Most people have heard of Union Chapel because of a band or artist that has performed there but Union Chapel is also a working church, it is also host to the Margins Project launched in 1995 in direct response to those entrenched in poverty and crisis asking for help and shelter in Islington, one of the poorest boroughs in the country. Food, clothing and at times, emergency accommodation are provided by the Margins Project team, as well as practical support to help people break out of the cycle of despair and rebuild their lives. A Sunday ‘Drop‐in Service’ with up to 160 people coming every week to access services including a hot meal, showers, laundry facilities, warm clean clothing, toiletries and a haircutting service, alongside workshops and classes, enable people to move forward in a practical and positive way. In support of this work, between October 18th and 22nd, the Union Chapel will host it’s fourth annual campaign of exciting events with ALL proceeds going to the project:

‘Marginalised’ is a fantastically entertaining and engaging annual festival of events with music, art, comedy, talks, childrens workshops and discussions – all celebrating the breadth and the best of arts events at the Union Chapel. For the artists taking part, it’s an opportunity to present a unique one‐off event in an incredibly atmospheric venue. Some previous artists have chosen to work with the themes of marginalisation and homelessness. Some have incorporated visual elements. The brief is open. This year, the programme will build on the artistic legacy of past Marginalised festivals that have featured performances by Max Richter, Michael Nyman, David McAlmont, Gavin Bryars, UNKLE & Heritage Orchestra and the North Sea Radio Orchestra.

First events now on sale for the fourth annual Marginalised campaign 18th – 22nd October 2011. All proceeds will go to the Margins Project

Tues. 18th October – 5×15   Tickets

Five speakers, fifteen minutes each. True stories of passion, obsession and adventure recounted live with just two rules: no scripts and only fifteen minutes each.

• John Bird – on twenty years of the Big Issue
• Franny Armstrong – on her work as inspirational film maker and environmental activist
• Daisy Goodwin – on her passion for poetry
• Patrick and Henry Cockburn -  on Henry’s demons and living with schizophrenia

Thurs. 20th October – David Lean’s Classic 1948 film ‘Oliver Twist’ Tickets

Marginalised 2011 presents a special screening of the 1948 David Lean classic ‘Oliver Twist’

Based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist is about an orphan boy who runs away from a workhouse and meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. Oliver is taken in by the pickpocket and he joins a household of young boys who are trained to steal for their master. This version of Oliver Twist is topped by Alec Guinness’s masterly performance of arch-thug Fagin. Restaurant and bar open from 6.30pm

Fri. 21st October   Tickets

Live performance of the ‘Midnight Cowboy’ soundtrack

Arranged and performed by Stephen Ellis with the Space Marching Band

As soon as you hear those first memorable descending notes of the harmonica theme you’re immediately transported back into the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy. But the soundtrack  is perhaps also best most known for the pop success of Harry Nilsson’s rendition of Fred Neil’s ‘Everybody’s Talkin’, which has been covered by over 100 different artists. The soundtrack also featured the widely disparate sounds of B.J. Thomas, Elephant’s Memory, and even early Warren Zevon all drawn together masterfully by John Barry’s elegant title track and  a further handful of cues. Barry’s offerings seem to have had the most far-reaching impact on modern music – Faith No More notably covered and championed the main title track.

Stephen Ellis is the singer and songwriter for London band REVERE, who transport Barry’s plaintiff sound into their frequent use of reed organs and melodicas to contribute to something both mournful and universally epic. In honour of John Barry’s sad passing earlier this year, Stephen has set himself the not too small task of bringing this particular soundtrack to life on the Union Chapel stage.  It is an arena Ellis is all too familiar with having played sell-out shows here with REVERE and his other musical interest Gabby Young & Other Animals twice before. This evening’s performance will be arranged for and performed by a special expanded ensemble including members of REVERE alongside some specially chosen guests. The performance will also include in addition homage to some of John Barry’s other great film music.

The ensemble features members of Revere, Age of Not Believing Orchestra, Magic Lantern, The Unrecorded, Jess Bryant, The Howling Dog Choir, Strangled Brass and other special guests.

John Barry was a hugely influential English film score composer who died earlier this year at the age of 77. He is best known for composing 11 James Bond soundtracks and over  a career spanning almost 50 years, Barry received numerous awards for his work, including five Academy Awards; two for Born Free, and one each for The Lion in Winter (for which he also won a BAFTA Award), Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves (for which he also won a Grammy Award) and Somewhere in Time (1980) (Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score – Motion Picture).

Links

http://www.unionchapel.org.uk/pages/margins.html

Sideshow is an exhibition of drawings and poetry by Will Burns and Jason Butler exploring the lives of the people in and around the fairgrounds and penny gaffs of an older England; the transformative effect of the carnival, voyeurism and the human body as a commodity of display. Jersey based artist Jason Butler’s ink drawings present the myriad of personalities to be found in circus’, fairgrounds and carnivals, from strongmen, bearded women, strippers, and exotic oddities, while Will Burns’ poetry gives voice to the faces, creating a dream-like vision of English show-business’ colourful and murky past.

Don’t miss out on this unique preview event at Roughtrade this Thursday 21st April @ 7pm featuring an edited selection of Jason Butler’s drawings from the exhibition, a specially curated list of books and CDs that helped inspire the work, and live music on the opening night with a poetry reading from Will Burns.

Jason Butler

Jason Butler is a professional artist based in Jersey, Channel Islands and has most recently had work exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery.

‘The drawings seen in ‘Sideshow’ form a part of a large body of work produced over several years. Featuring figures proudly displaying their idiosyncrasies – attention seekers, voyeurs, hobbyists, exhibitionists – the response of the viewer to these images is of major interest to me. I am fascinated at how the simple act of making marks on paper, using what is in most cases fairly benign imagery, can cause such diverse reactions.’

Will Burns

Will Burns was born in London in 1980 and raised in Buckinghamshire. He formed the band Treecreeper with his brother in 2005 with whom he has released two studio albums. As a writer, his work focuses on intimate portraits of the kind of semi-rural life he grew up with, imbuing the lost, lonely figures on the fringes of middle-England with dignity, hope and life.

MP3: Treecreeper – Last Days
Buy album: Juniper

One Hundred Horsepower

by Will Burns

In the village, we never knew or used

his real name. We were children

and we called him Hundred Horsepower.

I had given the name to the others

and heard it from my mother, who,

describing him as a much younger man

told me of his ability to hurl

the Waltzers round at incredible speed.

Then, years later, every time the Fair

came through and set up on the manor waste,

he walked along each morning, early,

and did his day’s work into the evening.

He still knew all the men,

and his boys – who did not attend our school -

knew all the boys. Boys who while

the Fair was there, could have their pick

tanned and topless and with dirty fingernails.

But when the rides and engines had packed up,

leaving behind only bleached shapes

in the grass, and moved on,

he and his boys shrank back into the margins

of the town, and the little row of houses

in which they lived. Pursued always

by ugly whispers.

When: Thursday 21st April 2011 @ 7pm (no wristband required, just come on down)
Where: Rough Trade East
‘Dray Walk’
Old Truman Brewery
91 Brick Lane
London
E1 6QL

T: 020 7392 7788

Links

http://sideshowstories.wordpress.com
Roughtrade
Will Burns
Jason Butler

I mentioned a little while ago (on facebook) that I was going to be featuring an occasional piece on venues that offer something a bit different and unique. The first place to catch my eye was The Rude Shipyard run by Pete David and Sally Smith in Sheffield. It’s a cafe/bookshop and the sort of place I’d love to have on my doorstep! In their own words:

The Rude Shipyard is a cafe/bookshop run by Pete David and Sally Smith on the offbeat Abbeydale Road in Sheffield. Cloistered around us are antique shops, Italian and Indian restaurants, hardware shops, cafes, an old picture palace and florists aplenty! What makes Abbeydale Rd exciting is that it has never attracted big chains and there is a wonderfully independent spirit to the way shops are conceived and run.

We’re situated between the main set of shops on Abbeydale Road and the Asian restaurants of London Road further towards town. Being slightly set apart has its advantages and disadvantages but it seems to suit us well enough as people have adopted us fairly quickly. May is our 1st birthday and although its been a tremendous amount of hard work, we’re delighted to not only still be trading, but to have attracted so many people into our humble shop.

As well as selling books and food, we also have a regular open mic poetry night called The Shipping Forecast, a monthly book fair, a book club on the last Thursday of every month, and a spattering of gigs that go on in our upstairs room. Acts who’ve played here include Little Robots, Flamingo Love Parade, Men Diamler (pictured above), Mark Wynn, Carl Woodford, The Yellowbellys, Neil McSweeney, Fernhill, Art Terry, Leila Adu, Cuckoo Clocks, Antique Doll, Tom Rodwell, Tom Baxendale, Big Eyes Family Players, and many more I can’t recall right now! To celebrate our first birthday, we’ve got some very exciting gigs. On Sunday 9th May, blues-country stompers Groanbox will be performing from their latest album, The Livingston Sessions, on the back of a four star review in The Guardian. Then on Thursday 13th May, Men Diamler returns to us with his irreverent spirituals and west country field hollers, with support from country picker, Mark Wynn. A week later, on 20th May, a literary cabaret troupe make their way down form Edinburgh with poetry, spoken work, bluegrass and country music and a paper cinema all on the bill! We round things off with a good ol’ fashioned party on 22nd May. Everyone’s welcome and the mic is open for folks to bring a song, story or snippet of something special to our stage.

Future gigs include alt. folksters Rachael Dadd and Alessi’s Ark (July 15th), and the French kitsch pop band, Odland (July 11th), as well as hosting Sheffield City Magicians for an amazing night of magic. We’ll also be involved again in the city-wide Tramlines music festival, with gigs happening all over the city, including The Rude Shipyard. So far, we’ve got Flamingo Love Parade, Big Eyes Family Players and Neil McSweeney confirmed.

In June, as part of the Sharrow Fringe Festival, we’ll be running a Flash Fiction day, in which customers get to to write short stories in the day and read them to an audience in the evening. Then in October, we’ll be getting involved in the Literature festival, Off The Shelf. Details of all our events can be found on the website.

Pete
The Rude Shipyard
0114 2589653
www.therudeshipyard.com

If you’re in the area folks, pay them a visit and if you’re not…make a trip! This place sounds like a dream come true. Built on passion!

The London Word Festival is a pioneering, annual celebration of words, text and language; daring in its approach to cross-artform programming, commissioning new work and exploring non-traditional spaces. Although this festival started on the 1st March, it contines until 1st April with three more events to run (see below)

Established in 2007 and based in London’s vibrant East End, the Festival has featured a wide range of artists from the fields of music, literature, comedy, theatre and live art.

They have paired cult US slam poet Saul Williams with spoken word hip-hop duo dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip; they’ve transformed a medieval tower in Hackney into a ghostly sound field with leftfield author Iain Sinclair; they’ve premiered Edward Larrikin’s first play in a Victorian music hall, instigated collaborative ballad printing in Stoke Newington, and conducted stand-up experiments in live blogging. Their 2009 commission Inua Ellams’ The 14th Tale won an Edinburgh Fringe First and transferred to the National Theatre in February 2010.

Founded by Tom Chivers, Sam Hawkins and Marie McPartlin on a shoe-string budget but with a lot of good will, in 2009 the Festival received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Breakthrough Award. We work out of a nineteenth-century workshop in Shoreditch with no running water and pigeons the size of small dogs.

From 2009: Phill Jupitus and Tim Wells

Iain Sinclair: Hackney Ascension Day

Events

Sun 28 Mar

LEAFCUTTER JOHN: BRIGGFLATTS REWIRED
+ Peter Finch
+ MacGillivray
+ Hannah Silva

Stoke Newington International Airport | £6.50 adv / £8 door | 7pm

“Brag, sweet tenor bull…”
Intrepidly inventive folk, jazz and electronic musical inventor Leafcutter John decodes epic Modernist poem Briggflatts for the digital century in a brand new commission.
Briggflatts Rewired takes Basil Bunting’s extraordinary and intensely musical poem as the starting point for a new, electronically-enhanced composition. In an event that explores the interplay between sound, voice [...]

Full details & tickets

Wed 31 Mar

THE ART OF STORYTELLING
Terry Saunders’ ‘Six and a Half Loves’
+ Matthew Robins
+ The Chip Shop Poem by Ian McMillan with the Henningham Family Press
+ The Tree of Lost Things
+ more tbc

St Leonard’s Church | £8 adv, £10 door | 8pm

They say the art of the story is in the telling. But a little help from friends never went amiss. A coterie of skilled and award-winning yarn-spinners augment their narratives with puppets, cartoons, gift-tags from the audience and a live printing press.
Critically acclaimed comedian, storyteller and hopeless romantic Terry Saunders premieres his brand new Six [...]

Full details & tickets

Thu 1 Apr

PLAY ON WORDS
John Hegley
+ Found in Translation
+ Barbican Young Poets

Barbican Art Gallery | FREE | 7pm

We help celebrate another side of legendary London architect and visionary artist Ron Arad. For the industrial design maverick, inventor of the SMS displaying Swarovski Crystal chandelier, is also a word fanatic. In this special event in conjunction with Barbican Art Gallery’s retrospective, eccentric comic wordsmith John Hegley performs a selection of poems inspired by [...]

Full details & tickets

Links: London Word Festival

I got this wonderful message this morning from Alan O’Leary of Copperplate: Thought I would share this beautiful heartbreakingly sad poem of Dermot Bolgers with you all.

I am reminded of my first sighting of Seamus Ennis in the 70’s.

He was booked to play at The Chariot Inn in Ranelagh and was introduced, while he was tackling up the talking got louder and didn’t diminish during his first set of reels. Seamus stopped playing and announced “my contract for this evening does not include providing background music for your conversations, goodnight”. And off he went!

Seamus Ennis in Drumcondra by Dermot Bolger

I see him leave that flat we shared
And walk down Home Farm Road,
Black coat buttoned against the wind,
A countryman’s hat pulled down,
And in his hand a battered case,
Containing the set of uilleann pipes
Found in fragments by his father
In a sack in a London pawnshop:
A jigsaw nobody could piece together
A hundred years after they were crafted
By Coyne of Thomas Street in Dublin.

He carries his case like a secret dossier
That no passer-by could decode
As he boards a bus into the city,
Unnoticed among the evening hordes.
Times are hard, our flat threadbare,
He survives on tins of steak and kidney pie,
On meals that he cooks at odd hours,
When he tells yarns and truly comes alive.
There is rent to pay, a meter to be fed,
Afternoon visits to the local launderette
Nights of wind rattling the rotting windows,
When he spreads his coat over his bed.

This is the price of making music,
Of living the life for which he was born,
He is on his way that night to perform
For little pay to a meagre audience
In the back room of a Dublin pub,
With a television blaring in the lounge.

Ignoring the jarring cash register,
Three dozen people sit, transfixed,
By a set of reels learned from his father
Interlaced with grace notes and tricks
Picked up from pipers who are ghosts,
Who died recorded only by himself,
Who never learnt music, wrote nothing down,
But carried the tunes in their minds,
Knowing that with their own deaths
Dozens of nameless reels would also die.
Ennis plays with due respect for the dead,
In his one good suit, a white shirt and tie.

From “The Frost is All Over‘,
a collaborative performance of music and poetry, which was staged this weekend in Dun Laoghaire, with poetry by Dermot Bolger and music by two of Ireland’s master musicians, Tony McMahon (who shared a flat with Ennis in Drumcondra) and David Power

Dermot Bolger

To get Alan O’Leary’s fine Irish Music podcast just visit here: http://alanoleary.libsyn.com/