Culture Diary w/c 05-05-14
What’s hot this week? Our pick of the listings from around Liverpool and the rest of the UK…
Tuesday – Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK 10am-6pm @ the British Library, London – Adults £9.50/ Under 18′s FREE
Featuring industry legends Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta), Grant Morrison (Batman: Arkham Asylum) and many, many other pioneers old and new, the UK’s largest ever exhibition of comics showcases a medium that has never been afraid of reflecting politics and controversial ideas. See original scripts, sketches and final artworks.
Wednesday – Artist’s Talk: Imogen Stidworthy 6pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool — FREE
Multi-media artist Stidworthy discusses her work in the Bluecoat’s latest exhibition, The Negligent Eye. Interested in ideas of hearing, vision, bureaucracy and privacy, the artist documented Sacha van Loo, a man blind since birth, fluent in seven languages and employed by Antwerp Police to analyse wiretap recordings. In the installation, we watch Van Loo search through police records, simultaneously roaming city streets re-imagined with sonar technology. See our Big Interview with the artist here.
Immix Ensemble 7.30-9pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool — £8/6
Mallet guitar trio Ex-Easter Island Head and young composer Joe Hillyard perform a specially commissioned composition tonight around the themes of The Negligent Eye. A new ensemble intended to promote collaboration across the wider spectrum of the musical community, watch out for future collaborations with Liverpool and North-West-based artists.
Thursday – Deadline for #BeACritic! Thinking>Writing>Engaging Writer Callout 5pm @ North-West — FREE
Want to get into arts writing but don’t know where to start? Apply for our new writing project (in association with LJMU and Arts Council England) by 5pm today! We’ll guide you in the ways of arts criticism, and help you write a critical article, as well as paying you £100 and publishing your work. See link for details.
Godzilla (1954) 9pm @ FACT, Liverpool — £9.50/8.50
Excited about the new Godzilla movie? Any sci-fi film that has Breaking Bad’s Brian Cranston in it alongside a giant monster has us sold. While you’re waiting for that to be released (16 May), settle down to Ishiro Honda’s original big-budget kaiju classic. It’s more than entertainment, however; the radioactive dinosaur is said to the director’s commentary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Friday – The Wind Rises @ Nationwide Release
Rumoured to be Hayao Miyazaki’s final bow as director at Studio Ghibli, this is a glorious interpretation of one young boy’s dreams of flying, using the studio’s famous hand-drawn animation technique. Based on the real-life inventor of the Zero fighter, Jiro Horikoshi, the film has been controversial in Japan for being ‘anti-Japanese’, and in the US for apparently absolving Jiro of guilt for his contribution to WWII. A must-see.
Hope Place 7.30pm @ the Everyman, Liverpool — £10/18
From critically acclaimed, Olivier Award-winning Birkenhead playwright Michael Wynne (The Priory, Being Eileen) comes this tale of family secrets and escape. Commissioned specially for the new theatre’s opening season (and starring well-known faces Joe McGann, Neil Caple and Tricia Kelly), the drama revolves around Maggie, destined to be trapped in her childhood home on Hope Place and bugged by a series of never-ending family members.
Jonathan Baldock, Preview and Performance 6pm @ Primary, Nottingham — FREE
We last saw sculptor Jonathan Baldock at The Royal Standard back in 2010 — his bizarre, theatrical statues evoked a sort of ancient paganism that we loved. Tonight he shows the results of a residency at new gallery Primary, based in a former school, and the first commission in their public programme. Expect choreographer Florence Peake to bring the work alive.
Saturday – Esther Leslie and Robert Dellar Book Launch 6-9pm @ Islington Mill, Salford — FREE
The brand new Exhibition Centre for the Life & Use of Books hosts its first ever public event — an evening of readings, discussion and drinks from Library Curator Marcus Barnett and Unkant publishing. Esther Leslie’s book on philosophy and art — Derelicts: Thought Worms from the Wreckage — is “full of freeform scholarship and timely lunacy, nugat, bubble tea n alien vegetation“; whilst Robert Dellar’s presents an autobiographical “under-the-radar British social history” in Splitting in Two: Mad Pride and Punk Rock Oblivion.
Viking Moses 8pm @ the Caledonia, Liverpool – FREE
Viking Moses, aka Brendon Massei, is a modern day nomad (our preview from his last performance here). On tour (apparently) since 1993, he has been drowning in critical acclaim since debut album Crosses earned rave reviews on its release in 2006. A testament to his relationship with ‘Emma’, and “for the love we learned, and for the challenge to part ways and move on”, it is a thing of beauty, imbued with a resonance to which we can all relate.
Sunday – Rebel Without A Cause (re: 2014) 1pm @ FACT, Liverpool — £9.50/8.50
One of only three motion-pictures — including East of Eden and Giant — made during James Dean’s short life (he died in a car crash at the age of 24), Rebel is arguably the all American hero’s finest hour and the performance that made him a legend. Released a month after the actor’s death, Nicholas Ray’s ode to rebellious middle-class teens has all the hallmarks of a Dean performance — a charismatic yet frustrated and lonely young man. Digital restorations of all three films out at BFI Southbank and at nationwide cinemas now.