what’s on

What’s Goin’ On

As Marvin Gaye sang it’s important to know what events are coming up in Brum – we’ve had a feed of upcoming‘s event listings in our sidebar for some time. To make sure there’s no chance of you missing anything tho’, we’ve done a yahoo pipes mashup that also adds listings from Birmingham Alive. You can get it here of course, or it’s direct RSS feed is here: What’s On In Brum. If you can think of any other listings feeds that should be added, drop us a line or add a comment.

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Puppetry of the puppets

Puppetry of the puppets

Dynamics Press Launch, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham : Originally uploaded by amyclarke_uk. These great huge things will be scaring the living heck out of small children over the weekend at the mac – as part of the two days of the Dynamics International puppet festival (that we’ve mentioned before). The Uncle Albert out of Fools and Horses look-alike is Kind Fiddle-Dee-Dee. A slightly smaller fella, Pépé (who does paintings lucky children), is appearing at the BBC in the Mailbox on Friday – should you have a marionettey-itch that won’t wait till Saturday.

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Will there be any sand left at the coast? Beach number three hits Brum

In a dazzling display of originality, Brummies will be able to relax and enjoy the sun on a man-made beach in Brindley Place this summer. Actually, they might have had this idea first, who knows, but if you haven’t had enough sand and acres of white flesh in the city centre by June 16th the RNLI is opening ‘Birmingham-on-sea’. It’ll feature, donkeys, Punch and Judy, and the bloody civic society (or Mike Whitby, or Bull Ring management) foaming at the mouth (probably).

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sax, but no THE – Town Hall reopens

I’ve just come back from a launch for the opening festival of The Town Hall, sorry Town Hall (what have modern corporate advertising agencies got against the definite article? That’s going to a- be ignored and b – sound so old in a year, no hang on it already does), and it sounds so good I can’t believe we’ve been without it for ten years. It does SOUND good as well, the acoustics were fantastic – we were treated to a song from Soweto Kinch‘s new album (great, but he looked like it was a bit early for him) and a barnstorming calypso (i think!) from the venerable Andy Hamilton and the Blue Notes. It’s now to be run together with Symphony Hall, which should mean that they can compliment rather than compete, and is certainly showing commitment to a wide variety of music – Guillemots with the CBSO, Handel’s Messiah as arranged by Quincy Jones, tea dances, and of course one man and his organ ;) There’s also a ‘Brum Rocks’ event which pulls together a host of Midlands Rock Royalty, Robert Plant, Tony Iommi, Bev Bevan et al in aid of the Childrens’ Hospital. The opening festival...

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There's also the odd bit of stuff from Danny Smith.

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