Created in Birmingham

It’d be pointless me adding to the mounting pile of gushing reviews this performance is receiving, so I’m going to float an idea instead (which should give you an inkling of what I thought of it).

Graham Vick is the Artistic Director of Birmingham Opera Company. Year-round he works with the world’s major operas and returns to Birmingham to let his imagination run riot. If you’re lucky enough to see one of his BOC productions he’ll be the guy with the look of impish enthusiasm ushering the audience around and mouthing the words.

Here are his notes from Othello’s programme:

After the first night thousands hijacked Verdi’s carriage to parade him through the streets of Milan in triumph

I think Birmingham owes Graham Vick the same treatment.

Othello is deservedly sold out. However, I’ve heard a rumour that the BBC will be filming the show for broadcast, so fingers crossed on that.

A short video featuring 300-year old  manufacturing company, Toye, Kenning & Spencer. Their Jewellery Quarter factory produces their metal goods and houses their design department.

The firm designs and produces a wide variety of items including medals (including MBEs, OBEs, CBEs, GBEs, KBEs and DBEs for the Queens honors), trophies (examples produced by Toye being both the FA Cup and the Davis), buttons and cufflinks (for some of the biggest fashion houses worldwide), corporate gifts, military uniform and headwear and societies regalia.

• Brummie of the Year 2009 – vote now
  The poll’s up on BiNS
• We Live In Public – Private Screening – Eventbrite
  There’s a free screening of We Live In Public at The Electric on Weds 9 December. Not many tickets left for this…
• editorialgirl » Birmingham’s People: How do you represent Birmingham?
  In which Matt Murtagh deals with inaninty from BBC WM’s Loyd Williams in a commendably professional manner
• Critical Mass West Midlands
  “Critical Mass is a free 11-week ‘Introduction to Playwriting’ course for black and minority ethnic writers aged 18+. Workshops will run from January – April 2010, one evening per week (7-9.30pm) at both The Drum Arts Centre in Birmingham and The Belgrade Theatre in Coventry”. Nothing to do with cycling then
• Clusta | The Almanac Zoo
  “The Zoo has an array of new characters to meet. Remember to keep watch as some of our furry friends appear a little shy at first. The Zoo is open morning, noon and night, so be sure to revisit when it gets dark”
• Museums at Night | Culture24
  Bit early on this, but nevermind – “Night owls can look forward to a weekend of ghostly goings on as museums unlock their doors for the annual after-hours celebrations. Museums at Night 2010 will run from Friday 14th May to Sunday 16th May”

There was a good showing for Birmingham on last week’s Culture Show. It’s available until Friday 11 Dec, so there’s still time to catch it.

Birmingham Opera Company were featured (at 11mins). Othello is currently racking up rave reviews in a manner approaching unseemly – 5 stars in the Guardian and Times and the Birmingham Post described it (somewhat inaccurately, seeing as how it’s sold out) as ‘unmissable’.

Dice Productions also made it onto the show in a feature on online comedy (at 51mins):

Message in a Bottle was included in a little montage during Josie Long‘s segment on the rise and rise of online comedy, which focused squarely on Funny or Die UK and Popcorn Comedy, in which we’ve had a little more active role through October’s Electric Cinema screening. Ian’s giggling face was also spotted on the show enjoying Popcorn Comedy at the Roxy Bar and Screen in October

So hurrah and more of this kind of thing.

For the next CiB Project we’ve been asked to take part in Capsule‘s 10th birthday celebrations. We’re getting together a bunch of Birmingham creative types, putting them on a stage for 3 minutes and asking them ‘What would you do if you were given the run of a space like Vivid?’

Featured folks will include:

ATTA Girl, Scott Johnson aka Film Ficciones, Stephen Earl Rogers, James Yarker of Stans Cafe, local historian Ben Waddington, illustrator extraordinaire Ben Javens to name but a few

That list is from Capsule’s website.

There are 20 places left for spectators, so if you want to come along then please admin@capsule.org.uk. If it goes well it might be the first of many such events.

There’ll be full reporting back after the event, so if you can’t make it down then don’t worry.

Natasha came to Birmingham to study for a degree in fashion design and has been here ever since. She makes:

Wedding tiaras, headbands and bespoke headwear created with inspiration taken from floral silhouettes with small delicate details

There’s more on Natasha Jane’s website and on her Facebook Page.

Another milestone for youth theatre company Stage2 who celebrated their 20th anniversary last year – their forthcoming Twelfth Night will be their 100th major production.

As well as cast of 100 we will have carol singers to serenade the audience and street urchins giving out programmes, allowing our whole company to join in the fun. It will be fast paced, visually impressive and exceptionally clear (characters, words and plot) and so will be an ideal Christmas night out for the whole family. A perfect first visit to Shakespeare, though anyone familiar with the text will also find some twists to discuss and debate…

It’ll be performed at the Crescent Theatre from 16-19 December. Tickets are £8.50.

That’s me (on the right) working the mulled wine stall on Saturday at the Kings Heath Big Party.  A huge thanks to everyone who came down and bought a cup of something warm.

In fact, a fair few thanks are in order:

• Kings Heath Centre Partnership for having (and supporting) us
• Sarah Allen for her ever-impressive organisational skills
• Vivid and Fazeley Studios for lending tea urns
• Joanna Geary (co-stall runner) for services beyond the call of duty
• Emma Hardicker, Jo Ruth and Ginger Peach for being nice stall-neighbours (and for excellent cakes from the latter)

I’ll soon be putting up some info about the next project that’ll see CiB getting out and about in the world. I’d best write some posts about other folks first though.

The Bench 504 is a graffiti store in the Custard Factory. Their blog features lots of (often Digbeth-y) street art stuff.

Nicky Getgood noticed this.

I kinda don’t want to know too much about this before doing it, which makes telling you about it a little difficult.

All I really know is that it’ll happen on 18 December at 6pm in Birmingham. You can sign up on the Subtlemob website. People use the words small, gorgeous and filmic to describe it.

If you want to know more then I’ll direct you towards the good people of Barg and also this video:

• Guest Blog: The Pharaoh of Film – Khaled El Hagar – profiled by Professor Roger Shannon
  “Acknowledged in his home country Egypt as the most controversial movie maker of his generation, Khaled lives quietly for half of the year in Kings Heath, in Birmingham, where he has established himself as the city’s leading auteur”
• Rhubarb and Apple — two new ways to listen « Rhubarb Radio in progress
  Rhubarb Radio is now listed in Apple’s Internet Radio directory
• 4am Project at the Bodies Revealed Exhibition | Karen Strunks Photographer
  I’m a bit late on this, but Karen’s organising another 4am Project – this one will be this weekend and the focus of the Birmingham activity will be at the Bodies Revealed exhibition. As I type this there are just 22 free tickets left
• Digbeth is Good » The funeral of The Site
  I had an invite to this but couldn’t make it (and, in a fortunate sense now that I think of it, lacked the mourning attire). Nice little write-up by Nicky and there’s still time to go see this before it closes on 13 Dec
• The Endless Descent « More Canals than Venice
  “The Endless Descent brings together artists from Birmingham, Bristol and London to exhibit in the distinctive 1930’s Modernist stairwell, lobby, lift and entrance area of Rea Studios”. Ah, this launched last night – I walked past and wondered what was going on
• Birmingham-based female performers wanted for site-specific show
  “Mem Morrison Company and The REP are looking for up to thirty female volunteers to perform in their current production, Ringside”
• D’log :: blogging since 2000 » Arts attendance has not increased since 2005
  Not only that but… “It now looks as though the same trend is continuing into 2008/9.”
• 100 years of The Electric Cinema – Birmingham: It’s Not Shit
  From the other night – “A cosy evening at The Electric with a ‘This Is Your Life’ of Britain’s oldest working picture house in the company of owner Tom Lawes to celebrate its 100th birthday” Happy birthday Electric Cinema!
• Middlemash
  “This blog, in conjunction with the Mashed Library wiki & Mashed Library Ning, will be used to provide information on the 3rd mashed library event, Middlemash at Birmingham City University on Monday 30th November”. Missed this, but there’s plenty to go rooting through
• Smash Bro’z In San Francisco! Part1 :) « Dancegeek’s Blog
  “we are proud to announce that we have just returned back from the prestigious San Francisco HipHop Dancefest event in San Francisco and successful in repping the UNITED KINGDOM and BIRMINGHAM with honours!!!!”

A couple of weeks back there was a meet-up of West Mids theatre folk – the event was called The Challenge of Change and (from what I understand) there were two days of workshops and discussions around the future of West Mids theatre.

Graeme Rose (Stan’s Cafe, The Modified Toy Orchestra, etc) has written up some notes about the first day.

There’s talk of Action Plans coming out of the event but I’m yet to find anything online anywhere just yet. Until they turn up, I rather like this list of pledges sketched out by James Yarker (also of Stan’s Cafe):

1. Attend 12 theatre shows in the next 12 months, 4 by West Midlands writers/artists/companies you haven’t seen before, 1 in a West Midlands Venue you’ve never been to before.
2. Take 12 people who have never been, rarely go, or don’t ‘do’ Independent Theatre to a show. Share transport.
3. Host a meal/party for 8 people 4 of which you barely know.
4. Write 12 comments/reviews/blog entries about theatre on other people’s sites.
5. Attend 1 mid*point or return to the next Open Space event.

They seem like common sense things that you’d hope people would be doing anyway but probably aren’t by everyone. I’m sure very similar things could be drawn up for many different artforms. James explains where the pledges came from. It’d be nice if they really were written up in some formal way. Michelle Knight has opted in. Is anyone else prepared to be held to these? If not, how come?

Birmingham’s bidding for the title of City of Culture in 2013 and as a result a couple of attempts to get your feedback have been launched.

Big Blank Canvas

Big Blank Canvas is a project managed and devised by Fierce (on behalf of the council who are responsible for the bid itself) which, in its first version, is asking people:

• What do you do in your cultural life in Birmingham, and where?
• What would you like to see happen as part of Birmingham City of Culture in 2013, and where?
• Where would you like to have a cultural experience in Birmingham?

The second question has generated the most interesting ideas so far. Here are a few that jumped out at me:

a touring show for kids and families playing a different suburban park every weekend in the summer hols; with locals creating and participating (from Rob)

Literal street art – a day with no traffic when the streets can be used as a gigantic canvas by communities all over the city, free balloon flights to view the full effect… (from Mark Scourse)

Shut down all the major cultural institutions for a month and promote/support cultural events and activities across the outer city in non traditional venues (from The Blade)

The aim is for the site to be up in this form for the next couple of months, after which it’ll change somehow – responding to the ideas people put forward.

There’s also a Facebook Page and Twitter account you can follow to keep up with what people are suggesting.

I should also say (for the purposes of disclosure) that I’ve done some work with Fierce on the concept/design behind this one.

Cultural Birmingham – Have Your Say!

This is the bit that has been aimed specifically at under-25′s. Antonio Roberts was asked to get involved with the steering group for this and has written up some info about it. Again, it’s an online consultation exercise:

There is a three-page questionnaire that young ‘uns can fill out, but more interestingly I think it’d be better to get involved in the discussion on the Facebook Group (liek wot all da cool kids iz doin)

G’wan, have a go

Irrespective of the City of Culture bid, it’d be nice to show that folks around these parts really care about the cultural life of the city they live in and have some good ideas for how to build on/show off what we’ve got. Go nuts and use this to air your wildest dreams, fervent passions or give a mention to those things that you’ve seen elsewhere and wish would happen in Birmingham.

From Jo Ruth‘s ‘artist info’ page:

Jo studied Fine Art at Reading University and has lectured in Art and Design in colleges in London and the West Midlands.

As a painter and printmaker, she has a growing reputation for her striking colourist painting and mixed media pieces. Her work covers a variety of subject matter, abstract and figurative, and is influenced by imagery and experiences on travels in the UK and further a-field.

Btw, I saw some of Jo’s stuff at the Moseley Arts Market on Saturday (next one 19 Dec). This post has nothing to do with her very kindly sending me one of her Christmas cards. Honest(ish).

Jan Bowman trained as an architect and now draws pictures for a living. Her work celebrates the best of 21st-century civilisation. Originally from Scotland via Canada, she lives in England with the Old Boot and two cats

She’s also the writer/illustrator of a new book called This Is Birmingham which is out on 10 December and recently earned this gushing review from Shirley Dent in The Guardian:

a book very much continuing that tradition of imaginative non-fiction at its best. Stunningly illustrated it brings to glorious life the sights and sounds of Brum so familiar to my nephews. But the real genius is that it sneaks in some hardcore social and political history, starting with Birmingham’s Lunar Society and broadening out into the American, French and industrial revolutions, taking in immigration and urban development along the way. And the whole thing, my middle nephew will be pleased to learn, reads like an adventure through time and place

It’s well worth visiting Jan Bowman’s website for a glance at some more of the pics. The book’s aimed at those of us who are aged 8+ and it’s only £6.99 on Amazon at the moment.