Culture Digest 29.08.25
After a brief summer hiatus, here's a round up of the arts and culture stories which caught our attention over the past couple of weeks
Album anniversary triggers tour for Maxïmo Park
Maxïmo Park will celebrate 20 years of their breakthrough debut A Certain Trigger with a special anniversary tour next February.
The Mercury Prize-nominated album, first released in 2005, put the Newcastle-bred band on the map with its sharp hooks and indie anthems like Apply Some Pressure and Graffiti.
Frontman Paul Smith, originally from Billingham, will lead the band through a set mixing the much-loved album with greatest hits spanning their two-decade career.
For North East fans, the highlight will be a homecoming show to round off the tour at Newcastle’s O2 City Hall on February 21. Support on all dates comes from art-rock outfit Art Brut. Tickets go on general sale today (August 29) from maximopark.com.
Lauren Laverne fronts Mercury Prize in Newcastle alongside week of fringe events
Sunderland treasure and BBC Radio 6 Music presenter, Lauren Laverne has been confirmed as host of this year’s Mercury Prize, which will take place in Newcastle on October 16 - the first time the prestigious awards have been held outside London.
The Mercury Prize celebrates the best British and Irish albums of the year, with past winners including Ezra Collective, Little Simz, Arctic Monkeys, Portishead and Pulp.
Lauren, a long-standing champion of the North East music scene, will fittingly front the ceremony at the Utilita Arena, broadcast live by the BBC.
Alongside the main event, the Mercury Prize Newcastle Fringe - run by Generator NE and supported by the North East Combined Authority - will run from October 9-15, bringing live gigs, workshops and discussions to venues across the region, from The Glasshouse in Gateshead and Pop Recs in Sunderland to Hexham’s Queen’s Hall Arts and Newcastle’s World Headquarters.
The 12-strong shortlist will be revealed on September 10.
Reams of goodies in store at Durham Book Festival
An enticing and wide-ranging programme has been announced for this year’s Durham Book Festival – all crammed, miraculously, into one hectic October weekend.
Among those gathering to celebrate the power of the written word will be real authors (not an AI bot among them) including Dame Pat Barker, Ann Cleeves, Jonathan Coe, Eliza Clark and Natasha Brown.
Joining them – or at least sharing the programme – will be poets Malika Booker and Andrew McMillan, music fan and political columnist John Harris, shopping guru Mary Portas and Durham University chancellor and former US presidential advisor Fiona Hill.
Steph McGovern and Jeremy Vine, joining the ranks of broadcasters turning to crime (fiction), will be present to talk about their debut additions to the canon, the former discussing Deadline with Ann Cleeves and the latter (a Durham Uni graduate) spilling the beans on The Murder on Line One.
BBC launches 'game changing' first digital accelerator with North East Screen
The BBC has announced its first digital-focused accelerator, in partnership with North East Screen, representing the broadcaster’s largest investment of its kind in the region’s digital screen sector.
Unveiled at the recent Edinburgh TV Festival 2025, the Digital Accelerator will provide £600,000 in funding to fast-track the growth of digital-first content companies in the North East. The scheme will combine direct investment with mentoring and skills development, aiming to unlock long-term creative and commercial potential in the region.
Over a 9–12 month period, up to four independent production companies will be selected to take part.
Each will receive funding to develop and produce innovative content for both BBC and non-BBC platforms, ranging from vertical video (aka portrait mode, upright clips) and livestreams to creator collaborations and storytelling native to platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Twitch.
Book uncovers stories of life inside Newcastle’s lost prison
A century ago the doors of Newcastle Prison, through which an estimated 250,000 unfortunates had passed, closed for the last time.
The gaol, east of Pilgrim Street in Carliol Square, had opened in 1828 and was described as having the appearance of a fortress built to withstand a siege.
The jail was designed by leading Newcastle architect John Dobson, a commission in stark contrast to his Central Station, Royal Arcade and a series of Northumberland mansions.
Dobson was nothing if not thorough and while working on his design consulted well-known burglars to glean information on how they had escaped from jail.
Now to mark the centenary of the prison’s closure, a book based on years of research has been produced which details how the jail functioned, the life inside its walls led by inmates and staff, and the remarkable stories the place generated, including escapes and executions.
Exhibition explores our relationship with 'damaged' planet
A big exhibition opens at the Hatton Gallery in September – one to make you think, maybe change your mind and perhaps even act.
That, presumably, would be the hope of Uta Kögelsberger who cares deeply about the planet and whose artistic practice (to quote from her own website) “frequently positions itself beyond the gallery walls and in the public realm”.
On her Newcastle University staff profile – she is a professor in the school of arts and cultures – she describes her practice as “a multi-tentacled beast” featuring interconnecting strands.
“It is often collaborative and brings myriad people from different disciplines together to set out to articulate social, political and ecological concerns through video installation, photography, sound and sculpture.”
Miners’ voices from 1984 strike come to life in new Berwick exhibition
A new exhibition opens in Berwick this month, marking 40 years since the Miners’ Strike of 1984–85.
The Burr of Berwick Film Library - a community video archive and exhibition series - launches its latest show on Saturday, August 30, 4–6pm, with a focus on Miners’ Weekend School (1984) – a six-part documentary created by Amber Films’ Current Affairs Unit.
Filmed in Ashington at the height of the strike, the tapes capture a weekend of grassroots political education, where miners, families and supporters came together to share strategies, discuss legal rights, challenge media narratives, and build solidarity networks. The issues they grappled with - policing, bias, community resilience - remain sharply relevant today.
The exhibition invites visitors to reflect on the power of mutual aid and working-class organising, as well as Amber’s radical legacy in British cinema.
The show runs every Saturday, 12-4pm, from August 30 to October 31, at 22 Bridge Street, Berwick-upon-Tweed.
National Television Awards: North East nominees to look out for
The region is well represented in this year’s National Television Awards, with a host of familiar names and shows vying for honours.
Geordie favourites Ant and Dec are nominated twice, in the Reality Competition category for I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! and once again for TV Presenter – a category they have famously dominated for more than two decades.
Darlington writer Mark Brotherhood is behind Ludwig, a BBC drama starring David Mitchell and Anna Maxwell Martin, which is shortlisted in the New Drama category (and which has been commissioned for a second series, so it has already won, really).
The region also has reason to cheer in Returning Drama, with the final series of Vera - filmed across the North East and based on Ann Cleeves’ book series - earning a nomination. Adopted Geordie Brenda Blethyn is also recognised individually for her role as DCI Vera Stanhope, shortlisted for Drama Performance.
Elsewhere, Loose Women competes in the Daytime category, with Denise Welch a regular panellist. You can vote in all categories on the NTA website.
Briggflatts reading a Hexham Abbey Festival highlight
A chance to hear Basil Bunting’s rarely heard masterpiece Briggflatts read by Sean O’Brien seems certain to be a highlight of September’s Hexham Abbey Festival.
The festival, now in its 72nd year, also includes performances by Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening, celebrated choral ensemble The Sixteen and the Hexham Abbey Festival Chorus and Orchestra.
But the afternoon reading on September 25 of Briggflatts, with harpsichord interludes by John Green, former director of music at the abbey, sounds particularly special.
“One of the most important poets of the 20th Century” is how Bunting is described in the festival billing. But how many people know of him or could recite a single line of his work?
He is one of those major figures of North East - and national and international - cultural life who tends to be rediscovered periodically.