Houses of straw
Tariffs meet fairy tales. The big bad wolf. Again. https://tonyearnshaw.substack.com/p/houses-of-straw
Hearts for the Arts
We’re thrilled to learn that Mole Valley Arts E-Live festival 2020 has been shortlisted in the National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) Hearts for the Arts Awards, which are to be announced on Valentine’s Day! Tony has a long association with the annual Mole Valley Arts Alive festival, and had two hugely successful events in Arts E-Live […]
Shades of Grey
I’ve been thinking about black, white and grey recently. Not black and white as in race and certainly not shades of grey as in 50, but more a concern about polarisation. I took the photo above this morning and took the colour out to make it ‘black and white’. Except it isn’t. Rather, it is […]
Arts Alive becomes Arts E-Live
Arts Alive is back – in a different form, as most festivals are this year. At Damn Cheek we’ve now participated in Buxton Fringe and the Saltaire Festival with on line productions and it’s good to be able to add Arts Alive to the list. Three festivals we have existing relationships with, three festivals where […]
Venues, grand and otherwise
From the pub to the convent Over the last few weeks I’ve been involved in a number of performances in a bewildering range of venues. Poetry readings in pubs, my latest play in a National Trust property, choral Dvorak in a 14th century convent (pictured) and jazz under the watchful eye of Yehudi Menuhin. That’s […]
Surrey Unearthed – and Dorking Talking
Surrey Poetry and Summer heat It was a hot evening on Monday and the 38 people crammed into Narnia didn’t make it feel any cooler as Mole Valley Poets unveiled their latest anthology. Narnia? The back room of the Old House pub in Dorking, so named because you enter through the wardrobe. There were no […]
Undersong
Immersive experiences We were treated to a rare immersive experience recently, beneath the dome of St Marks Church, Kennington. 50 of us sat in a group, within a circle as 10 singers sang round us, over us, among us. They sang together, individually, with each other and at each other. They sang while sitting, standing, […]
Arts Alive
The brochures are here I’ve just picked up a supply of brochures for the annual Mole Valley arts festival – Arts Alive. The arrival of the brochures is a turning point in the summer for me. It reminds me that autumn is coming, it gives me key dates for the autumn diary, and it is an […]
Poems to Keep
image courtesy of bucaorg (Paul Burnett) and Flickr 1000 monkeys I went to a poetry event on Monday. Read some poems. In a pub. Nothing unusual in that, but this was a bit special as it was the launch of an anthology and all the readers were poets who had poems in the anthology. A wonderful mix […]
Looking forward – the planning conundrum
Photo courtesy of Yale Richmond; Creative Commons Spontaneous demonstrations A feature of some of the totalitarian societies which sprang up in the 20th century was the spontaneous demonstration in support of the leader, the party or the government. We were asked to believe that large numbers of people suddenly took into their heads to meet […]