Cultured. On Sunday 19.04.26
Our weekend edition for longer reads and cultural recommendations
This week’s Cultured. On Sunday moves between the local and the wider world - from changes in a Newcastle landmark to stories that ask bigger questions.
Dave Whetstone takes a look at artist Ash Willerton’s contribution to the ongoing transformation of the Grainger Market, while our Sunday Column features Catrina McHugh, artistic director of Open Clasp Theatre Company, writing about a powerful collaboration with women in prison, and how it continues to challenge perceptions of motherhood within the justice system.
There’s also news of research from Northumbria University offering rare insight into the design process of Vivienne Westwood, now part of a major exhibition at The Bowes Museum, shining a light on the intricate pattern cutting and construction techniques behind her work.
Tony Henderson reports on a project bringing together culture and science to lay bare the scale of plastic pollution, and in My Life Through a Lens, photographer Topher McGrillis digs into his archive to share 10 images and the stories behind them.
Elsewhere, Michael Telfer prescribes a small screen series from the world of emergency medicine, there’s a fresh bookshelf pick from Forum Books, and this week’s Sunday Plate comes courtesy of North East fish restaurant legends, Colmans.
Hope you enjoy it all.
Catrina McHugh, the artistic director of women’s theatre company, Open Clasp on how a powerful collaboration with women in prison continues to challenge how the system sees motherhood.
Open Clasp is a feminist theatre company based in a women’s centre in Newcastle, creating work with women to tell urgent, often unheard stories. For over two decades, our focus has been simple: make the best theatre we can and use it to create social change.
Our work inside prisons began in 2014, when we were commissioned to collaborate with women at HMP Low Newton. That first production, Key Change, travelled far beyond the prison walls - touring nationally, winning the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh award, transferring Off-Broadway to New York and being filmed for the BBC.
Since then, we have continued to work alongside women in prison, co-creating powerful, deeply personal productions Sugar and Don’t Forget The Birds. In 2022, a new collaboration brought a fresh and urgent focus.
We were invited by Dr Kate O’Brien and Dr Hannah King from Durham University to work with incarcerated mothers at HMP Low Newton as part of the Parental Rights in Prison Project (PRiP). Together, we set out to explore the experiences of mothers separated from their children through imprisonment.
Each week, we gathered in the prison chapel. The workshops were creative, collaborative and led by the women themselves - experts in their own lives. Alongside the PRiP team and Holly Claydon, the project worker, we built a space where stories could be shared, questions asked, and experiences shaped into something collective.
This week’s recommendation comes from Forum Books bookseller, Sophie McMillan… and is the debut sensation of the moment. You can pick it up at Forum Books in Corbridge, or one of its sister shops, The Bound Whitley Bay and The Accidental Bookshop in Alnwick.
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
The pristine, all American tradwife influencer Natalie has everything a good Christian woman could want – the homeschooled children, a charming, carefully curated and artfully cluttered homestead and millions of adoring Instagram followers. This is until she wakes up in the exact time period she was fetishising, the good old days of yore - the 1800s.
Natalie is narcissistic, hateful and self-righteous – she is the perfect woman, the embodiment of the American dream. She is also a perfect satire of the tradwife influencer that has exploded onto the Instagram feeds of women everywhere, conveniently alongside the shifting of pop culture to the political right. The tradwives seen online of course don’t conform to the way of life they are pushing - just like Natalie, they prudently run their powerful businesses like the liberated modern feminists they eschew.
The way Natalie and her lifestyle are written is so perfectly on the nose, from the descriptions of the endless sourdough loaves to the holier-than-thou attitude that seeps out of her on every page. In a way, seeing this character wake up without the amenities she has taken for granted is cathartic, but severely uncomfortable and deeply sickening. I could not help turning the page to unravel more about her modern life, and the yesteryear life she had been plunged into.
As a debut, this darkly comedic novel is outstanding. You can feel from the first chapter that this is bound to be a cult classic – it is such an enthralling, nauseating whirlwind that you can’t help but keep reading. The social commentary within it is so sharp, so biting that you are left reeling and won’t forget it any time soon. If you’re morbidly fascinated by the likes of Ballerina Farm and Nara Smith on Instagram, this will be your new favourite novel.
You can order Yesteryear from Forum Books, here.
We’re asking a North East-based photographer to open up their archives and select two handfuls of images which encapsulate life as they’ve captured it.
This feature first appeared during Cultured. North East’s time as the arts and culture section of regional subscription platform, The QT.
Travelling gave Topher McGrillis his first taste of the joys of digital photography, sowing the seeds for a passion which would become part of his professional career.
Up until that point, his big passion had been film-making .
“I was always obsessed with playing with my friends’ camcorders growing up but didn’t get my first video camera until I was 18.
“I have always been very interested in films and cinema, and I have always wanted to be a director. I purchased a camera while in Singapore on a gap year in 2003 and loved what digital photography offered.
“I could make many mistakes and it wouldn’t waste a piece of photographic paper! Having Asia and Australia as inspirations made it a lot easier to fall in love with.”
It was while working for Newcastle-based Dene Films as an editor and director, that Topher got his first proper camera in 2008, enabling him to start taking photography more seriously.
“My dad made this possible by buying me a Nikon D300, which I used to photograph a wedding,” he says.
“Subsequently, I began working on side projects, photographing theatre behind the scenes, as my sister was starting her acting career at Northern Stage.”
Every week, Michael Telfer – aka Mike TV – recommends a box set to crack open. This week’s choice is a gritty medical drama that squeamish viewers may need to watch through their fingers.
Medical procedural drama The Pitt finally arrived on British screens last month. Finally, because the hit HBO show has been out in America for over a year, and in that time has hoovered up enough awards to fill even the most generous of colostomy bags.
The UK release was held back to coincide with the launch of the HBO Max streaming platform in Britain, as the jewel in the crown… the pièce de résistance… the big shiny show that would convince people to volunteer their direct debit details.
The good news for us is that when it did finally land all 15 episodes were immediately available. Oh, and that it is absolutely, unequivocally brilliant.
The Sunday Plate sees chefs from kitchens across the North East share a recipe for you to try at home - a snapshot of the region’s food scene, one dish/treat at a time.
The Colman family’s story on the South Shields seafront began in the early 1900s, serving fish and chips from a wooden hut by the sea. In 1926, that grew into a permanent home on Ocean Road - the restaurant that still stands today as a local landmark.
While the business has expanded over the years, its focus remains the same: carefully sourced seafood, traditional craft, and warm, family-led hospitality. That sense of family extends to the team and the community they serve, underpinned by a continued commitment to quality and a genuine welcome.
Director Dominic Colman Ord works hands-on in the kitchen, having joined the family business at 15 and learned every aspect of it along the way. Now helping to run three thriving sites, he remains focused on quality ingredients and honest cooking, staying true to the values the business was built on.
Dominic has kindly shared the Colmans recipe for recent menu addition, Perfect Plaice (with cider and onions)
Ingredients
1 × 600g plaice, (trimmed)
1 large white onion, finely sliced
150g smoked bacon, cut into strips
½ tbsp chopped rosemary
½ tbsp chopped thyme
1 clove garlic, crushed
150ml Sam Smith’s cider
100ml strong chicken stock
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
30ml olive oil
Squeeze of Lemon
Handful of fresh parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
1. Start the base. Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a pan. Add the sliced onion and bacon strips, cooking for a few minutes until softened and lightly coloured. Stir in the rosemary, thyme and garlic.
2. Build the sauce. Pour in the Sam Smith’s cider and reduce by half. Add the chicken stock and apple cider vinegar, then simmer for 2–3 minutes until slightly thickened.
3. Prepare the plaice. Season the plaice with salt, pepper and a little extra rosemary and thyme. Drizzle with olive oil and bake at 180°C for 8–10 minutes until just cooked through.
4. Finish the topping. Stir the chopped parsley into the smoked bacon cider onions.
5. Serve. Once the fish is cooked, squeeze over the lemon juice and spoon the smoked bacon cider onions generously across the top.