Dulwich OnView

Artist, Technician, Teacher, Gallery Dog

Ingrid — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:04:50 +0000

Every day hundreds of students visit Dulwich Picture Gallery for tours and workshops.

As the Sackler Centre (art room) Technician, I have the pleasure of assisting the volunteers and freelance artists who lead these workshops, as well as teaching twice monthly Sunday family drop in sessions, myself.

Throughout the workshops I have a helper who has become very popular at the gallery, my little dog Varley (in the pic above), who succeeds Ginger the cat as the gallery pet. He has been immortalized in many student works and has been the inspiration behind some fantastic portraits.

Gwen Teaching at Art Play

However the main inspiration behind all the workshops offered at the Gallery is the permanent collection and exhibitions.

Working at the Picture Gallery for the last three years after finishing a MAFA at the Chelsea College of Art has undoubtedly inspired my own painting practice. My current work is a series of portraits, a number of which will be on display in an exhibition: A Night-There Lay the Day Between at Gallery 242, Cambridge Heath Road in the East end from 1 – 5 September.

The exhibition also features the work of international artists Michele Fletcher, Alice Peillon and Linda Lencovic. The work in the exhibition A Night- There Lay the Days Between is inspired by the poem of the same name by Emily Dickinson.

A Night — there lay the Days between —
The Day that was Before —
And Day that was Behind — were one —
And now — ’twas Night — was here —

Slow — Night — that must be watched away —
As Grains upon a shore —
Too imperceptible to note —
Till it be night — no more —
— Emily Dickinson

More information

Blackberry time

Anna S — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:31:21 +0000

Blackberries and hawthornes, Grange Lane

I don’t have an allotment, the herbs on the windowsill die in days, and strawberries seem to be available all year round in Waitrose. So how’s a city girl to keep track of the seasons?

Easy. This city girl has just spent a happy morning revisiting an annual ritual that says ‘late summer, back to school’ like nothing else. I’ve got scratches on the back of my hands, nettle stings on my fingers, and deep purple lines under my nails. And a hard-won bowl of blackberries to make into a crumble.

My favourite local blackberrying ground is Grange Lane, heading down from Sydenham Hill woodlands and the entrance to the golf club, past allotments and playing fields to emerge by the toll booth at College Road. I headed off in the fresh morning sun, wondering about the possibilities. Some wine-dark berries to leave a rich purple stain through my morning porridge, perhaps? Enough for a crumble tonight, then maybe stewed blackberry and apple for the freezer, a drop of autumn sunshine to see us through the winter?

But they were thin pickings in Grange Lane today. Last year, I remember whips of brambles bowed down, drooping with glossy fruit. Today, I fear I’ve left it too late. Too many berries have that dull, dusty look that says they’ve been there too long, or fall squishily into my fingers, staining them with over-ripe juice. Others are hard, mean little bullets that will never yield up sweetness. The perfect berries are shiny with freshness, tumble willingly into the hand with only nominal resistance, fat and dense with juice. There are a few of these, each one a pleasure, but nothing like the abundance of last year’s crop.

However. They are free, and they give me more pleasure than shop-bought berries ever could. I remember being rather shocked, in a puritanical sort of way, the first time I saw blackberries in a supermarket, a handful each confined to a plastic punnet, with a price tag. Not blackberries, surely! Not that free-for-all, hedgerow standby, that as children we picked each August, filling bowl after bowl with riches. The shock of it sent me back to the hedgerows, discovering the best spots around our house. I was relieved to find little working parties of mothers and children, filling the tupperware and popping a few straight into their mouths. So it’s still happening, I thought, banishing a nightmare vision of brambles lined up in polytunnels, farmed and picked for uniformity.

Heading back home, with enough for maybe one blackberry and apple crumble, I remembered a secret discovery from a year or two ago. The little cut-through from Great Brownings to Wood Lane, where the path takes a sharp turn, has been cleared of trees and brambles are flourishing. Sure enough, there was a final burst of fruit, as the brambles riot in the cool sunshine. I stop and fill my container, rejoicing. Another year, another blackberry ritual fulfilled.

How Walking the Dog came to Dulwich

Ingrid — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:00:57 +0000

Peter Randall-Page, Exotic Cargo 1995 granite

Peter Randall-Page’s Bicentenary Sculpture Commission for Dulwich Picture Gallery

I have been asked by Dulwich OnView to tell you something of my working relationship with Peter Randall-Page and how I came to propose to Ian Dejardin that Peter might make a work for Dulwich Picture Gallery:

The first major work of Modern British sculpture I ever handled was by Dame Barbara Hepworth. It was a substantial work carved from stone which had suffered years of exposure to the elements. Before restorative work could be started on the stone, it had to be transported to London from the other end of the country. As it happened, I had the greatest of good fortune in being introduced to David Brampton, a skilled stone restorer as well as a sculptor in his own right.

It was David who first told me about Peter: he was and remains Peter’s longest established assistant. He was the first to kindle my interest in Peter’s work. So it was by that process of art world serendipity that I came to present Boulders and Banners, a series of split granite boulders by Peter, at Reeds Wharf gallery in Bermondsey in the autumn of 1994.

Secret Life III 1994 granite

The show was extremely well received, in both critical and commercial terms. Sir Roy Strong wrote an introduction to the exhibition catalogue. His words are well worth repeating: Peter Randall-Page’s work has given me pleasure wherever I have stumbled across it, probably because on first encounter it always rests easily within its environment; moreover because it is beautiful – and that is not a word lightly bestowed. His work seems thrown up by the hand of Time itself. It is never aggressive, rather a natural progression from the materials he uses with such consummate technical skill. I am always struck by the essential Englishness, for although, like any sculptor, he is concerned with form that swiftly moves on to the rhythms of surface patterns, he stands at the end of a line which stretches back to Celtic crosses and down to William Morris. Much of his work has a kinship with the Romanesque in which repeat patterns and human, animal and vegetable forms emerge from, rather than are superimposed on to, the stone.

Peter Randall-Page, Flayed Stone II & III 1998 granite

I was aware of the fact that someone from Dulwich Picture Gallery had visited Reeds Wharf gallery during the course of Boulders and Banners. Indeed Dulwich Picture Gallery was my ‘local’ at home. I was conscious of its tradition and the fact that it had been designed by Sir John Soane. I had at about the same time been to a private dinner for a friend’s birthday at the Sir John Soane’s Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The evening was initiated by a private tour of the house by the Director and we sat late in to the night in Soane’s dining room. It made a strong impression upon me. It struck me later how close were many of Peter’s concerns to those apparently held by Soane himself, in particular an interest in the golden section, in the weight, proportion and balance of both form and line and in the artefacts and styles of ancient and other cultures.

I remember asking Peter in the early days what consideration was most important to him in making his work. He replied simply that ‘I try to make forms that are right’. At a time when the YBA held sway and no self-respecting artist could possibly use one word when ten would do, this seemed little short of revelation. Out of all the living artists with whom I have worked, none has been as certain of their work as Peter Randall-Page, or so sure of its future development. He is also unusual in having put himself through a rigorous practical apprenticeship, first working with English stone masons at Wells Cathedral in 1979 and then with Italian marble masons in Carrara in 1980. He has as a consequence an understanding of stone that is probably unrivalled by any of his contemporaries. Just as Soane would have been directly concerned about the quality of manufacture of his designs, so Peter with his own work.

The conviction of Peter’s ‘relevance’ to Dulwich Picture Gallery grew within me. But it was not until the passage of a further decade, the arrival of a new millennium, after I had presented another exhibition of Peter’s work, this time at the Stephen Lacey Gallery in Clerkenwell, after I had moved house closer to Dulwich and become a Friend of DPG, that I approached Ingrid, who was then chairman of the Friends, asking her to introduce me to Ian.

I found to my delight that I was preaching to the converted. It is tempting to say that the rest is history. Nothing is ever as easy as that. However what I can tell you is that Peter Randall-Page’s commissioned work to celebrate the bicentenary of Dulwich Picture Gallery is to be installed in the gardens of DPG tomorrow.

Stephen Lacey
London, August 2010

More info
Getting to Dulwich Picture Gallery

Raising a smile

Steve Slack — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:55:33 +0000

East Dulwich is a funny place, isn’t it. Sometimes funny peculiar, sometimes funny ha-ha.

Here are some pictures I’ve snapped recently which have raised a smile.

Er, which way is Champion Hill?

Darling, did you remember the onions?

This just made me giggle

People love everything nowadays. Spotted in a window on North Cross Road. Perhaps we should get some 'I LOVE DOV' badges made?

If you spot anything locally that makes you chuckle, take a photograph and send it in to Dulwich OnView.

Birthday Closure of the Gallery ahead of the 2011 Bicentenary Celebrations

Marketing Volunteer — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:00:54 +0000

http://dulwichonview.org.uk/2010/08/27/birthday-closure-of-the-gallery-ahead-of-the-2011-bicentenary-celebrations/

The Gallery will be closed for the public for a two week birthday revamp of its shop and entrance from 31st August to 13th September.

Although the Gallery will be closed, our lovely Cafe, garden, Sacker Centre for Arts education and Linbury Room will remain open for you to enjoy. The Friend’s desk will also be open in the cloister.

The shop is being moved to the side gallery where visitors currently enter – it will be bigger and better and there will be a plasma screen with Gallery info. and i-pods with videos loaded on!

The Gallery will reopen its doors on 14 September in time for the new exhibition, Salvator Rosa: Bandits, Wilderness and Magic and the beginning of the 2011 Bicentenary celebrations.

We hope to see you all at the Gallery very soon!

More info.

Themed music and food at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Ingrid — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:55:56 +0000

What an evening ! The sky was clear , the weather was warm and 70 people came to the café at Dulwich Picture Gallery for an evening of fine dining and toe tapping music and were greeted by a cool glass of bubbly and many smiling faces.

The fine dining was prepared by the chef and staff of Dulwich Picture Gallery cafe – paté, soupe au tomates, tarte aux onions, poulet forestiere, creme brulee et compote des fruits……all delicious.

The music was provided by the Caravan Swing Quartet, double bass, saxophone, and two guitars kept us on our toes playing wonderful tunes from the era of Django Reinhartd. To hear what they played, click here for the video taken on the evening.

Lots of dancing, clapping and general fun went on until 11 pm. All this for £10 for the musicians and the cost of your dinner……..what a wonderful way to spend an evening.

If you missed this you will be glad to hear that a further supper has been arranged for Thursday 30 September. The theme is An Evening in America.

Susie Hawkins

Susie Hawkins, mezzo soprano will be accompanied by Martin Byatt on guitar playing and singing George Gershwin, Cole Porter, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel.

A delicous selection of American themed food will be on the menu.

Tickets are £10 available from the ticket line 020 8299 8750 or from the Friends desk in Dulwich Picture Gallery.
We can only seat 52, or 70 if the weather is fine and we can open the windows, so book early!

More info.

Art in the Garden…of Eden

Ingrid — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:00:59 +0000

http://dulwichonview.org.uk/2010/08/24/art-in-the-garden-of-eden/

Well not quite, in the garden of Dulwich Picture Gallery, although you would be forgiven for making the mistake.

Five Wednesday afternoons from late July, the Education Department has been offering outdoor craft by trained artists for anyone and everyone.
For £2, you can cut, draw, paint, sew, model and stick. And when you get tired of that, you can play hide and seek, climb trees, play football, go into the Gallery for some picture gazing, or just plain lol around on the grass with a drink in a paper cup from the Gallery cafe.

There is a really annoying little window that pops up about pets! Nothing to do with us, its part of the slide programme and I cant seem to get rid of it. You can close it by clicking on the x top right (quite difficult to see).

There is just one more ‘Art in the Garden’ this year, and that’s tomorrow, August 25th from 2 until 3.30pm.

‘Francis, The Holy Jester’ at Alleyn’s Theatre

Ingrid — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:55:59 +0000

Also courtiers, Popes, Cardinals, generals and peasants, Saints and sinners, pigs and Jesus himself, begin the Autumn season at the Michael Croft Theatre at Alleyn’s School.

Martha Jones writes – While walking home from The Michael Croft Theatre (yes, walking! no cabs, no uncertainty about babysitters!), my husband thanked me for taking him as a belated birthday treat to the vibrant production of If That’s All There Is held at Alleyn’s School (see DOV 23rd February 2010) and asked me to make sure that whatever was on next in Alleyn’s programme of professional theatre offerings, I’d get tickets.

So I’m pretty excited that the next professional theatre offering at the Theatre is Francis, The Holy Jester by Nobel Prize-winning author, Dario Fo on 15th September.

Fo is perhaps more familiar to British audiences for his hilarious political farces Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay and Accidental Death of an Anarchist (which I saw in the West End in the early ’80s). This new show, however, is a narrative about the life of the saint of Assisi, which uses stories drawn from authentic texts and from ancient folk tales of the Umbrian countryside. The story brings together courtiers, Popes, Cardinals, generals and peasants, Saints and sinners, and Jesus himself in a great pageant of characters brought to life by just one man, the extraordinary Mario Pirovano.

According to one of the reviews of this production which was staged last year at the Edinburgh Festival, there’s “…bawdiness, drunkenness, sex, violence, toilet humour and pigs all crammed into this show” while another describes it as “funny, uplifting and thought-provoking”. Further reviews and information on the show are available on Mario Pirovano’s website.

Pirovano, a self-taught actor who has been working closely with Fo since 1983, is renowned for giving hypnotic and captivating performances. David Chadderton, writing in the British Theatre Guide, described the production as “the most entertaining and funny history lesson you could hope to see, given a captivating performance by the charismatic Pirovano.”

I don’t want everyone to think I’m really lazy; but I will be looking forward to this midweek night out in the heart of my community and, as the new school term starts to tighten its grip around the throat of my social life, I think I could do with the “celebration of life, liberty, truth and devotion” the flyer promises. (I hope Martin enjoys it too, of course!)

Wednesday, 15th September, at 7.30pm at the Michael Croft Theatre, Alleyn’s School.
Tickets; £12 (£6 Concessions) from boxoffice@alleyns.org.uk

Beanissimo is Born

Ingrid — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:00:02 +0000

Angela and Pat launch Beanissimo

Beanissimo, a new coffee van, officially opened last Saturday – can vans ‘open’?

To help them get some practice, Angela Burgess and Patrick Murray gave away free coffee outside Push Studios.

Some sweaty girls staggered out from a Zumba class and one was heard to say ‘The last thing I need at this moment is more stimulation, but this coffee is irresistible’

Pat has given up a good job in the City “I felt after 10 years in the City I was ready for a change. Driving around Dulwich in a small Italian, three-wheeled van is definitely that!”

Angela: “I am trying to master driving the van, but at the moment it is easier to push it as it so small and light!

What do you sell?
“We sell Lavazza coffee, which is Italy’s top selling coffee and also our favourite. With our Piaggo Ape (the van) also being from Italy, we decided to keep the Italian theme going. We do all espresso based drinks such as cappuccinos, lattes, mochas, espresso and Americano. We also serve hot chocolate and a selection of teas.

Where can we find you?
We will be at the rest of the Screen on the Green events in Dulwich Park in August and September as well as the Horniman Museum. Obviously we will be Dulwich Picture Gallery on the Bank Holiday Monday for Hairspray which we are really looking forward to.

We have applied for the Dulwich Farmers’ Market but cannot confirm that yet. Our main place of business will be alongside Goose Green Playground from early September. You can check out our website for final details.”

Angela Burgess is SE Magazines

Venice Muse

Ingrid — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 05:57:26 +0000

Learning about Italian culture in Venice and Herne Hill.

In the middle of summer holiday mania, more and more people are choosing to stay at home finding the stress and expense of travelling are not always worth the treasures of arriving. So are there possibilities which will the journey worthwhile?

As tourism has now turned out to be a strange, Americanised replacement for the British Empire; morphing stunning foreign landscapes and extraordinary cultures into a vision that only a Premier Inn focus group could ever have dreamed up, it has sometimes become increasingly difficult to remember why we travel abroad and it is not as though the journey is any more enjoyable. Airports alternate between treating you as mindless cattle and highly trained terrorists, and all just to arrive in a place often resembling Gatwick-on-Sea.

For many people this is fine, desirable even, but it is not really experiencing another culture and if you can no longer take a gap year, how do you get to really get to know another country, to travel in the true sense?

One possibility is to go and stay with friends from other countries. Foreign friends facilitate a completely different travelling experience from staying in hotels. A chance to see the world from their different cultural viewpoints, to share ideas while tasting strange and wonderful food, cooked in unfamiliar styles. A chance to hear the pattern of other languages spoken by native speakers and a guided tour into the places that the locals keep safely tucked away from tourists for fear of them being turned into theme parks.

A more enlightened experience certainly, but staying with friends is not without its own drawbacks – you may have to have them back. Also in reality, it is a lucky few that have good friends embedded in all the foreign lands you want to visit. Even if you do, there is a limit to how many times you can take advantage of their hospitality. and unlike in a hotel, you will have to be tidy and offer to help.

So is there another way?

The philosopher Theodore Zeldin, after studying the tourist industry has suggested the introduction of Muse Hotels. Places that ‘provide many personal points of entry into foreign civilisations for its guests’. In his research into tourism, he questions why hotels have to be so boring. ‘It is no longer enough for hotels to provide beds in which tourists can recover from the exhaustion of staring silently at historical monuments…. Why, in Oxford for example, have the hotels never dreamed of introducing guests to what is most valuable in the University, its famous mind stretching private tutorial?’ (Theodore Zeldin)

Fortunately for us and for the future of tourism, while we wait for the Muse hotels to emerge organically, blending seamlessly into distant skylines, the Venice Italian School is already here and it is forging a path lit by a new travel philosophy.

The school is owned and run by brother and sister Diego and Lucia Cattaneo whose passion for teaching Italian while sharing Venice with others is palpable. They are the very best examples of Venetian hospitality and professionalism applied to a simple and yet brilliant idea: offering Italian classes, where the studying of the language is applied to cultural topics such as Venetian art and history, Italian Opera and Contemporary Affairs or Venetian cooking and wine tasting. All classes are taught by Diego and Lucia with the help of their tight group of qualified and experienced Italian teachers, around the wooden table of their traditional Venetian 14th Century home.

They are passionate about facilitating a learning experience that starts as an Italian class but then offers their students an experience of Venice that goes beyond the typical tourist trail.

The Venice Italian School is a muse for travellers, an inspiration with all the benefits that friends could possibly offer and none of the drawbacks. For while you are quite likely to want to have Lucia and Diego back to stay, you will absolutely never feel that you have to!

So for my holiday this year, my dreams of grasping the basic philosophies and politics of a different culture over a glass of local wine while learning enough Italian to order fresh fish in the Rialto in order to prepare a meal that I have learnt to cook at the hands of a passionate Italian cook and to eat it in the company of charming local Venetians, will finally come true!

It is a travel experience which without doubt makes the journey worthwhile and regardless of cost (and actually it is very reasonable) will send every traveller home a good deal richer than when they arrived.

However if you cant manage a trip abroad for now, children can gain some insight into Italian culture nearer home by coming to Italian story-telling and conversation classes at Tales on Moon Lane!

They are on Sunday mornings at 10.30am - 26th September, 24th October, 28th November 2010 with further classes planned for the new year.

The Venice Italian School
Theodore Zeldin, Muse hotels

Inspired by the Wyeths

Ingrid — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 05:50:19 +0000

David Gray has sent us this beautiful portrait that he painted after a visit to The Wyeth Family: Three Generations of American Art at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

David writes:

‘This is a portrait of a dear friend who is a Nun in Minsk, Belarus. Portrait is oil on canvas and size is 46 x 61 cms.

She is a travelling Nun who raises funds for her Convent in Minsk. She sets up a stall and sells Russian goods made by recovering drug addicts and alcoholics. She visits Britain on a regular basis and had a stall in Hyde Park London at Christmas last year.

She was surprised when I said I would like to paint her portrait but was happy for me to do so. She has been to my home town of Plymouth twice. I hope to see her in Minsk next summer as we will be touring there and hope she will be at the Convent at that time.

I am an artist living in the West Country. I paint landscapes of the West Country and places I visit (recently Canada) and portraits.

I have always been a great admirer of N C Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth and now Jamie Wyeth and felt thoroughly inspired after a visit to this exhibition.

I hope you like this portrait.’

The exhibition closes on 22 August

Links for more information, opening times, admission prices how to get there.

‘Hairspray’ – Films can be Fun and Deep at the Same Time

Ingrid — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:00:37 +0000

“People who are different, their time is coming.” – Tracy Turnblad

Anthropologists now divide humanity into two basic categories: those who love the 2007 musical comedy Hairspray, and those who have never heard of it.

The former will need little persuasion to watch it again in the unique outdoor setting of Dulwich Picture Gallery, a singalong event with lyrics sheets to encourage gleeful audience participation. And with the added attractions of Hairspray dance lessons (Kevin and Push Studios), free 10 minute hair styling (Lawler Steel salon), free gifts, prizes for best 60s hair style / best costume, food stall from Romeo Jones, bar, and Panino D’Oro’s ice cream van. This is not so much a film screening as a festival celebrating the 60s, and music, and . . . life.

For the uninitiated there are two further reasons to come along.

Hairspray is one of the most successful musicals of all time.

Fourth highest grossing musical in U.S. cinema history. On release it became the record-holder for the biggest sales at opening weekend for a movie musical. Hairspray has been unusual in that its’ huge US success has been repeated around the globe. Via massive audiences from Europe to Australia and Japan it has grossed over $200 million outside the US alone. Leading US critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4 and said there is “a lot of craft and slyness lurking beneath the circa-1960s goofiness,” and that “the point, however, is not the plot but the energy”.

The third reason to come and see Hairspray is that, pace Ebert, the plot is, in fact, very important. Or rather the subplots, which are variants on the theme of transgression. A pop musical inspired, it would seem, by the likes of Michel Foucault, Betty Friedan and James Baldwin.

Travolta as Edna

We are in Baltimore, Maryland in 1962. Our core story follows the aspiration of fat, unattractive teenager Tracy Turnblad to get onto a hit local TV dance show. As John F. Kennedy succeeds Dwight Eisenhower as President, we are at a turning point in American and indeed World history. Maryland was historically a slave state. And the first bloodshed of the Civil War took place in Baltimore. Back to Tracy in 1962, and The Corny Collins Show is segregated. Black teens are allowed on the show only on its’ monthly “Negro Day”. As she follows her innocent adolescent dream Tracy sparks a campaign for desegregation, mirrored in a subplot about inter-racial love and sex.

But there’s more. Leading the segregationist camp is evil Velma von Tussle, a rich socialite, with her spoiled daughter Amber in tow. Velma stands for all the ‘isms’ of the 60s. She discriminates against Tracy for being fat and an advocate of black people. And she represents the class war, battling to manipulate the show so her daughter Amber can win the competition and uphold the traditional social stratification of Baltimore – the rich, white and beautiful are the cream that deserve to rise to the top.

Fierstein as Edna

And it goes deeper. For Tracy’s mother Edna is played by none other than hunky Hollywood megastar and Scientologist, John Travolta, almost unrecognisable in both drag and a fat suit. This casting reflects Hairspray’s provenance.

It’s immediate parent is the hit Broadway musical of the same name, which first hit the boards in 2002. On stage, Edna was portrayed by actor, playwright and gay activist Harvey Fierstein who wrote and starred in the long-running play Torch Song Trilogy, about the travails of a gay drag artist.

Which in turn reflects the grandparent, the original 1988 movie Hairspray written and directed by controversial, ‘transgressive’, filmmaker John Waters. This son of Baltimore based his original 1988 Hairspray on real events around that city’s racial tensions, now updated via hit / cult TV drama The Wire. The urban hell we see in The Wire is the result of the “white flight” to the suburbs following the 60s desegregation of Baltimore schools.

The original Hairspray was rated PG, Waters’ first film not to get an X certificate. His oeuvre having been to explore social, gender and sexual boundaries via films with titles like Hag In a Black Leather Jacket, Mondo Trasho, Multiple Maniacs, and Female Trouble. Most of which featured his friend, outrageous cross-dressing singer and actor Divine, born Harris Milstead in, yes, Baltimore.

Waters’ early career was a deliberate battle with censorship, the boundaries of which he pushed in parallel with his assault on gender and sexual boundaries. Most controversially, a scene in Pink Flamingos sees a long, uncut take in which Divine eats the freshly deposited feces of a small dog.

Divine as Edna

And so it was drag queen Divine who played Tracy Turnblad’s mother Edna in Waters’ original Hairspray in 1988.

When the Divine – Fierstein sequence was succeeded / broken by Grease hearthrob and confirmed heterosexual Travolta, it sparked protest in the American gay community. Marked by unsuccessful calls for a boycott because of Scientology’s alleged homophobia, including, it was said, attempts to ‘cure’ homosexuality.

So back to today, and the 2007 hit musical version of Waters’ transgressive cult classic. There are roughly two ways to take this film.

One is to bemoan how Waters’ original themes are toned down, thus turning up the fun, musical, 60s nostalgia aspects in the mix symbolised by Travolta’s post-Grease presence.

But the other is to acknowledge that all those themes are still there. Not just the most obvious ones at the plot surface – racism / segregation, sexism / ‘body fascism’, and the struggle of poor against wealthy but also the deeper and more implicit transgressive theme embodied in Divine / Fierstein / Travolta which questions simultaneously our constructions of gender identity and sexuality. And casting a straight man, instead of yet another real-life gay man or cross-dresser actually takes that theme a notch forwards.

So we can say the 2007 is a watered (sic) down and thus popularised version of Waters’ original. Or we can say that it reflects how society has moved on.

In 2010, much work still needs to be done against racism, sexism, wealth inequality, and homophobia. But the 1960s really did change things. Culturally, 1962 was part of the dreary, conservative 50s. By 1967 homosexuality was decriminalised in the UK. And massive and global social movements brought about huge changes around racism and women’s oppression, not just in legislative terms, but, perhaps more importantly, in widespread popular consciousness. There is much that audiences can now take for granted in 2010 that they could not in 1962 or even 1988.

So when we watch the 2007 musical Hairspray we celebrate the music, hairstyles and dancing of the 60s. But at the same time we can celebrate very real social, political and psychological change.

As Tracy says, “People who are different, their time is coming”.

6.30pm gates open
8pm film starts
Tickets £6 020 8299 8750 or friendsticketing@dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk or at the gate.
More info

Follow us on Facebook

Book Signing at Children’s Bookshop ‘Tales on Moon Lane’

Mrs Shapa Begum — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 05:55:01 +0000

Cave Baby

On Thursday 19th August 2010 at 10.30am, Julia Donaldson and Emily Gravett will be signing their brand new book ‘Cave Baby‘ at the award winning Children’s Bookshop ‘Tales on Moon Lane‘ in Herne Hill.

Julia Donaldson is the author of ‘Cave Baby‘ and is unrivalled as the UK’s most popular and award winning picture book author. On the other hand Emily Gravett is an award winning illustrator who illustrated all the lovely pictures in the book.

Cave Baby is a picture book about a hairy mammoth who takes a cheeky little baby on a thrilling ride through a moonlit landscape populated by a sabre-toothed tiger, a leaping hare, a laughing hyena and even, just maybe, by a big brown bear… But where are they going? And what has it to do with the baby’s scribblings on the cave wall?

There is no need to book but if you would like to reserve any of their titles in advance or for more information please call 020 7274 5759 or email info@talesonmoonlane.co.uk.

‘Mind Frame’ – SE1 United at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Ingrid — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 05:50:49 +0000

A visual arts and spoken word fusion

There is an extraordinary 2 hour exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery on Thursday 19 August, 3-5pm.

The education department has partnered with SE1 United, a youth-led organisation for young people aged 11 – 21 in the Waterloo area, and you can see the results in this inspired show.

The Wyeth Family is popular against all the odds

Marketing Volunteer — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:55:59 +0000

The Wyeth Family: Three Generations of American Art continues at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 22 August.

It’s so gratifying for me to go into the Gallery – as I do every day ( just to see how well each exhibition is doing) – and to see the 100s of people who are really enjoying this exhibition.

This is despite the fact that it’s the summer and everyone goes away at this time of the year, and so usually our visitor figure is down. Although London is full of tourists, it seems they have too much on their plates to visit Dulwich, despite the fact that it’s only 12 minutes on the train from Victoria, or 13 minutes on the train from London Bridge, so we can’t rely on them.

The other reason I am so very pleased that we’ve had so many visitors is that the reviews have been a little tiny bit negative, saying it isn’t the greatest exhibition we’ve ever done (rather the opposite, they say). In fact it’s had lots of horrid reviews. One from the Telegraph which was very disheartening – and one from Brian Sewell in the Evening Standard. But people just love to disagree with Brian so whatever he says the visitor figure shoots up.

But the great thing is people have come from all over the country just to see the Wyeths, and if you look at the Visitors’ Book it is full of absolutely lovely remarks about the exhibition – the public seem to love it despite what the critics had to say. So, keep coming and tell your friends!

The show closes on 22 August

Links for more information, opening times, admission prices how to get there.

Where Jeeves Meets a Hard-Boiled Detective

Ingrid — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:50:11 +0000

Literary giants PG Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler wrote about different worlds, but they had more in common than people think, including the same education at one school in south London, says David Cannadine in his Point of View column.

An extract from BBC Magazine – 2 July 2010

Bestsellers
The fictional worlds these two authors created were as unalike as the lives they lived

In social and status terms, Dulwich College has never claimed to be the equal of Westminster or Winchester, let alone Eton or Harrow. But it’s of high standing academically, and since the mid-19th Century, it’s produced a remarkable succession of notable and bestselling writers, beginning with AEW Mason, author of ‘The Four Feathers’, who attended the college during the 1870s.

In later times, Dulwich pupils included Dennis Wheatley and CS Forester, and more recently, Graham Swift and Michael Ondaatje. But the most famous authors associated with the college are probably PG Wodehouse, who attended during the 1890s, and Raymond Chandler, who followed him there in the 1900s.

At first glance, it’s difficult to imagine two writers who were more different. Wodehouse was English, happy, buoyant, optimistic and generally contented. He produced nearly one hundred books during his long and prolific life, and he made a great deal of money.

PG Wodehouse

Chandler and Wodehouse – worlds apart
But Chandler was American, lonely, morose, alcoholic and suicidal. He won literary recognition only late in life, and he wrote a mere seven full-length novels.

Not surprisingly, the fictional worlds these two authors created were as unalike as the lives they lived. Wodehouse invented a hilarious universe of comic mayhem, high aristocratic farce, and eternal innocence, full of dotty peers, intimidating aunts, dubious impostors and unfailingly resourceful butlers, set in Mayfair, Belgravia and the English countryside, where the sun is always shining, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Chandler, by contrast, was the master of the world-weary, hard-boiled detective story, shot through with loneliness, sorrow, alienation, remorse and disappointment, as well as plenty of sex, drugs, alcohol, corruption, violence and murder, and most of it set in the urban jungle of Los Angeles. As he would famously write in his essay The Simple Art of Murder, “down these mean streets a man must go”.

Yet for all the undoubted differences in their lives and their work, Wodehouse and Chandler also had quite a lot in common. They both grew up with distant relations to their parents, and they were intimidated by overbearing aunts. They were both denied the opportunity to go on from school to Oxford or Cambridge, because the family funds were deemed to be insufficient.

And they eventually became hugely successful bestsellers throughout the English-speaking world. Even more importantly, Wodehouse and Chandler were profoundly influenced by their time and their teachers at Dulwich.
They found personal happiness and companionship, their memories of the place were fond and warm, and they would remain devotedly loyal to it for the rest of their lives. But in addition, Wodehouse and Chandler both excelled at Greek and Latin, and were influenced by Dulwich’s then-legendary headmaster, Arthur Herman Gilkes, who seems to deserve the credit for teaching them to write the superb English prose of which each would become a master, and which would win for them the admiration of Evelyn Waugh.

Raymond Chandler

“He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel cake’”- Raymond Chandler, in Farewell My Lovely.

It might seem impossible to depict the perpetual sunshine of Blandings Castle and the mean streets of Los Angeles in the same words and style and idiom. But thanks to their formative years at Dulwich, Chandler and Wodehouse played with the English language in ways that were sometimes very alike, especially in their use of metaphors and similes which were vivid and unexpected, yet also completely apt and utterly unforgettable.

Early in ‘Farewell My Lovely’, for example, Chandler introduces the sinister character of Moose Malloy: “a big man, but not more than six feet five inches tall, and not wider than a beer truck”. And later comes the great line: “he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel cake”.

Wodehouse’s writing abounds with similar flights of literary fancy: he once described the loud and raucous laughter of a young and intimidating woman as resembling the noise made by a troop of cavalry crossing a tin bridge, and on another occasion he likened the unhappy demeanour of one of Bertie Wooster’s aunts to someone “who, picking daisies on the railway, had just caught the down express in the small of the back”.

Indeed, on occasions, their word-play is so similar in its memorable inventiveness that it’s almost indistinguishable. Consider, by way of illustration, this wonderful image: “she was blonde enough to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window”.

This could certainly be Raymond Chandler: he wrote a great deal about blondes, especially powerful, sinister, sexy blonds, and the violent simile is certainly in keeping with his cynical, disenchanted view of the world, in which religious morality has no place and churches serve no purpose.
But it could equally be PG Wodehouse: his work is also full of aggressive, assertive and athletic women with fair hair, and there are vicars and bishops aplenty in his books, not surprisingly, since four of his uncles were Church of England clergymen.

So which of them is the author of this marvellous and oft-quoted line: is it Chandler, or is it Wodehouse?

Many of you will no doubt know the answer already, and as for those of you who don’t, I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the fun by telling you.

Just read Chandler, and read Wodehouse, and as you turn the pages of their pitch-perfect prose, be grateful that they both went to that particular school in suburban south London.

By kind permission of BBC Radio 4.

‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ – White Bear Theatre, Kennington

Ingrid — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 06:00:09 +0000

It’s not hard to spot who’s at the White Bear for the play, and who’s there for the footy. The pub has something of a split personality: quintessential South London boozer on the one hand, purveyor of quality drama on the other.

But from the moment the stage swarms with sots, bawds and fops for the theatre-within-a-theatre that opens Cyrano de Bergerac, it’s clear that a pub’s back room is exactly the right setting for Black and White Rainbow’s production. With its rhymed verse, wit contests and courtly codes, Edmond Rostand’s enduring tale of unrequited love risks appealing solely to the head, but this is a Cyrano that goes for the heart and the jugular.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Cyrano (played by Gwilym Lloyd) is a nobleman renowned for his swordsmanship, his wit, and his enormous nose. This protrusion bars him (he believes) from ever being loved by a woman, though he adores his cousin Roxane (Iris Roberts). She, however, adores slow-witted pretty-boy Christian (Philip Scott-Wallace), and Cyrano decides to woo vicariously through his rival by feeding him the eloquent lines Roxane craves. The tale turns tragic when the Comte de Guiche (another rival, played with just the right mix of dastardliness and depth by Simon Donnelly) sends Cyrano and Christian to the siege of Arras as musket fodder.

Holding just 40 – who are close enough to see every bead of sweat and feel nervous when swords start being brandished – the venue accentuates the production’s emphasis on the machismo and passion of its 17th-century French setting. From the start the young cast send the text fizzing along, helped by Ranjit Bolt’s sparky translation (first used at the Bristol Old Vic in 2007). Bolt’s mixture of the quaint and the contemporary reflects the double-time of a play written in 1897 but set in the age of Richelieu.

Director Simon Evans handles the space’s limitations imaginatively, especially in the famous ‘balcony’ scene in which Cyrano takes advantage of the darkness to woo in Christian’s stead. Here, no more than a bench is required by way of set (though the lights could work harder to create a nocturnal atmosphere). Instead of struggling to discern her suitor(s) in the garden Roxane allows herself to be blindfolded while the rivals-cum-accomplices jostle for space beside her. The scene simultaneously achieves a kinky erotic charge, a delicious absurdity and a wrenching poignancy as we witness the (literally) crowded relationship.

In the iconic title role, Gwilym Lloyd captures both Cyrano’s passion – in matters of honour and personal pride as well as love – and his soldierly swagger. Rather than chewing over the text, squeezing out all the ironic juice, he allows the words to cascade out over each other. His Cyrano, a bundle of emotional energy pinned in by his own pride and integrity, is involving and moving.

In order for the play to make sense Roxane must be a magnetic presence; she must also be more than a pretty face, or else the message about the triumph of inner beauty rings false. Well, Iris Roberts is outstanding. With turn-on-a-dime comic precision and an emotional range from feisty sexuality – she seems not just to love Cyrano/Christian’s wit but, er, get off on it – through to autumnal tenderness, Roberts makes her character every bit as sophisticated and compelling as Cyrano. Crucially, she and Lloyd have a rapport that is a real treat to watch.

The design (aside from that reservation about the lighting) is simple but effective: a recurring maple-leaf motif works well as an unobtrusive symbol. Cyrano’s nose is conspicuously fake, almost Commedia dell’Arte, but that seems to me to be part of the point: it’s as though he uses it as an excuse for the futility of his love when in truth his pride is by far the larger obstacle.

I do hope that some of the footy-loving regulars will be tempted in to watch in addition to just the fringe theatre crowd. This is a big-hearted and often hilarious production that will appeal to romantics of any stripe.

‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ is on until 4 September.
More information and bookings here

Bad Vibes

Steve Overbury — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 05:55:19 +0000

Don’t get me wrong; I like the big red buses. I’ve even been known to catch one now and again. In fact the 176 to Tottenham Court Road is like the Nile of South London. Step on at the Plough; step off at the National Gallery, and all for two quid. And my relatives, when visiting from Devon sit and gawp at them passing the window gurgling with delight like they’re watching a herd of Okapi crossing the veldt.

The problem is that the vibration that these passing crimson behemoths generates shakes me out of my bed, shakes the fillings out of my head and is gradually demolishing my house. And why do they have to sound like Darth Vader’s spaceship?

Objections to the council and Transport for London have got me nowhere; they simply aren’t prepared to decommission their bus fleet just because my windows are rattling, so I’m thinking RPG, (Rocket Propelled Grenade).

But where to find one? There might conceivably be a Taliban tearoom in Brixton or maybe I might find an interesting Russian to have a chat with in the Tottenham Court Road branch of Spearmint Rhino one night. I could even get the 176 up there.

If I blow up a couple of buses and a Sainsburys’ lorry, Boris would sure change his tune. He’d soon be out in Lordship Lane with his megaphone pleading with me to put down my weapon and come out quietly. But I wouldn’t surrender without negotiations, and here’s the deal: We want a through traffic exclusion zone at Forest Hill and Camberwell. Dulwich must be turned back into the village it once was.

I remember when the road subsided at Dulwich Common and for about a month the South Circular was like a country lane. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? We could all ride horses, and children would throw flower petals as they skipped down Dog Kennel Hill.

We could rebuild the windmill on the golf course and all have tuberculosis just like in the good old days. And all it takes is a couple of burned out buses and a short holiday in Broadmoor.

So, I’m aiming to take aim, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t a few reading this who’d be happy to drop me a few quid to stuff another one down the pipe just for the Mayor and his Corporation while I was about it, but I’m not a violent man and wouldn’t want to hurt anyone unnecessarily. Therefore I’d have to be careful to only take out the off duty buses, night buses perhaps. And I’d have to direct the rockets right up their exhausts to avoid injuring the driver sitting up front, so I might need a bit of practice.

Basically, if you hear whooshing sounds and explosions coming from the park over the next few nights, pay them no heed. However, could you call an ambulance if you hear screaming and see an old man shaped fireball running down the road, that’ll be me having a spot of bother with the ammo.

Of course none of this unpleasantness would be necessary if the buses were electric. They would make almost no noise if they were. And here’s a thought, if they glided along steel rails, then there would be hardly any vibrations through my house.
Oh, hang on a moment that’s a tram.

Steve’s book London Babylon about the dark side of the Swinging Sixties is available here
Steve’s blogs are at www.london-babylon.blogspot.com and
http://spoot-shoot.blogspot.com/

Envy at Home Park

Ingrid — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 06:05:06 +0000

A young group of Lewisham filmmakers are in mid-production of a 5 week film-training programme. With a cast of ‘real actors’, chosen by the group, the film Envy is scheduled for release on 12 August at the Fabulous Family Fun Day at Home Park .

Envy is a twisted loop of a tramps misdirected revenge that turns a good man’s life upside down. The group, aged 12 – 15 said they thought their heads would explode at the end of their first session: a 10am – 4pm day dedicated to brainstorming everyone’s brilliant ideas.

But it’s well worth it – I have read the script and as a writer and filmmaker, I think they have a good short story to get their teeth in to. Phoenix Fry from Deptford Film Club and director Johns Hollingsworth have given professional inside advice on how to publicise and direct, and I for one can’t wait to see the results!

For a chance to see their short spine-chilling thriller you will need to get down to Home Park, Sydenham on 12 August, where their film will be premiered on a huge outdoor screen. To round the evening off the programme will close with a blockbuster screening of Fantastic Mr Fox.

Home Park’s all-day outdoor event is FREE… all YOU need is a blanket and bottle of wine.

by Joyce Treasure

Contact organisers on: 07508 467659 or email, info@treasurefilms.co.uk for further details.

TREASURE FILMS
follow us on facebook
joyce@treasurefilms.co.uk 07964 997640

FRIENDS OF HOME PARK
Anthony Scully
anthony.scully@ukonline.co.uk
visit the Home Park events facebook page

Photos by Craig Francis www.jiggycreationz.co.uk

Happy Hens in Herne Hill

Ingrid — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 05:55:37 +0000

What came first – the chicken or the egg?

Well, whatever smart answer you may have to that timeless question, in a typical London house in Herne Hill the answer is: the hen run. Only when that was in place could the chickens arrive. And only after the chickens could there be eggs.

Chris Roseberg and Ann Daniels have kept chickens on and off for a number of years. But numbers were small and they knew that to have a decent flock they needed a large and secure space. So last year they set about planning and building a hen house and run for their back garden in Herne Hill. It had to be big enough for 8 or so hens, give them shelter and a decent run, and offer a proper laying space for them to have their eggs.

The concept was simple: a commercially made shed, adapted to suit the hens’ requirements, and a basic frame of railway sleepers and 4×4 uprights. On to this they built a solid frame with netting on all sides and on the top, and then a roof of clear sheeting to keep the run dry in wet weather.

Everything except the roof was ready in April when Chris and Anne collected 8 hens they had ordered from the British Hen Welfare Trust. This is a charity that rescues battery hens and gives them a free range future. The eight hens bought by Chris and Anne would have been slaughtered. But now they have a comfortable life in South East London, where hopefully they are safe from our foxes too. And the roof is now on, so the hens have a dry space outside all year round.

Keeping hens is a hobby, not a business, for Chris and Ann. Chris says the eggs are a bonus, but do not cover the outlay of keeping the hens. But it is well worthwhile. Hens are quiet, calm, friendly creatures and rewarding to keep.

Nor are they the only hens in the area. A surprising number of people are eating eggs from their own chickens.

British Hen Welfare Trust website

Do you keep hens? Please tell us! How about forming an organization of South East London chicken keepers?