Culture Diary w/c 28-04-2025
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…
Monday – After Hours 8pm (and tomorrow 4.50pm) @ FACT Liverpool – £8.50
Starring Griffin Dunne as a fish out of water caught in unfamiliar downtown SoHo, After Hours is rarely listed as one of Martin Scorsese’s masterpieces; perhaps because it sits somewhat uneasily amid the crime and gangster epics he’s better known for. Outlier it may be, but this Kafkaesque tale of one man’s increasingly desperate efforts to get back to his familiar midtown Manhattan surrounds – as he encounters and suffers a rich assortment of NYC kooks – isn’t to be missed.
Tuesday – An Evening of Live Electronic Soundtracks for Early Silent Film 7pm @ Future Yard, Birkenhead – £7
Obscure, avant-garde early silent and experimental film set to contemporary electronica. A compelling proposition.
Wednesday – Melin Melyn 8pm @ District, Baltic Triangle, Liverpool – £14.06
Self-styled psychedelic country folk from Cardiff/London popstrels touring latest album, Mill on the Hill.
Thursday – On War Photography: Symposium from 10am @ Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool – FREE (Booking Essential)
Current Open Eye exhibition, No Iconic Images: Views of War, asks pertinent questions of photojournalism: What images of conflicts do we need? Do we believe in what we see? This symposium gets to the root of such questions, with a line-up drawn from the Guardian, Magnum Photos, Associated Press and more tackling the ethics of documenting conflict.
What the Mountain Has Seen: the archive in the vitrine – A talk by Dr Christine Eyene 6.30pm @ LJMU Exhibition Research Lab – FREE
Dr Christine Eyene, who holds posts across Tate Liverpool and LJMU’s art school, discusses archival material from a vitrine in current Exhibition Research Lab show, What the Mountain Has Seen. Using the material as departure point, Eyene will retrace the movements of American missionaries traveling to West and Central Africa via Liverpool in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Friday – WoWFEST: 25 Years of Radical Writing throughout May – £Various
“Together, we write, we fight, and we build a better world,” say Writing on the Wall co-directors Madeline Heneghan and Mike Morris on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the radical Toxteth-based festival. This year’s edition features the likes of Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Kit de Waal, and Gary Younge. Things get underway this evening with Irvine Welsh at Rough Trade Liverpool.
From the archive: Mike Morris, Writing on the Wall
Saturday – The Plant that Stowed Away: Celebration from 11am @ Tate Liverpool – FREE
A day of horticulture, workshops, performances and more to mark the approaching end of this small but perfectly formed exhibition’s run.
Sunday – Last Chance To See: All Together Now: Portraits by Veronica Watson @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool FREE
A founder member of Blueroom (Bluecoat’s inclusive arts project), for the best part of two decades, Veronica Watson has documented the comings and goings at the art centre, now presented on the gallery walls and in new publication, All Together Now.
Further Reading: Veronica Watson: All Together Now
Mike Pinnington
Images/media, from top: After Hours trailer; Raymond and his sons. Raymond Hubbard lost his leg in Baghdad on July 4, 2006, when a Russian-made 122 mm rocket crashed twenty feet from the guard post where he was stationed. Darien, Wisconsin, USA, 2007 © Peter van Agtmael / Magnum Photos; archival material, What the Mountain Has Seen; The Plant That Stowed Away installation view © Tate (Gareth Jones); Homepage: After Hours film still
