Culture Diary w/c 11-12-2023
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…
Monday – The Muppet Christmas Carol 6pm @ FACT Liverpool – £8/£6 “Mother always taught me: ‘Never eat singing food.’” Wiser words were never spoken, in this case, by Rizzo the Rat; and arguably there has never been a funnier, more charming Christmas film than this – the Grammy Award-winning Dickens adaptation with a difference. Injected with just the right amount of gags and sing-alongs, and featuring a perfect Michael Caine as Scrooge, prepare to get all misty-eyed.
Tuesday – Anselm 3.20pm @ FACT Liverpool – £10.40/£9.40
Portrait of painter Anselm Kiefer, the chronicler of what filmmaker Werner Herzog calls the “dizzying, dark abyss”. With Anselm, it is another director and countryman, Wim Wenders, who presents the results of his deep dive into the artist’s life and work, excavating what Laura Robertson calls the “ecstatic and unpalatable truths” of his celebrated practice.
From the archive: Staring Into The Abyss: Anselm Kiefer
The Red Shoes 5.30pm @ Future Yard, Birkenhead – £6/£3/£Pay What You Can
The filmmaking partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger produced an astonishing body of work, including three of my all time favourites – A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and 1948′s The Red Shoes. A tale of love, ambition, jealousy, obsession (and more besides) this loving tribute to the world of dance capped an incredible three years for the duo.
Wednesday – Tish + Q&A With Producer Jen Corcoran 6pm @ FACT Liverpool – £12.20/£11.20
Tish Murtha‘s photographs are honest, celebratory and humane. They capture lives lived in the context of the working class North East, where she grew up. And now they’re destined – rightfully so – to come to the attention of a wider audience, through the tireless work of her daughter, Ella, and this eponymous documentary from film-maker Paul Sng. A conversation between Tish producer Jen Corcoran and fellow photographer Emma Case follows the screening.
Thursday – Andrew Hung (F*ck Buttons) + Germanager 7.30pm @ The Kazimier Stockroom – £11
One half of crucial and dearly departed noisesmiths Fuck Buttons, August saw the release of Andrew Hung’s third solo album, his candidly confessional Deliverance. This week Hung plays Liverpool, with Germanager – “currently investigating ways of being innovative in popular music” – supporting.
Friday – Memorials 7.45pm @ Future Yard, Birkenhead – £12
Last seen in a support slot for Stereolab’s UK tour, Memorials – Verity Susman and Matthew Simms, late of Electrelane and Wire respectively – will find themselves topping the bill more often than not. Armed with a barrage of jazzy drone experimentation comprising off-kilter vocals and eclectic instrumentation (including much tape-looping – to great effect), the pair will be winning new fans wherever they go.
Saturday – The Red Shoes 3pm @ Storyhouse, Chester – £9.90/£8.90
So good we listed it twice. See Tuesday for details.
Sunday – Tampopo 3pm @ FACT Liverpool – £8
Tampopo, playing as part of Picturehouse’s season, A Festive Feast, is director Juzo Itami’s so-called ramen western. It tells the tale of a plucky roadside food vendor (who gives the film its title), whose simple aim it is of making the best ramen around.
Mike Pinnington
Images, from top: The Muppet Christmas Carol; Anselm Kiefer, Winter Landscape (1970); Tish Trailer; The Red Shoes
