In July 2016 Byron burgers called a fake meeting about cooking burgers for their staff at multiple London branches so that Home Office immigration enforcement could arrest 35 people.
the energy spent trying to solve the problem of class in the arts by figuring out who is and isn’t working class by markers that will never be discrete or reliable would be more usefully spent on banning private schools and abolishing landlordism
"it's the playwrights" "it's the boards" "it's the management" "it's the programming" "it's the artists" "it's the audiences" pls can we FOCUS! it's the government!!!!
my dad died and then a week later my son was born and now a week later it’s my first mother’s day, and this is my with-sympathy-it’s-a-boy-happy-mother’s-day mantelpiece. it’s hard, and beautiful, and i feel very loved and in love.
Rishi Sunak is preparing to “wean” businesses and workers off the government’s furloughing scheme by cutting wage subsidies amid concerns that the nation has become “addicted”
this is a really good read. i don’t know anyone for whom coming back hasn’t been a shock to the system. i had to write this to myself when i was in tech so i’d stop beating myself up -
i just....a really oddly emotional encounter just came out of an ebay local sale?? i bought a beautiful rug (now my most treasured possession) very cheaply bc i was the only one the bid, and the man came round 15 mins after to drop it off. we told him we'd just moved in
this one tutor i had always seemed so pissed off and disengaged and basically it turned out he’d been told to teach a postcolonial literature seminar bc he was brown and his specialism was early printing presses lol
I’m just a woman, standing in front of a whole load of PhD applicants, begging them to PLEASE PLEASE STOP ASSUMING I HAVE EXPERTISE IN POSTCOLONIAL THEORY JUST BECAUSE I HAVE A MUSLIM NAME
the power of cutting off all your hair is so strong, i’ve been so fatigued and grumpy all week and now i feel like i could do a triathlon, start a commune, write a symphony, i’m unstoppable
i asked a girl on the tube where her dress was from, she said she didn't know, turned around and told me to check the label, ours will be a spring wedding
it's time for theatres/arts orgs to speak up, even if it has to be anonymously, about the censorship that's been ramping up over the last few yrs under the charity commission. first time i was asked to change my work bc of an org's charity status was 2018. wasn't the last.
Culture secretary Oliver Dowden has also summoned 25 of the UK's biggest heritage bodies and charities to a summit on Feb 23 where they will be told "to defend our culture and history from the noisy minority of activists constantly trying to do Britain down”.
weird to insult greta thunberg by calling her a 'prophetess', given that in most stories about prophetesses, they are women who give dire warnings, are called crazy, and are ultimately proved catastrophically right
as we were thanking him for his generosity he dipped into the car, put a large panetonne in my hands and said 'and merry christmas', nodded tightly, got back in the car and drove away. we were both suddenly really tearful
saw a tweet last night that was like “libraries are all gone” + yes they’ve been decimated. but part of austerity is making us expect less + not ask for what’s available. libraries are still there and they’re great and we can + should use them
@AmarDeepSinghD
+ i saw a lot of comments about “incomprehensible” elements of sunak’s campaign that were actually aimed directly at uk hindutva sympathisers
completely serious, if one of you happens to put me one degree away from ralph fiennes then pls do put us in touch. very happy to talk with him about the usefulness of warnings from the perspective of a theatre director who has ptsd.
“When I was young we never had trigger warnings for shows”
Actor Ralph Fiennes “the impact of theatre should be that you’re shocked” and that he thinks audiences have gone too soft
#BBCLauraK
augury update: it rained all day and then at 9pm immediately after our first dance a perfect rainbow appeared over the allotment clubhouse as the sun was setting opposite
threats of cuts are never a cause for celebration imo. imagine an alternative in which the headline was arts bodies given extra funding specifically for increasing diversity? money for free tickets? this somehow feels like a way to blame austerity on marginalised artists
BIG >> Channel 4 has just announced that Jamie Oliver will be presenting a series of teatime shows, for six weeks, with easy-to-follow recipes that people can follow along with at home.
“Jamie: Keep Cooking and Carry On” starts Monday.
@matttrueman
!!! what bodies "signify" is unstable and depends on ppls natural biases. the way they write about that signification can reinforce structural inequality and should be countered. this article obviously did not say "don't write about what bodies mean on stage" come onnnn
this was my professional debut in opera and we've won the critics' circle award for outstanding achievement in opera!! lovely to reflect on that little garden full of extraordinary music and people 💛
i did it. i didn't know if it could be done, and yes i began the day feeling nervous, but here we are. full cooked breakfast and TWO SUCCESSIVE christmas dinners in different households inc. puddings and cheese. a hero, a champion, an incredible feat of athleticism
i handed in my MA and am a free elf !! absolutely psyched to write a to-do list that for the first time since 2015 doesn't optimistically say "write dissertation" at the top, peace out ✨
i just went for what the kids are calling a silly little mental health walk, and i saw two friends excitedly run up to the board and, when i walked past like a weird poem spy, one was reading it aloud to the other 😭 best day of my life. a miracle.
ok i've been at west yorkshire playhouse for 5 mins and i already love it. paid £2 for a sausage sandwich, heads up theatres w expensive outsourced cafes/restaurants where your artists can't afford to eat
@TheStage
@sarahditum
woman here 👋🏽 not angry at all about the old vic's perfectly comprehensible refurb, but definitely angry about your willingness to amplify anti-trans nonsense
Announcing our 2022–23 opera season! Read all about it »
Brand new productions, returning audience favourites, concert stagings and 🔥 collaborations with
@southasianartuk
and
@PhoenixLeeds
.
#ON2223
last year the tree in the garden of my childhood home fell down and bc i am extremely sentimental i asked for some slices of it, and now ethan is making them into chopping boards !! 🌳💕
Listening to the lovely bells of Winchester, one of our great mediaeval cathedrals. So much nicer than the aggressive-sounding “Allahu Akhbar.” Or is that just my cultural upbringing?
Eton College has a 401 seat theatre, 2 separate studio spaces n puts on 20 productions a yr
Tom Hiddleston n Eddie Redmayne were in an adaptation of EM Forster’s A Passage to India at Eton
my school didnt offer GCSE Drama cos they couldnt afford a teacher and had no facilities
if you feel uncomfortable bc silence is complicity and speaking is hypocrisy and you can't win, this isn't a winning matter. be uncomfortable. (@ theatres whose justification for gratuitous or oppressive material is often that 'theatre should disturb/discomfort')
@matttrueman
then why make this point in response to this article instead of talking about it on your own time? using this as a platform for a completely different discussion derails and silences her point about how women's bodies have historically been the only signifier at their disposal.
i didn’t have any netting to protect my fruit bushes from the birds but i did have a roll of net curtain so here is me and my beautiful gooseberry bush bride
good evening to anyone who has also just sat down to look back over 2021 and been hit by a wave of grief upon realising that someone you love was alive and then not alive anymore in the space of this year. just hello to you, and same
every week i go for a fry-up at the cafe on the corner and i just found out that at 2pm they switch over the radio station, stop serving the menu and it becomes a word-of-mouth-only iranian restaurant, it's ONNNNNNN
front-facing camera comedians it's time, i just woke up and i'm ready to watch approx 100 identical videos of ppl being the person who works at four seasons total landscaping
i cannot post the video but today in rehearsals our movement director Yami taught us all the routine to baby one more time and i’ve never felt so alive
Take a peek inside the rehearsal room of Ava Wong Davies's Graceland, opening this week in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.
9 Feb - 11 Mar
Get your tickets:
📸Ali Wright
once tried to negotiate an assisting job bc £200 on the fee would’ve made it living wage (and the theatre’s website mentioned being a living wage employer). anyway they said no lol, so i didn’t get the gig. but! next time they advertised for an assistant, it was living wage 😎
edward bond's legacy is absolutely monumental. he cared so deeply about justice, about young people, about the meaning of drama. his work is always in my work and i'm so lucky to have encountered him as a young person. a giant, a philosopher, a standard to hold ourselves up to.
was explaining to someone this week that working in theatre rn feels like being a cartoon character who's running across a bridge that's collapsing behind them. if you're lucky
i wrote a poem called "chomp chomp chomp" about what allena hansen's reddit AMA taught me about surviving, and it won a prize + is being published in this anthology!! in equal measures surprised and grateful 💛🐻
“you may bring a pram or pushchair on the train as long as it’s folded and stowed away Like Any Other Piece Of Luggage” right yes but with any other piece of luggage i can leave the contents inside during that process?? where exactly do i put the baby while i am doing this
the reason a bunch of ppl inc me started growing food/ baking bread/making things for the first time during lockdown wasn't bc of encouraging initiatives or free courses or some kind of moral superiority. the information about how to do these things is out there. it's just time.
sugar rush is streaming on channel 4 !! we're going full 2005 baby! such a shame we'll never know what the tv series was based on but we can enjoy it nevertheless!
i thought nothing would top last year’s bin le creuset but i just found THIS on the street, i nearly walked past it cos i assumed it was just the cardboard box wtf