People’s History of Hulme
Millennium Mural by Hulme Urban Potters
Music collective Single Cell are currently in residence at the Zion Arts Centre in Hulme and are delivering an ambitious residency of events under the umbrella label of Finding Zion. Yesterday, as the sun finally appeared to warm the discarded lolly sticks of last summer (or rather, the summer before the summer before that), it was the turn of LRM: the Loiterer's Resistance Movement and co-curators for the People's History of Hulme trail to buff the grime from our careworn eyes.
Morag Rose
The pink-tinted and always effusive Morag Rose was so delighted with the turn out at Kim by the Sea cafe that she clambered atop a picnic table to explain the nature of the event and how it was all going to work. Home doodled fantasy-maps of the locale were distributed, dotted with multiple 'X marks the spot': the sites of performers waiting to reveal glimpses of Hulme past, present and potential future.
Tammi Grotesque
Arriving at Leaf Street Gardens, we were met by punk bombshell Tammi Grotesque, performance poet with a chiselled wit sharp enough to slice through the rhetoric of any city official clutching blueprints. I could have listened to Tammi all day and was slightly in awe of her voluminous mane, but further treats were waiting for us, such as a spoof community-council meeting taking place by the Hulme Arch ("In response to requests for a local independent cinema, we shall be asking ASDA to extend their DVD selection...")
Birley Tree memorial marker
At Birley Fields the group gathered at the cruciform memorial to the Birley Tree, a hundred-year old poplar bulldozed by developers to make way for a hotel that never happened. Our speaker went on to explain the nature of poplars, their impending disappearance from the landscape and why we were most likely standing on thousands of bumble bees asleep in underground mouse runs. I was scooping up incidental knowledge like custard from the bottom of the can - delicious.
The Inebriated Zarg
The unashamed scene-stealer of the day was The Inebriated Zarg, a Special Brew swigging grey alien who crash landed in Hulme during WW2 on his way to his brother's stag party and has successfully integrated himself into the local community ever since. You can listen to a cynic-defying audio recording recovered from the crater site here. The ghost of Engels was to have appeared for our entertainment but had been out drinking until 6am and couldn't be roused from bed.
Forthcoming events in the series include For Folks Sake, live folk music and spoken word, a communal meal from the People's Kitchen and concludes with Hulme Busking, featuring multiple performances in parks, gardens, galleries and rooftops.
Snow Blind
I realise I'm coming late to the party, but I finally caught a production of Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at The Lowry, Salford with my teenage niece. Renowned as the interpretation where the birds are all blokes, I was surprised (but pleased) at how unashamedly adult it was. Much to the horror of classical bores, the loose interpretation was beautifully sloppy, never more evident than within the anything-goes nightclub scene in 'The Swank' hot spot, replete with clones of both Quentin Crisp and Beryl Reid circa The Killing of Sister George propping up the bar.
Yet I wondered at just how many of the sell-out, mostly middle class, ballet-shoes type audience chose to engage with the principle theme of a love story despite it being between two men. I overheard one parent explaining to her child that 'the men were hugging' because the Black Swan represented the loving parents that the Prince had never had... and similar snippets of overheard conversations were equally banal.
What better opportunity for a parent to address the obvious?
Red as Blood
The Company of Wolves
I am more excited than I can describe to announce that together with Sam Bompas & Harry Parr, I'll be presenting the next installment of Scratch 'n Sniff Cinema as part of the Abandon Normal Devices Festival in The Lake District over Easter. The reason for the fizzing tummy bubbles is that the film we'll be presenting is one of my all-time favourites - a truly beautiful yet horrifying oddity, directed by Neil Jordan and penned in partnership with the late, lamented author and mistress of magic surrealism, Angela Carter.
The Yan, Grizedale Forest Park
The Company of Wolves is based upon a series of short stories within her brilliant, aphrodisiac-infused anthology in response to the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, The Bloody Chamber. I'll be announcing at least two key scents closer to the event, but there will be eight in total responding to moments within the film. The location itself will be award-winning forest hideout The Yan, a contemporary yet sensitively designed education and community resource centre designed by architects Sutherland Hussey.
Keep an eye out for ticket sales at the official AND website. Remember - as you're pretty, so be wise. Wolves may lurk in every guise. Now, as then, 'tis simple truth: sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth.
Eye Candy
Hungry Hungry Eat Head from Bren O'Callaghan on Vimeo.
It's tough when you're in competition with 2098 shows in 265 venues in a city that for a month each year becomes home to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world. Tough, but not impossible. Thanks to Hudson-Powell, Joel Gethin Lewis and the leap of faith required by City of Edinburgh Council who were very polite about my asking if they wouldn't mind if we beheaded their citizens and placed them in a giant cartoon for the afternoon.
After this, our beta launch, we went on to delight the city of Liverpool during AND: Abandon Normal Devices Festival of New Cinema and Digital Culture. If you too can find a way to step into your daydreams and earn enough to get by, I definitely recommend it. Read more about Hungry Hungry Eat Head here.
Tales of Two Cities
With an OCD fury not seen since the woman in the Shake 'n Vac advert ground her Valium and mixed it with a glug of Bacardi, I've been plugging the cracks in this site and pasting up former production duties with a vengeance. My personal favourites A Wall is a Screen now have a page to themselves, as do the rapidly expanding MegaPhone team - flying the flag for those of us who see no reason why computer games should progress beyond the Atari era. Once upon a festival, The Light Surgeons conjured up a storm in a Gothic salon and The Royal Opera House treat us to no fewer than twelve outdoor relays in the past five years.
Into The Woods
You can never have enough magic capes, as I discovered earlier last year. Shamefully I have only just got around to documenting this particular project for the Big Screen Liverpool from Charlotte Gould in partnership with moves, although thanks are also due to my friend Mandy Tolley for creating the most intensely red cloak with the biggest button I have ever seen. Yes, even bigger than Kirsty Allsopp's secret cache.