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Get ready to shout!- some highlights.

Birmingham’s always been a place for stirring up a bit of trouble, a bit of controversy, enjoying a frisson of something a little bit special from Joseph Priestley defending the revolutionaries in France and having to flee the city to The Winterval Debacle to the decision to take away our HP sauce and make it somewhere else. I love how Birmingham opens it’s heart to everyone who visits the city and gives them a warm welcome. I love it’s arts scene, it’s creative community and the city has (another) long tradition of innovation in the arts. I’m quite excited about a new Arts festival that’s about to spread out over the whole city & take over. SHOUT is a festival of LGBT art, music, dance, theatre and sport. It also has a dollop of political and community activity. (There is literally something for everyone and if you can’t see something that doesn’t stir an emotion you need to check your pulse) The festival has come about through a number of key partnerships between the LGBT community, arts organisations and lots of dedicated volunteers and they’ve pulled together a really diverse and exciting programme. For full listings of events you...

Created in Birmingham – Cluedo

Add this to the list of things I didn’t know about Birmingham. The awesome game Cluedo was created right here in Birmingham and it celebrates it’s 60th Birthday this year. Read the Birmingham Post’s coverage. ==Update== Following some discussion on the twitter it’s generally felt that Mr Pratt, who invented Cluedo, deserves recognition by the local Civic Society and the Broad Street Walk of Fame. Following my attempts to get John Wyndham on the Walk of Fame I’d like to offer my support to getting the inventor of Cluedo on the walk of fame. I’d like to see Anthony Pratt get a star on the Birmingham Walk of Stars on Broad Street (he’s created something that’s in the homes of millions of people, he’s given us hours of pleasure, so lets give something back). So far the walk of fame has celebrated four football related stars (either for teams or individuals), three musicians, two comedians and a radio soap opera, a sports commentator, a radio actor and Julie Walters. All deserving in their ways but I’d like your help to get a well deserving creative genius onto the walk of stars. Here’s what you need to do: 1) Go to the Walk...

“Birmingham Gateway” have your say.

When you say “Birmingham Gateway” to me I have a vision of looming gates halfway between something from King Kong and the Swords of Qādisīyah, also called the Hands of Victory which stand in Baghdad. The truth, as always, is far less dramatic than the stuff that goes on in my head. Following on neatly from the awesome find by Karen’s Mum at a car boot sale the council are asking for people to have their say on the proposal for the new “gateway” where New Street Station currently sits. The online questionnaire is available 12th – 23rd October 2009 by clicking ‘have your say’ on http://www.newstreetnewstart.co.uk. The exhibition will be available on the station concourse at the following times: Thursday 15th October – 10am-7pm Friday 16th October – 10am-7pm Saturday 17th October – 10am-1.30pm Make sure that you take this chance to let the people who’re running the project hear what you think.

Birmingham Book Festival

The Birmingham Book Festival is happening at the moment (it runs till the 29th of October at various venues around the city). I’m a big fan of books, I like the look of them, the smell of a new book or a book that’s been loved & cared for. I once even confessed to suffering from a “fake syndrome” called Fictonecrosis (also know as bibliophagia). Some highlights that made me drool: David Edgar- How Plays Work. 13th October. 7.30pm. Birmingham Conservatoire. David Edgar is a leading Birmingham based playwright, best known for his political plays (Pentecost- at the RSC, Albert Speer at the National Theatre and, last year, Testing the Echo at the Birmingham Rep). This event celebrates his new book, How Plays Work, which offers an insight into the process of a playwright. Writing the Archers. 27th October 7pm. Birmingham Conservatoire. I’d be deeply shocked if this hasn’t already sold out, but I’m prepared to offer it as a suggestion in the hope that it’s still available. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last 60 years and haven’t heard of The Archers, it’s a weekday radio drama set in the fictional farming community of Ambridge. It’s a...

How I got here or “Please, give me hell”.

Hello, my name is Benji and I’ll be your host for the coming week. It’s been suggested to give me “hell” by Jon, I’m sure you’ll not want to disappoint. My first visit to Birmingham was at the age of eight or nine years old, my family were involved in running a church in Wiltshire and we came to visit a famous preacher (I can’t remember which one) who was speaking in the city. Memories linger of the old Bull Ring, markets & vivid inner city smells. Fast-forward ten years, I’ve left the leafy town of Calne, Wiltshire, the home I grew up in and was settling into life in Canterbury. My parents had always joked that as the final child to leave home they’d ring up and tell me they’d moved but not tell me where. I think this joke traumatised me slightly, I’ve always been fearful of coming home and finding everything I own having vanished from my flat or coming home and discovering someone has stolen my front door. Keys have a strange significance to me and my next thing I want to own, having collected a front door, washing machine and sofa, is a set...

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Get ready to shout!- some highlights.

Created in Birmingham – Cluedo

“Birmingham Gateway” have your say.

Birmingham Book Festival

How I got here or “Please, give me hell”.

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