Archives for July 2010

Met up with Graeme Farrow today, the director of the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen's. He arrived for our meeting clutching a rain soaked batch of A4 sheets. Hot off the press here was a preview, albeit a slightly soggy one, of this year's festival programme which won't be officially launched until the 23rd August .

So Alan Bennett in the Grand Opera House, his "The Habit of Art" which imagines a meeting between Benjamin Britten and WH Auden. Then there's a foot washing ceremony at an East Belfast interface, artist Adrian Howells performs this with an audience of one, yes, you and your feet, which he washes, anoints with frankincense oil and then asks can he kiss? Apparently he's booked for 40 performances. That's 80 feet!

Then there's "National Anthem" from Colin Bateman, his first ever stage play and an opera based in a bingo hall from Brian Irvine.

Tony Allen, perhaps the greatest drummer ever (according to Brian Eno), Terry Riley and Talvin Singh in the Elmwood Hall and, yes, fifty naked women dancing in the Waterfront Hall. That'll put plenty of (bare) bums on seats. Sorry!

Martin Creed, the Turner Prize winner, plays punk on a barge in Belfast Lough. Joanna McGregor plays Chopin, Dame Gillian Weir plays the refurbished Mulholland Organ, Therapy? in the Mandela Hall and Paul Brady's back catalogue is specially orchestrated for the Ulster Orchestra with Brady onstage..

Michael Palin returns. His connection with the festival goes way back, to the days of former festival director the late Michael Barnes. Michael P is very much part of the Michael Barnes Bursary. And he's also selected three of his favourite comedy films to be shown in the festival. Called Palin's Pic(k)s, they are "A Shot in the Dark", "Fargo" and "The Ladykillers".

What else? A lot but Graeme said I was to leave him something. So more to follow when the programme is officially launched!

The Festival runs from the 15th-30th October.

Great news for Northern Irish poetry today. Two out of the six poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Poetry are from here. Seamus Heaney for his new collection ""Human Chain" and Sinead Morrissey for "Through the Square Window", the same collection for which she was shortlisted for the TS Eliot prize earlier this year.

Northern Irish poets have been here before. Ciaran Carson won the prize in 2003 for "Breaking News". The following year Leontia Flynn won Best First Collection for "These Days".

It's like a poetry version of that Kevin Bacon party game, based on the idea that other actors and the parts they've played can be connected to Kevin Bacon. Only this time it's Six Degrees of Seamus Heaney.

So (1) Seamus Heaney is a former student of Queen's University Belfast

(2) In 2003 Queen's University sets up the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry

(3) Ciaran Carson is Professor of Poetry at Queen's and director of the Seamus Heaney Centre,

(4) Leontia FLynn is a research fellow there

(5) Sinead Morrissey is a lecturer in creative writing there too which brings me to the six degrees..... 

(6) Seamus Heaney

But I don't think Kevin Bacon need worry about losing his party game to the Nobel Laureate for Literature!

Anyhow, the Forward Prize for Best Poetry collection shortlist is:

• Seamus Heaney - Human Chain
• Lachlan Mackinnon - Small Hours
• Sinead Morrissey - Through the Square Window
• Robin Robertson - The Wrecking Light
• Fiona Sampson - Rough Music
• Jo Shapcott - Of Mutability

 The winner will be revealed on the 6th of October.

News just in that Belle and Sebastian are kicking off their first UK and Ireland tour since 2006 here in Belfast. December 1st. Ulster Hall.

They headlined Latitude last weekend and are giving over their December to 10 shows.

The winter tour includes three shows with a 40 piece orchestra. But unfortunately not the Ulster Hall show. Gateshead, Birmingham and Manchester get B&S with the London Contemporary Orchestra, who were also with the band at Latitude.

But if the orchestra isn't coming across here, to either the Belfast or the Dublin gigs (its the next night on the 2nd Dec) maybe we should rustle up our own orchestral sounds for the band. What about the Ulster Orchestra in the Ulster Hall? They've already done similar gigs with Neil Hannon, Marianne Faithfull and Duke Special. So they know their way around contemporary music as well as the classical big hitters. And I've just checked their programme and they'll be in rehearsal for The Snowman concert on the 4th so they could squeeze in Belle & Sebastian. As long as the music for "Walking in the Air" didn't get mixed up in the Belle & Sebastian playlist!

I've already suggested the UO to the PR man so let's see!

Whatever happens, as long as they play "The Fox in the Snow" from their "If you're feeling sinister" album I'll be happy.

The mood was buoyant on Friday in Derry. It was the day after the announcement that Derry had won City of Culture 2013 and the bid team, led by Aideen McGinley of ILEX (in the blue jacket) and Valerie Watts the Town Clerk of Derry City Council (in white), were running on adrenalin.

I think the two, dubbed the V&A, are actually keeping each other standing, they are so exhausted. Phil Redmond said he had known who had won for about a month and was relieved to finally be able to talk about it. Here he's cracking a joke about another name to add to the list of names the city has.....Merryderry!

But among the euphoria he did issue a reality check: "You've got it, make it work".

He said that he and the panel of judges would be visiting the city in 9 months time to meet the team. "Can you deliver this?" he asked. There will be tensions, he went on, saying he had the scars to prove it, the reference to the fallings out and fallings in of the European capital of Culture in Liverpool.

This week, I'm told, sees the appointment of a cultural animateur. While I thought this was for the whole City of Culture, this new post could be solely responsible for the cultural strategy of the ILEX owned Ebrington Site.

Then comes the setting up of a cultural company, with an as yet unspecified number of board members, within which will there will be a new position of a cultural programmer for 2013.

I can feel the fizz going out of the champagne already as a cast of thousands jockeys for position. The next two-and-a-half years years will be interesting.

(Photos courtesy of Lorcan Doherty) 

Since hearing about Ian Hill's sudden death yesterday, I've been remembering the man I first met back in the early 1990's. I was just starting out in radio and I was making a short feature for the then BBC Radio Ulster arts programme "All Arts and Parts" which Ian presented. Derry's IMPACT 92 festival was on and he and his producer Chris Spurr had come down to Radio Foyle to do the show. I can't even remember the actual feature I worked on, but I do remember Ian.

Over the years and all the subsequent incarnations of the arts programme, Ian remained a cultural champion of local arts and a friend and colleague on Radio Ulster. 

He was also a unique voice.

Northern Ireland is a small place and the arts community here is even smaller. Unlike the metropolitan critics of the London or New York broadsheets who have a certain anonymity, Ian was well known. But this never fazed him. You knew when you asked him on "Arts Extra" to review a play or an art exhibition, he would shoot from the hip. And that's no easy thing to do here, especially if the review isn't too favourable and he was more than likely to bump into the artist or director on the street or in the local Tescos. 

That's why you knew when you heard his opinion on something you were getting the truth. He was a true critical voice, fearless about putting his head above the parapet because he loved and believed in what he saw. 

On behalf of everyone who has worked with Ian on the arts programmes on BBC Radio Ulster over the years we send our condolences to his wife and family. He will be missed.

I've always been teased by friends for my endless bragging about my hometown but tonight,at 725pm, I was probably the most proud I have ever been of being from the city known as Derry, Londonderry, Stroke City (courtesy of Gerry Anderson) and now the first UK City of Culture 2013.

I was in the Guildhall when it was announced that Derry had won. The rumours had been flying around all day, but I had braced myself not to believe anything until I heard the announcement. In fact, I was so keyed up about the whole thing that as I heard it being said everything went into slow motion. I walked into the semi darkness of the Guildhall's main hall, into a throng of people all looking in the same direction towards the giant tv screens on the stage. The roar that had just gone up on hearing the news was one of pure joy. The first person I saw was Pauline Ross, the director of the Playhouse. It was almost like she was in a mystical trance, arms in the air, openly crying and when I asked her for her immediate reaction, ( I was on air with Arts Extra), she said "I can hardly feel my legs". Pauline is one of the cultural journey men and women who have invested their all into Derry. Her reaction summed up to me the palpable feeling of raw undiluted joy mixed with vindication, the sense that here was a recognition of what the city had done and what it can become.

As I was leaving the Guildhall around 830 this evening, I saw many young people milling around outside, standing chatting, oblivous to the rain coming down. I realised that while I was celebrating the moment it was only after disappointments in the past. I was a junior arts administrator putting up posters for Field Day Theatre Company shows in the late 80's early 90's, but the city has no legacy of Field Day having been there. Or when I was working on IMPACT 92, the year long arts festival in the city that didn't quite live up to its expectations in 1993. 

 These kids don't know this, so the step change has already happened, the longed for "sea-change
on the far side of revenge" as Seamus Heaney said in "The Cure at Troy". Words from his play are quoted on the first page of the bid document, the same words which, in 1990, I heard said on the same stage of the Guildhall that tonight said City of Culture.
The teenagers outside the Guildhall are the sea change. It didn't take a City of Culture title to appreciate it. But it's good to get the chance to show what can happen now.

It is the biggest cultural story around at the moment so unashamedly I'm blogging about the UK City of Culture 2013. And blogging from BBC Radio Foyle. We're up for the live announcement tonight. But try as I might I can't get anyone to tell me who's won.

The Derry bid team are in Liverpool, including the Deputy First minister Martin McGuinness, who has cancelled an engagement in the city to do so. Ed Vaizey the Culture minister will make the announcement during the BBC's The One Show.

Most people I talk to say they would "bet their house" on Derry winning. But while it's all been grist to the rumour mill, check out this article in the Mail Online. According to the reporter Derry has already won!

We will know for sure tonight, I'll be live from the Guildhall 1903-2000 BBC Radio Ulster "Arts Extra".

Join me then. It's going to be a night to remember.

The official film produced to support the Derry~Londonderry UK City of Culture 2013 bid has gone online. Voices. Made by the Nerve Centre, produced by Pearse Moore and written by John Peto it is an homage to the new face of the city.

It starts with the voice of poet Seamus Heaney reading from his play "The Cure at Troy" and ends with a young girl, Rebecca Ramsey, walking towards the camera saying

"I have a new story to tell /I need to tell a new story/Just say yes"

Just Say Yes is the Snow Patrol song, Gary Lightbody's granny was from Derry and the band gave permission for the song to be the bid anthem

The winning city is being announced at 7.25pm this Thursday 15th July live on BBC's "The One Show".

I'll be broadcasting live from Derry for a specially extended "Arts Extra" on Thursday night to capture the moments before and after.