MY STORY Crowning glory
Natalie Murray Beale is the creative director of Independent Opera which has commissioned a new cantata, A Sheen of Dew on Flowers, about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
What's up in… Newcastle/Gateshead
AI looks at what's coming up around the country – this week, the arts in Newcastle/Gateshead.
City scope: putting culture alongside housing
Last week we brought you the report of the Cultural Cities Enquiry which could shift the base of arts funding in this country. But what does it mean? Jonathan Todd, chief economist at BOP Consulting, was part of the research team that led the UK-wide consultation process and provided the year-long enquiry with its essential data
Making an art school for actors
Can - should - an art school teach acting? The University of the Arts shares its plans for Wimbledon with Simon Tait
TALK OF THE TOWN HALL Council of despair?
Patrick Kelly hears the latest municipal whispers
First steps
The National Youth Dance Company is in rehearsal for its seventh professional new production – with it seventh new troupe. Simon Tait talks to the company’s general manager Hannah Kirkpatrick
How reviving Bodies makes theatre magic
The husband-and-wife team of Tricia Thorns and Graham Cowley, who operate as Two’s Company, rediscover a forgotten 20thcentury theatre masterpieces and produce them. Their latest, as Simon Tait discovers, is a James Saunders gem
TAITMAIL The Grand Old Dame of York
By Patrick Kelly
It’s always a privilege to watch a master at work, and audiences at York’s Theatre Royal were honoured to witness Berwick Kaler’s 40thand final season as panto dame. The season, as usual, has been a complete sell-out as theatregoers trampled on each other to acquire tickets for this last opportunity to see a superb craftsman go about his business.
THE ART OF PHOTOJOURNALISM Image of the month
Beyond the Deepening Shadow, The Tower of London, November 2018, by Jeremy Selwyn
DEA BIRKETT But seriously – welcome!
In the latest in her series marking the 250th anniversary of the circus, Dea Birkett – the official Ringmaster of Circus250 – finds that media misuse of circus language shows disrespect of a gentle art
Indian home comfort
The India Club is not architecturally notable. Its decorations are steadfastly 1960s drab, and diners happily eat off unadorned Formica table tops; there is no piped music or flock wallpaper to characterise it. Yet history hangs in festoons from the anonymous grey ceiling.
THE WORD Help Eastleigh's The Point to ‘move on’
The Point, the contemporary theatre and dance studio complex in Eastleigh, Hampshire, is being transformed but its artistic director, Sacha Lee, is looking for artistic help...
