An UnLimited Media Bulletin
Thursday 17 July 2014

PAUL REID: BLACK CULTURAL ARCHIVES
This month the Black Cultural Archives will open a fantastic new £7m heritage centre in Brixton to house its extensive collection of artefacts and, to celebrate, next week sees a launch event take place hosted by Henry Bonsu, and featuring a host of singers, dancers and spoken word artists, as well as some academic speakers.

Paul Reid has been the director of the Black Cultural Archives since 2006. I spoke to him about the Archives, and what we can expect from the new centre, its role in education, and the part it can play in bringing about better representation for Black culture. Read the interview here.

The Black Cultural Archives Heritage Centre, Windrush Square, has its launch event on 24 Jul from 3pm, and will thereafter be open from Tuesday-Sunday from 10.00am until 6.00pm.

FRIDAY 18 JULY 2014 >>
COMEDY: Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall – Success Arms | Soho Theatre | 18-19 Jul
Though his name sounds like that of an anxious Scottish aristocrat, Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall is in fact a Canadian-Australian with 'attitude'. The UK debutante's solo show du jour finds him doing a lot of jokes about things that are grim, but "in a fun way!". So take that as you will. Details and tickets here.

MUSIC/FESTIVAL: Lovebox | Victoria Park | 18-19 Jul (pictured)
With a whirlwind of acts playing live all day (and later, heading on to play parties after dark), this year's Lovebox weekend is blessed with twice the headliners in Chase & Status, MIA, Nas and A$AP Rocky, with the slightly lesser-billed (yet still very kissable) likes of Katy B, Bonobo, Banks, The Horrors, Duke Dumont, Mount Kimbie and Annie Mac also due to light up the two-day line-up. Details here.

THEATRE/FESTIVAL: InTransit Festival | various locations, Kensington + Chelsea | 18-27 Jul
A sprinkling of live art and performance taking place in the city's SW7 areas, InTransit is this year directed by 'immersive design' firm O'Neill/Ross, who've chosen shows like avant-dance work 'Flock', kids' physical theatre piece 'The Little Witch', and 'Salvage City', an installation space/hideaway based on city living. Details and tickets here.
SATURDAY 19 JULY 2014 >>


DANCE: Mummenschanz – Musicians Of Silence | Peacock Theatre | 19-29 Jul (pictured)
Reprising their well recieved show 'Musicians Of Silence' in this, their 40th year of activity; playful Deutsche dance co Mummenschanz use mime, masks, props, light-dark illusions and, um, lots of loo rolls to build a wordless world of possibilities. Details and tickets here.

MUSIC: Love Motown! w/ Jazz Jamaica All-Stars | Southbank Centre | 19 Jul
Big-voiced Beverley Skeete and soul man Noel McKoy lead a 32-piece reggae band and 200-man Voicelab choir in this Jazz Jamaica All Stars live special, singing and playing the greatest hits of Motown's golden age. Details and tickets here.

THEATRE: Frankenstein – UnBolted | Leicester Square Theatre | 19-20 Jul
"Gloriously silly" British skit-kings Last Chance Saloon give a 'Carry On'-style comic shock to classic horror 'Frankenstein', splicing grotesque pop songs into Mary Shelley's story of a mad doctor and his anarchic lab monster. Details and tickets here.
SUNDAY 20 JULY 2014 >>


COMEDY: Bill Bailey – Qualm Peddler | Kew Gardens | 20 Jul
So grass-roots he even has a carnivorous plant named after him, down-to-earth oddball Bill Bailey heads to Kew Gardens' Kew The Music fest to do as nature intended; think up genius surprise mashups, strange twists on pop music tropes and funny stories highlighting exactly how baffling modern life really is. Details and tickets here.

KIDS' SHOW: Uluzuzulalia | Artsdepot | 20 Jul (pictured)
A 'voice playground' for kids guided by funny creatures in which it's fine to get a little loud, Your Vivacious Voice's 'Uluzuzulalia' invites families to create vocal tornados, howl with wolves, beatbox AND dance at the same time, invent magic spells, and blow colour bubbles. Details and tickets here.

THEATRE: 17 | Finborough Theatre | 20-29 Jul
In a world's first airing at the Finborough, this class-divisons-based drama by Liverpool's Dameon Garnett centres on teen boy Scott, who finds himself trying to fit in with a new middle-class family, and his estranged birth mum, after his adoptive mother dies. Details and tickets here.
MONDAY 21 JULY 2014 >>
COMEDY: Hurt And Anderson – Bringing Sketchy Back | Canal Cafe Theatre | 21 Jul
The ThreeWeeks-deemed "next Mitchell and Webb", girl-girl caperers Hurt And Anderson are 'Bringing Sketchy Back' – like the J-Timberlakes of imaginative skit-based stand-up. Details and tickets here.

DANCE: The Royal Ballet – Cubanía | Royal Opera House | 21-23 Jul (pictured)
Herculean ballet man Carlos Acosta headlines this mixed bill celebrating the dance styles and rhythms of his native Cuba. The programme features premieres by Russell Maliphant and Edwaard Liang, and Acosta's own work 'Tocoroco Suite', in which he stars alongside dance group the Danza Contemporanea de Cuba. Details and tickets here.

MUSIC: Julia Holter + Ocitrop + Karen Gwyer | St-John-At-Hackney | 21 Jul
LA-based alt-classical lady Julia Holter relays her elegant, 'Gigi'-inspired new LP, 'Loud City Song', in this latest show to slot into 2014′s storied St John Sessions. Holter waits till last to play, following sets by site-specific synth trio Ocitrop and disco collagist Karen Gwyer. Details and tickets here.
TUESDAY 22 JULY 2014 >>


COMEDY: David Elms – Nurture Boy | Battersea Arts Centre | 22 Jul (pictured)
'Thoughtful romantic' and victor of the 2014 Musical Comedy Awards David Elms whispers it from the rooftops in this, his debut solo show, a giftbasket of songs, surprises and 'big gestures'. Details and tickets here.

COMEDY: Simon Munnery Sings Søren Kierkegaard | Battersea Arts Centre | 22 Jul
Although still working on his new solo show - an intriguing-on-paper study of the various writings of Danish deep-thinker Kierkegaarde - pre the Edinburgh Fringe, olde tyme comedy kook Simon Munnery is nevertheless previewing it tonight. Isn't he kind? Details and tickets here.

MUSIC: Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars | Shacklewell Arms | 22 Jul
A band of musicians displaced to Guinea during the Sierra Leone Civil War, the eight All-Stars have since scaled the globe, playing a mix of reggae, 'world' and earthy African music, and backing humanitarian causes. Details and tickets here.
WEDNESDAY 23 JULY 2014 >>


THEATRE: A Bright Room Called Day | Southwark Playhouse | 23 Jul – 16 Aug
A shocking and provocative (and Pulitzer-winning) drama from Tony Kushner, 'A Bright Room Called Day' examines the 'darkest reaches' of the human heart, honing in on a group of artists and communists living in Berlin in 1932. Having thrown a lavish party anticipating the new year, they are each made to choose between integrity and their desire to live as Germany begins to embrace Nazism. Details and tickets here.

THEATRE: The Nightmares Of Carlos Fuentes | Arcola Theatre | 23 Jul – 16 Aug
Rashid Razaq's blackly comical play gets its international premiere via ex-Tricycle Theatre AD Nicolas Kent (its director), who casts 'Top Boy' actor Nabil Elouahabi as an Iraqi man fleeing to England in search of his dream. Details and tickets here.

THEATRE: A Streetcar Named Desire | Young Vic | 23 Jul – 19 Sep (pictured)
Gillian Anderson is fragile and ageing siren Blanche DuBois, Ben Foster is the hard-edged, animalistic Stanley and Vanessa Kirby is Blanche's sister-in-the-middle Stella in Tennessee Williams' timeless triangular masterpiece. Benedict Andrews, still bathing in the Critics Circle Award-winning glow of 'Three Sisters', directs. Details and tickets here.
THURSDAY 24 JULY 2014 >>


MUSICAL: The Legacy | Leicester Square Theatre | 24 Jul
With story by Elaine Gray and lyrics by Phillip Short, 'The Legacy' is a story split between an East End jazz club in 1935 and a fashion design house situated on the same site 50 years later in 1985. Family and ghostly happenings link the two eras, with the music of each defining them. Details and tickets here.

MUSIC: The Chills | Tufnell Park Dome | 24 Jul (pictured)
As part of their first European tour since 1996, New Zealand indie quartet The Chills will be hitting London tour, one of only two shows in the UK. Part of the influential scene that revolved around NZ record label Flying Nun in the 1980s, it's set to be a very welcome return. Details and tickets here.

KIDS' SHOW: What The Ladybird Heard | Cadogan Hall | 24 Jul – 10 Aug
Award-winning children's book 'What The Ladybird Heard', written by Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks, will come to life on stage at Cadogan Hall, with a run starting today and lasting into August. Will Hefty Hugh and Lanky Len steal the farmer's cow, or will the ladybird foil their plans? You'll have to attend to find out. Details and tickets here.
 
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