Culture Digest 07.11.25
A round up of the arts and culture stories which caught our attention over the past week or so...
Putting climate change on the record
A vinyl record has been created to play a part in tackling climate change.
The transparent disc, embedded with coal dust, was given its first public airing to delegates at a clean energy conference at Redhills, the newly restored former headquarters of the Durham Miners Association.
The record venture has been led by Cullercoats-based climate hope charity Threads in the Ground, which seeks to help people tackle climate change through creative projects.
The goal is to involve communities through arts, culture, heritage and education, with initiatives such as creating a sculpture trail from fungal material - claimed to be a construction method of the future - and a future foods venture which included making insect sausages.
Titled Ancestral Reverb, the record features a vintage 1902 recording by the St Hilda Colliery Band, which is arranged in a “duet” with the current Durham Miners’ Association Band.
New BBC-backed Digital Accelerator to boost North East’s digital production talent
The BBC and North East Screen have launched the Digital Accelerator, a year-long initiative designed to boost the digital ambitions of production companies across North East England.
Originally announced at the Edinburgh TV Festival in August, the programme is backed by £600,000 of investment from the BBC and the North East Screen Industries Partnership (NESIP), funded by the North East and Tees Valley Combined Authorities. It will support up to four regional companies in creating digital-first video content for 16–24-year-olds across platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Twitch.
The initiative was officially unveiled at a packed-out event at ARC, Stockton this week (November 3), bringing together production companies, creators, freelancers and industry leaders from across the region. Attendees heard from BBC commissioners, North East Screen and digital experts about how to apply and develop content for young audiences.
Fiona Campbell, BBC controller of youth audiences and interim director of unscripted, said: “The Digital Accelerator is a bold next step in our mission to grow digital production talent across the UK.
“By empowering North East companies to experiment, test, and scale digital-first ideas, we’re not only investing in the region’s creative future, we’re helping shape the BBC’s own evolution in how we reach and reflect 16–24-year-old audiences.”
Writing with Russell T Davies
Screenwriter Russell T Davies, whose credits include Doctor Who and Queer as Folk, is to headline the second Screenwriting Weekender produced by New Writing North (NWN).
Aimed at the region’s aspiring screenwriters, it’s to take place at Live Theatre, Newcastle, over the weekend of February 6 to 8.
The event, sponsored by North East Screen (NES), was a sell-out success earlier this year.
Music legend love story en route to Theatre Royal in 2026
The love story of country music legends Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash will take centre stage next year as The Ballad of Johnny & June embarks on a major UK and Ireland tour, including a run at Newcastle Theatre Royal from June 2-6, 2026.
Following acclaimed seasons at New York’s La Jolla Playhouse and Canada’s Citadel Theatre, the musical traces the turbulent relationship of the two performers – their rise to fame, their struggles, and the enduring partnership that helped shape American music.
Told through the eyes of their son, John Carter Cash, the production features many of the songs that defined their careers, including I Walk the Line, Ring of Fire, Jackson and I’ve Been Everywhere.
The show is directed by Tony Award winner Des McAnuff, whose previous work includes Jersey Boys (more of that below) and The Who’s Tommy, and reunites the original Broadway creative team.
Producer Howard Panter described the musical as “a journey through love, struggle and redemption told through some of the greatest music ever written”, adding that audiences will experience the “passion and power of two true musical icons”.
Tickets on sale from the Theatre Royal website.
And speaking of Jersey Boys…
The original Tony-winning musical sensation is working its way back to Sunderland Empire for a two-week run in 2027 as part of its celebratory 20th anniversary tour.
Written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music by Bob Gaudio and lyrics by Bob Crewe, the hit show tells the remarkable true story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons - a quartet of ordinary guys from New Jersey who created one of the most distinctive sounds in pop history.
Featuring hits such as Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like a Man, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, Beggin’ and Oh What a Night, Jersey Boys takes audiences behind the music and into the heart of the group’s rise, fall, and enduring legacy.
Producer Michael David of The Dodgers said: “We are thrilled for Jersey Boys to return to the road across the UK and Ireland… we’re so grateful to work our way back to you and celebrate 20 years of chasing the music.”
The production will be on Wearside from May 25 to June 5, 2027. Tickets go on general sale at 10am on Tuesday (November 11) via the Sunderland Empire website.
Sounds of the city
A groundbreaking year-long piece of music powered by Sunderland’s own data has been launched to celebrate the city’s new global Music City status.
The project, titled SonOrbitUs, is described as a “musical composition created by the city itself” and will evolve in real time over the next 12 months, using information gathered from Sunderland’s environment and population.
Commissioned by Sunderland Music City and funded by Arts Council England, the piece uses live data on weather, air quality, traffic, pedestrian movement and rainfall to generate sound. It began streaming in October and will continue online until September 2026.
Remembrance Sunday premiere for Poppy ahead of spring tour
A short walk from Alnwick’s handsome memorial, sadly marooned on a traffic island, another reminder of the horrors of war is taking shape which should prove less perilous to access.
In a rehearsal room at the Playhouse, Eliot Smith Dance (ESD) are fine-tuning Poppy ahead of a premiere on Remembrance Sunday, November 9.
Billed as “a powerful reflection on war, conflict and sacrifice”, it is also described as a “bold reimagining” of the piece the company first performed at The Glasshouse (Sage Gateshead back then) in 2018, marking a century after the signing of the Armistice that ended the First World War.
Record crowds for Durham Cathedral’s Magna Carta exhibition
The magic of the Magna Carta has seen Durham Cathedral Museum achieve its highest-ever attendance this year.
Supporting artworks in the cathedral also played their part in attracting visitors to the display of the three rare Magna Cartas, which ran from July 11 to November 2.
The total of almost 30,000 visitors was more than 40% above the predicted figure.
The last week of the Magna Carta and the North exhibition was the busiest the museum has ever seen since it opened in 2016, resulting in a record-breaking surge of over 2,500 people visiting before the event ended.
Visitors could view the only surviving 1216 Magna Carta, alongside issues from 1225 and 1300, and three Forest Charters. The exhibition celebrated the 800th anniversary of the 1225 issue.
Why Claire Malcolm's been boning up on the Booker Prize
Claire Malcolm saved the longest of the Booker Prize-shortlisted novels until last and had reached page 150 of Kiran Desai’s 688-pager when she rang me from a London-bound train.
As founding chief executive of New Writing North, Claire has good reason to want to be familiar with all the contenders before the winner is announced at a ceremony in London.
The following Thursday, she is due to interview the winning novelist on stage at the Tyneside Cinema. Which of the six it’s to be won’t be revealed until after that dinner on Monday night (November 10).
“I will be there and I’m so excited,” she said.
Exhibition shines light on artist’s powerful record of the North East
The pace of change, which saw the industrial landscape of the North East vanish as its mines, shipyards and major factories disappeared, was dizzying.
But some things stayed the same, from the region’s coastline to its uplands. Fortunately, artist Richard Hobson was there to record it all.
He painted how people worked, played and lived, in the rural landscape and also the packed urban terrace rows with their smoking chimneys.
An exhibition of his work at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, titled Spirit of the North East: The Art of Richard Hobson, a Retrospective, runs until December 6.
Richard died in 2004 aged 59, and the exhibition marks what would have been his 80th birthday year.
JADE gets Bazaar Women of the Year Award honour
Singer Jade Thirlwall was up on stage on Thursday night to pick up the Musician award at the Bazaar Women of the Year 2025 ceremony.
The South Shields performer, who is riding high on the top 10 success of her debut post Little Mix solo album, That’s Showbiz Baby, a sell out UK tour and sold out 2026 dates in the US and Europe, was honoured alongside the likes of actors Reese Witherspoon, Rosamund Pike and Aimee Lou Wood; director Nia DaCosta (who is at the helm of North East-shot 28 Years Later follow up, The Bone Temple); writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; and England footballer, Chloe Kelly.
Beach walk inspired new BALTIC show
Two new exhibitions open at Baltic this weekend, worthy successors to those they replace (by sculptor and film-maker Ali Cherri and painters Rachel and Laura Lancaster).
A group show on Level 4 features the work of 12 artists interested in the sea and marine ecosystems.
The title, For All At Last Return, comes from a book by American marine biologist Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us, a 1951 bestseller (Carson also wrote Silent Spring, exposing the damage done by pesticides).
Baltic curator Emma Dean said it had partly inspired the exhibition, as had the writings of another American scientist, Donna Haraway.
Funding brings new musical a step closer
Novo Theatre (November Club until its rebrand this year) has welcomed a £20,000 funding boost from the Garfield Weston Foundation.
The money will enable the Alnwick-based company to proceed with creative projects and help to cover core costs.
Joe Hufton, Novo Theatre’s chief executive and artistic director, was “delighted” to receive the “vital” funding.
Remembrance Sunday concert pays tribute to wartime miners and tunnellers
Tunnelling to plant explosives under enemy lines was a hugely dangerous tactic employed by both sides during the First World War.
Many miners were recruited for their skills from areas like the North East for a form of warfare which was a product of the trenches stalemate.
The tunnellers will be remembered among thousands of miners from the region who served in the two world wars – including conscripted Bevin Boys – by a special concert in Durham this weekend.
The public event at 3pm on Remembrance Sunday (November 9), will be held in the newly restored Redhills, the home of the Durham Miners Association (DMA).
Titled By Our Life’s Ember – inspired by the poem Miners by war poet Wilfred Owen – the concert will feature the Durham Miners Association Brass Band and Lirica vocal ensemble performing in the listed building’s Pitman’s Parliament.
From stage to screen: Newcastle playwright’s screenwriting debut for the BBC
When playwright Alison Carr took her seat at the BFI IMAX in London last week, she found herself watching something she’d never quite imagined - her own words, being spoken on the UK’s biggest cinema screen.
The moment was the premiere of Doppelgänger, a 15-minute short film produced by Gateshead-based Candle & Bell and supported by North East Screen for the BBC’s Long Story Short series.
The idea behind the series, which has produced seven films in total, is to bring together new writing and directing voices from across the UK, pairing them with local independent production companies to create original films for BBC Three and iPlayer.
For Alison, it marks an exciting new chapter - or perhaps new episode might be a better way of putting it.
The award-winning Newcastle-based writer, known for a string of plays including The Soaking of Vera Shrimp, Iris and North East Culture Award-winner A Street Like This, has seen her work performed on stages around the country. But screenwriting felt, she says, like “this unknowable thing I’d never been brave enough to try.”
Grassroots songwriting project blossoms at Southwick allotment
A community songwriting project in Sunderland has struck the right note with participants, who describe it as “uplifting” and “a boost for mental health.”
Hosted at the Just Let Your Soul Grow allotment in Southwick, the initiative was part of The Cultural Spring’s Nibbles programme – a series of small-scale creative commissions that pair local artists with community groups to test new ideas for participatory arts activities.
Delivered in partnership with Sunderland Music City, the project brought together musician Marty Longstaff of The Lake Poets and Ray Hopkins to co-write songs with allotment volunteers and visitors. Each piece was inspired by the people, atmosphere and setting of the garden.
Marty said: “I was so excited to be awarded a Nibbles commission that enabled me to create a songwriting project that brings music-making to the community at such an amazing place."
Final Lumiere set to draw crowds as visitors urged to plan journeys early
Visitors heading to Lumiere Durham later this month are being urged to plan their journeys carefully - as the UK’s leading light biennial prepares to illuminate the city for the last time.
The event will take place from November 13-15 across Durham City and Shildon.
More than 30 dazzling installations by UK and international artists will light up landmarks and streets for what will be Lumiere’s farewell edition in the city.
Commissioned by Durham County Council and produced by Artichoke, with support from Arts Council England, Durham University and other partners, this year’s programme includes a ‘Spotlight on Durham’ in Shildon, featuring three installations at Locomotion celebrating the town’s railway heritage.
Cllr Tim McGuinness, the council’s Cabinet member for rural, farming and transport, said: “Lumiere looks set to be a fantastic event once again this year and we are expecting a large number of visitors across the three days. That’s why it’s important that festival-goers plan their travel arrangements in advance.
“We would also advise anyone travelling through Durham City to view the scheduled road closures and travel changes, and consider how these, alongside increased traffic, may affect their journey.”
Tickets are required for entry to the controlled zone in the city centre between 5pm and 10pm each night and can be booked via www.lumiere-festival.com. Enhanced park and ride services will run until 11.30pm, with shuttle buses linking Shildon town centre and Locomotion every 15 minutes.
Historic Hexham Riot letter to be sold at auction
An 18th-century letter which sheds more light on an outrage in which more than 50 protestors were shot and killed and 300 injured by militia in a Northumberland town is to be auctioned.
The Hexham Riot of March 9, 1761, resulted in the Yorkshire Militia opening fire on a crowd in the town’s Market Place who had gathered to protest at plans for a ballot to select men for military service.
Craftsmen, miners, agricultural labourers and farmers were among the protestors, with other demonstrations taking place in Morpeth and Gateshead.
The dead and injured came from Hexham, Corbridge, Slaley, Stamfordham and other villages.
The letter, dated April 24, 1761, will be sold by Newcastle auctioneers Anderson & Garland on November 11 with an estimate of £300–£500.