A new voice for
the North East

Monday 21 October 2024
21/10/2024

Cultured.NE

Thriller is worth the wait

Anyone who tore through Steve Chambersโ€™ first thriller has had to wait quite a long time for his second โ€” 11 years, to be exact. Worth the wait, though, Iโ€™d say. The Dark Months, set mostly in rural Northumberland and full of tension and lethal skulduggery, is that publisherโ€™s dream, a page-turner. Thereโ€™s a precedent โ€ฆ

Why NOVUM festivalโ€™s no shrinking violet

It had to be a first. Never before, surely, within the beautiful debating chamber at Newcastle Civic Centre, has anybody raised the prospect of shrink-wrapping local residents. Feasibly it could have been mulled over as a punishment for some civic misdemeanour โ€” non-payment of council tax, perhaps, or serial bus lane infringement. It might even โ€ฆ

Culture digest

Theatre Royal box office on alert as the return of Sir Ian McKellen is announced Sir Ian McKellen once hailed Newcastle Theatre Royal his โ€˜favourite theatreโ€™ โ€“ so we can only imagine heโ€™s as happy as everyone else that heโ€™s returning to its stage later this year. A limited run of four performances on Player โ€ฆ

Conference brings writers together

A full house is expected for this yearโ€™s Newcastle Writing Conference for which tickets go on sale today (March 20). Writing may be a solitary activity but that doesnโ€™t mean all writers are solitary people. Grace Keane, senior programme manager at New Writing North, says itโ€™s been five years since the conference last took place. โ€ฆ

Silver Swan performs again on 250th anniversary

The shimmering centrepiece of a major museum is back in daily action for the first time in four years. The 250-year-old automaton Silver Swan at the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham, returned to its daily performance duties on Tuesday, March 19, after a lengthy conservation overhaul. And the swan project has been shortlisted โ€ฆ

The story of a different Billy Elliott

The true story of a young orphaned choirboy, whose scribbled plea to be remembered was found more than 100 years after he wrote it, will be told in a new BBC audio play. North East production company Sister Sounds have produced Williamโ€™s Castle which will be broadcast on Radio 4 on the afternoon of April โ€ฆ

Our enduring spirit of invention

About 15 years ago, I invented something which was pretty nifty. It was a piece of breastfeeding underwear which made every top a breastfeeding top, so new and  nursing mums could get back into their favourite clothes while keeping their postnatal tummy comfortably wrapped up*.  *Canโ€™t tell you how easily the marketing spiel just tripped โ€ฆ

Autism takes centre stage

As a parent of autistic children, writer Jill Franklin has spent many years seeing how they have been misunderstood while trying to find a way through systems which werenโ€™t built with them in mind. โ€œAs the saying goes, if youโ€™ve met one autistic person, youโ€™ve met one autistic person,โ€ she says talking about her award-winning โ€ฆ

Rayโ€™s stepping down in South Shieldsโ€ฆ Oh yes he is!

Theyโ€™re putting on a performance for Ray Spencer at The Customs House. Two, actually. No, waitโ€ฆ theyโ€™ve added a third. Correction: theyโ€™re putting on three performances of Celeb-RAY-tion at The Customs House this weekend, celebrating Rayโ€™s 25 years at the helm of the riverside arts centre he has steered through often choppy waters. Naturally, theyโ€™re โ€ฆ