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Events Listings, April 2011

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, and a young Londoner’s fancy turns to thoughts of what to do in the long April evenings. Well, Easter is packed with great events – here’s the cream of the crop, edited by Alex James.

1st April – 31st August: Dirt, the filthy reality of everyday life, The Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, NW1. The Wellcome Collection is a free destination for the incurably curious, where science collides with art. The current exhibition takes in the mystery, history and future of dirt in our lives. Get down and dirty with microbes, hospitals, shanty towns and landfill sites. See: www.wellcomecollection.org

Until 2nd April: The Peroni Collection – Italian Style on the Silver Screen: UK-wide, free. Peroni Secret Cinema is a collection of rare images depicting the influence of Italian style on film, featuring some old classics like Cinema Paradiso as well as some more modern films that showcase Italian designers such as Casino Royale, running at art centres across the UK. See: www.peroniitaly.com

2nd April, 9pm-3am: Masked Ball at The Last Tuesday Society, Adam Street, Charing Cross. Dance Practice – The Waltz plus Orphanage Masked Ball. Over 18s only, dress code – Divine Decadence: masks obligatory, clothes optional. Literary extravagance at its finest, at London’s most authentic quirky venue, dancing encouraged by way of dance classes teaching the waltz. “But when he put his arm around her, pressed her to his breast, cavorted with her in the shameless, indecent whirling-dance of the Germans and engaged in a familiarity that broke all the bounds of good breeding – then my silent misery turned into burning rage.” Thus wrote Sophie von La Roche of the Waltz in Vienna in 1771. See: www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org

8th April – 7th May: Funk it Up About Nothin’, Theatre Royal Stratford East. This exciting programme launches with acclaimed Chicago Shakespeare Theater production Funk It Up About Nothin’, presented by Theatre Royal Stratford East, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Richard Jordan Productions. Created and directed by The Q Brothers, this adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is a fresh urban take on a story as oldskool as love itself, a perfect spin on the Royal wedding fever sweeping the nation. Complete with a live DJ, B-boys and girls, MCs and divas, this is a romcom street party and much, much more. See: www.stratfordeast.com

10th April: John Cooper Clarke, Rose Theatre, Kingston. Now recognised and studied as one of England’s most important poets and performers, John Cooper Clarke’s verse is biting, satirical, political, very funny and – as always – delivered in his unique rapid-fire performance style. See: www.rosetheatrekingston.org

16th April: London Maze, Guildhall Art Gallery and Yard. The much anticipated return of the capital’s free local history fair will take place at the Guildhall Art Gallery and in and around the Guildhall complex. Devoted to London and its past, the fair includes the chance to visit stalls from libraries, archives, museums and local history societies, as well as specialist talks, guided walks and a wide range of fun and educational activities. See: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

22nd April onwards: Southbank Centre’s Festival of Britain, South Bank, London. The Greater London Authority has planned a season of events exploring life and culture in contemporary Britain to tie in the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain. This celebration of British culture and creativity will allow visitors to experience performances, new outdoor environments, talks and events by some of Britain’s leading artists and thinkers. Festival highlights include Ray Davies curating this year’s Meltdown, Tracey Emin’s first major survey show in London, plus appearances by Lang Lang, Heston Blumenthal, Billy Bragg, John Berger, Meera Syal and Tony Benn. Themed weekends celebrate just some of the highlights of British culture. See: www.southbankcentre.co.uk

24th April: Storytails, The Drop, below Three Crowns, Stoke Newington, London N16. Free. Storytails, the free Sunday night storytelling event, presents new and established writers reading their own work. This month’s line up includes Nikesh Shukla, author of the novel Coconut Unlimited. This chilled out afternoon begins at 3pm so drop in after lunch to catch some tales. See: www.storytails.org

26th-30th April: London Burlesque Week, various London locations.
London Burlesque Week is back and better than ever with local and international burlesque stars, boylesque, twisted cabaret and much more! London Burlesque Week is the largest international showcase of burlesque in the world, which will present five huge nights of burlesque and cabaret at various venues throughout London. The week’s programme includes an 80-minute opening gala, presenting the stars of worldwide burlesque in London, twisted cabaret, showcasing performers with a darker take on neo-burlesque and cabaret, and a newcomers’ contest, which will reveal the finest new talent – plus much more. See: www.londonburlesquefest.com

Last week I squeezed into a packed and sweaty auditorium at the South Bank Centre to watch performance poet and punk legend John Cooper Clarke’s show for the London Literature Festival.

The Bard of Salford was on good form, despite the temperature. Now in his 60s, he still has the style of Bob Dylan, mixed with the dead-pan delivery of Alan Bennett and just the right sprinkle of Bernard Manning. He delivered a stream of curiously old-fashioned stand-up, interspersed with his own brand of rapid-fire performance poetry. His disjointed jokes and puns revelled in an infectious love of language, perfect for a literary festival. (“If you shot a peasant, could you get off on the grounds of dyslexia?”)

John Cooper Clarke, photo by Tim Duncan

His poems, which were clearly what the crowd had come to hear, were fast, funny, and close to the bone. Performing some by heart and reading others from a scruffy handwritten notepad, he kept the audience happy with classics like Beasley Street and Evidently Chicken Town, as well as a few less familiar ones.

Short, simple and deceptively slight in subject matter, his poems work because of the obvious joy they take in the performance possibilities of rhyme and rhythm. My favourites were the frenetic Hire Car, (“Hire car, hire car, why would anybody buy a car, bang it, prang it, say ta-ta, it’s a hire car, baby”) and the brilliantly un-PC ode to sex changes, Crossing the Floor (“Bye-bye Boddingtons, hello shorts, I wear size 9 kitten-heel courts. I’m going to get a vagina … of sorts.”) It’s no surprise that after 30 years performing, Cooper Clarke’s work is still a major influence on modern bands whose lyrics hover between poetic story-telling and music, from The Streets to the Arctic Monkeys.

The ‘Very Best of’ CD I bought after the show has a good mix of Cooper Clarke’s stuff – some straight poetry and some poems performed to music, blurring the lines between the two genres. We’ve been listening to it all weekend at work.

Inspired, I’ve made a start on a playlist celebrating cross-overs between music and poetry. It’s a bit eclectic so far, but I rather like the contrast between Tom Waits talking us through Small Change and the spooky recording of John Masefield’s sing-song rendition of Sea Fever, or the leap from Woody Guthrie’s Washington Talkin’ Blues to Ivor Cutler’s weird Scottish ramblings.

If you have Spotify, you can have a listen at this link. Otherwise, here’s my “Pusic? No, Moetry” tracklisting, for anyone who fancies reconstructing it themselves. Suggested additions welcome…

Pusic? No, Moetry  – A Playlist
John Cooper Clarke – Twat
The Streets – Don’t Mug Yourself
Sir John Betjeman – The Licorice Fields At Pontefract
Tom Waits – Small Change
Flanders & Swann – The Gnu Song
Woody Guthrie – Washington Talkin’ Blues
Ivor Cutler – Life In A Scotch Sittingroom
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – The Host The Ghost The Most Holy O
Edith Sitwell – Scotch Rhapsody
Langston Hughes – The Story of the Blues
John Lee Hooker – Talkin’ The Blues
John Masefield – Sea Fever
John Cooper Clarke – Evidently Chickentown

by Emily Cleaver