This week’s Cultured. On Sunday is landing a little later than usual. Apologies for that.
I (Sam) have spent the past couple of days clocking up 40,000 steps (and 12 stand-up shows) on the cobbled streets of Edinburgh. And while my Apple Watch has been wondering when I became an endurance athlete, David Whetstone has been busy closer to home.
He’s been talking to theatre producer Jamie Eastlake about his ambitious plans to make big shows in the North East and take them everywhere.
Dave has also been to County Durham’s newest cultural venue, The Light – formerly the Durham Light Infantry Museum and Art Gallery – which has officially opened its doors with a packed programme of exhibitions and events.
Something requiring a little more courage to dive into is The Brook, the debut horror feature from North East filmmaker Paul Stainforth, which gets its world premiere at FrightFest in London next week.
And for the more faint-hearted among us, Collected Books is back with a recommendation for the bookshelf, inspired by Women in Translation Month and this year’s International Booker Prize.
Enjoy – and happy Sunday!
Building a new stage for North East theatre
In the uppermost room of a very old building in Newcastle, the 17th Century Alderman Fenwick’s House on Pilgrim Street, exciting plans are afoot that could shift the region’s theatrical profile.
They’ve been afoot for some time but not here because this is day one for Eastlake Productions (EP) in its new HQ.
Previously Jamie was based at the Theatre Royal where EP works in partnership on its Open Door talent development programme.
The move away was his decision, he says.
“Separation was a good thing because everyone thought we worked for the Theatre Royal rather than with them. This feels like the start of a new chapter, I think.”
Jamie’s at his desk in front of the single window, looking the part of a producer in his baseball cap but without the cigar and haunted look sported by Max Bialystock in Mel Brooks’ famous film of 1967.
Max was down on his luck in The Producers, reliant on handouts from doting elderly widows to keep his ailing theatre projects alive.
But Jamie’s on the up, as befits the new location, and aiming to build on the success of Gerry & Sewell, the show he took from Laurels, the little theatre he created in Whitley Bay, to London’s West End via Live Theatre and the Theatre Royal.
He has a good team with him.
A look at The Light as it opens to the public
I have seen The Light… and was impressed. Durham’s new DLI museum and art gallery, at first viewing, oozes quality in terms of the building itself and what’s currently showing there.
At the media preview I seemed to be one of the few present with memories of the original, 1960s vintage DLI Museum & Art Gallery which closed a decade ago.
It was a funny old place in many respects but they’re fond memories.
I visited many times, attending the occasional DLI talk but regularly edging my way past a piece of field artillery to interview an artist in the gallery upstairs.
Happy chats I used to have there with the likes of Nerys Johnson, one-time keeper of art, and Sheila Mackie who painted wildlife and Anglo Saxon relics and was fond of pigs.
The old name and the very idea will have seemed incongruous to some first-time visitors, art and regimental history displayed under one roof.
That’s still the case now but the new, more abstract name is clever in that it works on different levels. The Durham Light Infantry is the revered local regiment; art is meant to be enlightening (the opening show of light-based art makes this literally so).
Making the climb from the station on Thursday, I approached via Beacon Hill, ascending through trees to see the beacon (installed to mark the former Queen’s platinum jubilee) and getting an excellent view of the cathedral.
Passing a beacon on my way to The Light… already it was making sense.
The new building occupies the same site as the old but there’s rather more of it. It’s twice as big, according to artistic director Tony Guillan, and therefore with much more exhibition space.
He addressed us in the ground floor café which, like the adjacent shop, is bathed in natural light.
North East film to get premiere screening at FrightFest
The 27th edition of FrightFest takes place in London next weekend (August 27-31), ushering fans of the horror genre to “the dark heart of cinema” via films such as Nervous, The Glorious Dead and Bowels of Hell.
Clearly it’s not for the faint of heart.
But the reason Paul Stainforth is “absolutely buzzing” to be heading down there isn’t the prospect of binge-watching blood, bedlam and gore.
It’s because his debut drama feature, The Brook, has been selected for what will effectively be its world premiere screening, although there was an invitation-only tester showing at Gala Durham where audience reaction played a part in shaping the finished product.
The Brook, filmed in County Durham but with some footage shot in Newcastle nightclub Xerox, is to be shown at Odeon West End at 3.40pm on Saturday, August 29 – in between screenings of The Death of Us and The Alice Paradox.
While mid-afternoon is not generally considered a time of peak jumpiness, Paul will be keeping his fingers crossed that his 93-minute film, in the genre “mystery, thriller, horror”, will give the audience what it wants and, more importantly, impress someone who can get it into cinemas nationwide.
Founded by Emma Hamlett, Collected Books is an independent bookshop in Durham, with two floors of books to browse as well as coffee, wine, and cake to enjoy. They specialise in writing by women but stock all genres of fiction and non-fiction as well as books for kids, YA titles, poetry, and classics.
August is Women in Translation month in the wonderful world of books.
The International Booker Prize is always a time of particular excitement for the Collected Team and this year’s prize was truly exceptional. The list included some of what are now our greatest reads of the year: Rene Karabash’s unforgettable She Who Remains, Yang Shuang-zi’s ever worthy winner Taiwan Travelogue and Olga Ravn’s mysterious and eerie The Wax Child.
After loving The Wax Child, our bookseller Morgan knew she had to return to the unique stylings of Olga Ravn and what better way to do so than to read Ravn’s previously longlisted International Booker title The Employees – an utterly brilliant read and Collected’s recommendation this month.
Morgan says...
Told through brief statements of the human and humanoid crew of the Six Thousand Ship, Ravn exposes the core of our humanity, in all its technicolour and emotional simplicity; a brilliant and fascinating curation of how we humanise and de-humanise one another.
A truly exceptional distillation of the concept of personhood by one of the most unique and gifted contemporary voices. A brilliant book to dip your toes into the world of science-fiction and to be swept away by Ravn’s captivating storytelling.
On the Six-Thousand Ship, things have started to feel changed. Since bringing aboard a number of strange objects from a newly discovered planet, the crew – both human and humanoid – have begun to feel a yearning. They want to be near the objects, to feel them pressed against their skin, but they also all now feel a curious new hunger for home: Earth, that place many cannot even remember. The Board of Directors are eager to understand more, and so instruct a commission to interview each of the employees.
Those who are born dream of soil, the smell of warm asphalt, the sound of animals and birds. Those who are made know only what is programmed, and yet feel it deeply, truly. As their testimonies accumulate, a tapestry of longing and quiet rebellion emerges, blurring the lines between work and life, between human and machine.
The Employees was the breakout novel from one of the most celebrated authors in world literature, and is now seen as a masterpiece of twenty-first century literary science fiction. In stark, pristine prose, translated into English by Martin Aitken, Olga Ravn forms a timeless meditation on productivity, pleasure and what the far-flung future might miss.
Grab your copy by calling into the shop or from Collected’s website here.