, and in the specific case of theatre and performance workers, until theatres are able to safely reopen. We also want to see criteria removed from the scheme which are stopping legitimate and much-needed claims.
Some of you are already involved in these conversations. We welcome your voices and need to hear from more of you in the conversations to come. Your unique networks, skillsets, perspectives, and ideas are vital to the entire sector, and we need to work with you in our response to this crisis.
Each of the organisations who’ve signed this letter are committed to reaching out to their family of self-employed and freelance theatre makers; listening to how this is affecting your work and lives, and to your needs and ideas for the future.
More than that, we want to facilitate the establishment of a national task force of self-employed theatre and performance makers. The purpose of the task force is to strengthen the influence of the self-employed theatre and performance community. It would create ongoing points of connection between freelancers and organisations, and amplify the voice of the self-employed in the conversations to come. To help establish the task force, each of the organisations signing this letter will support a freelancer to join the group, ensuring they are paid for their time.
We want to offer a message of hope and solidarity. Our well-practised ability to work together, to form connections, and build relationships will help us through this. One day, hopefully soon, we will all be able to meet together, as people have done for centuries, in a shared space, for a shared experience. In the meantime, we remain committed to working for you and with you towards a sustainable future for theatre and performance.
Signed,
Access All Areas
Action for Children’s Arts
The Almeida Theatre
ArtsAdmin
The Actors Touring Company
Battersea Arts Centre
Birmingham Repertory Theatre
Boundless Theatre
Brighton Festival
Bristol Old Vic
Brixton House
The Bush Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre
China Plate
Contact
Dance Umbrella
Derby Theatre
Eden Court Highlands
English Touring Theatre
Fio
Fuel
Gate Theatre
Graeae
HOME
Improbable
Kiln Theatre
Leeds Playhouse
Leicester Curve
The National Theatre
National Theatre of Scotland
National Theatre Wales
National Youth Theatre of Great Britain
The New Wolsey Theatre
Northern Stage
Nottingham Playhouse
One Dance UK
Paines Plough
Rose Theatre Kingston
Royal & Derngate
The Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Company
Sadler’s Wells
Sheffield Theatres
Spare Tyre
Talawa
Tangled Feet
The Yard
Theatre Peckham
Theatre Royal Plymouth
Tiata Fahodzi
Yellow Earth
1927
FAQs
Why is this needed?
70% of our performing arts companies will be out of business before the end of this year. More than 1,000 theatres around the country will be insolvent and have to shut down this year, unless government intervenes with a rescue package.
More than 70% of the theatre and performance workforce is self-employed (SOLT, March 2020). 70% of freelance workers were already worried in March 2020 that they wouldn’t be able to pay bills (BECTU survey). A survey revealed that 60% of creative freelances predict their income will more than halve in 2020, and more than 50% of freelancers who responded to a snap poll have already had 100% of their work cancelled (Creative Industries Federation).
Who is the letter to?
It is to everyone who works in the theatre and performance industry in the UK who is self-employed or freelance. The self-employed are in an urgent and acute situation right now, and the situation will only get worse unless they are provided with much needed financial security and representation in conversations about the survival and future of our theatre and performance industry. We also recognise that structural inequalities in our sector and in our society, and the specific implications of COVID-19 itself for individuals within our industry, both contribute to a situation where this crisis is and will continue to be more acute for some than others. For example, but not limited to, D/deaf and disabled freelancers in our industry who face even greater challenges, of long-term shielding, managing their social care and navigating complex benefits issues such as Access to Work. Whether you have been a freelancer for a number of years or are just starting out (and therefore unable to access government support) we are addressing this letter to all those who are self-employed and freelance in our sector.
Who is it from?
So far, it is from all the organisations signed up at the bottom: these range from the large-scale to the small-scale, from producing companies to venues, from Cornwall to Inverness. Other theatre and performance organisations who would like to sign up to the letter, and commit to helping the freelancers’ task force, are still welcome to join. They can email director@fueltheatre.com to sign up or with any questions.
If you have any further questions, you can send an email to theatrefullstop@gmail.com.
A vibrant insight into a space at the heart of a culture, Barber Shop Chronicles is sharp, provocative and a truly engaging watch. An odd experience to not be in the room in a show that takes care to develop atmosphere, some of Inua Ellams’ intensity and liveness is lost.
Courtesy of Marc Brenner.
Ralph Fiennes (Mark Antony) and Sophie Okonedo (Cleopatra) stand out in a fast-moving adaptation of the iconic tragedy. Slow to start and a little too traditional for my taste, it grows into itself, until tension boils over and the slippery language of politics becomes sharp and intense.
Courtesy of Johan Persson.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Kammerspiele have been closed and it is uncertain when theatres in Munich will reopen. The current restrictions include the Easter holidays, which will end on 19th April, but there might be an extension. Like other theatres, the Kammerspiele provide streams of their productions via Kammer 4.
Courtesy of Judith Buss.
As the theatre industry, upon many other industries have suffered closures due to the Coronavirus outbreak, collectively we’re experiencing a period of uncertainty. With venues postponing performances until future notice, online streaming platforms offer the perfect alternative for theatre lovers looking for the latest theatre productions to catch up on.
Family for all of us takes on a very personal meaning, our view of the family construct differing from the next person. Drawing on her views of sisterhood, arguably one of the strongest familial bonds, writer Esohe Uwadiae presents She is a Place Called Home; a considered portrait of a bond tested by the expectations of their mother as well as their proud domineering father.
Hi all, something a little different to our usual content; if you have 5 minutes, could you please help to complete? All answers are greatly appreciated!
This year, we celebrate 7 years! Within this time, it’s been great to witness a variety of shows within the capital as well as regionally. We very much look forward to continuing this journey, and seeing what happens next. We’re living in a very exciting time, whereby changes are made within our industry and crucial conversations are being had, and we hope to keep you updated on companies and shows contributing to our theatre landscape. Each week, we bring you the latest theatre reviews and interviews, and have now introduced a weekly newsletter. This is your chance to stay updated on the very latest theatre news, competitions and reviews!
To subscribe to our newsletter, visit here…
