Laura at her easel.

I meet Laura outside her studio under one of the arches of Peckham rail station. A blue sheet metal concertina door awaits to unveil the creative oasis where she is two days a week, dividing her time between painting, free-lance consultancy, volunteer work and family.

She is now busy completing her paintings and drawings for the forthcoming exhibition at the Jeannie Avent Gallery(opens 17 March), where a new series of works will hang under the title “Pastoral Parody”.

I start by asking her what’s pastoral and why parody?

“This series draws inspiration from 18th century Staffordshire pottery” says Laura “that kind of stuff that we chose to ignore, as we use to consider these shepherds and shepherdesses in flouncy skirts very sentimental or kitsch. I have started to look at them for what they are: little landscape stories.” She points to one of her oils, depicting a small, tidy gardener: “The interesting thing about them, and the parodying one, is that they are absolutely imaginary, unreal. Take this gardener in a pink silk suit. It is fantasy; no one would have ever being gardening in a silk suit!”

These tiny figurines are painted in the traditional technique of color layers, from the darkest to the lightest. They seem to stare at us from a little, neat world of their own.

“They are a particular view of the landscape” continues Laura “from people who actually never worked on the land. I think about the aristocracy, who at that time was gambling in their leaving rooms, completely removed from the outside world.”

"Hogarth Crime Scene", one of the artist's new works

She unwraps for me another of her works featuring a Hogarth-like interior where the figures are outlined on the background as void silhouettes. “I have tried to imagine the view that these aristocrats would have seen out of the window. Probably a very fantastical one”.

I’m impressed by the black and white large woodcut-like ink drawings scattered on the table, in this comfy but a bit cold workshop.

Caricatures and reproductions of 18th century characters, like famous-at-the-time musician Billy Waters, are brought to life in an imagined narrative set in a fantastical landscape. She demonstrates a true fascination with a detailed reproduction of a pre-industrial world.

“I’m very interested in the late 18th century transition from a rural society to the industrial world, when the cities started getting bigger. I’m trying to imagine what it would have been like to live in that fast changing society. But what I express is obviously a parody; it would have never been like that!”

Laura is an active volunteer for South London Women Artists, a community of women artists based in South London and presenting their portfolios online.

“When I left the Camberwell School of Art in 2008, it was important for me to maintain and develop my professional practice. I got involved with SLWA on a voluntary basis and it was good. There is no point in working alone in your studio and not being seen. You need publicity and development. We try to help women artists get that.”

Laura has lived most of her life in South London and she enjoys working in Peckham, which she considers a “new cultural quarter”. More and more art-related spaces are opening in the area. “There are so many people working in studios in South London, making their sculptures, ceramics or paintings – there is a stimulating sense of community.

I have been around, looking for the Hannah Barry Gallery, for example, as they were at the Venice Biennale. I just couldn’t find the door!”

The women artists’ community was launched in 2008 by the Friends of the Dulwich Picture Gallery. I’m curious about Laura’s feelings about this magnificent Museum itself. “It is such a gem” she says “it does give us a sort of focus…dare I say, authenticity. I love Gainsborough!”

She is putting her working clothes on. A nice shepherd, only sketched in brown is waiting on the easel for her final touches.

“My mission for next week is to finish the stuff I’m working on,” she gives me a big, radiant smile “hang them up in the Gallery and… make everything look great!”.

PASTORAL PARODY, New paintings and drawings by Laura Moreton-Griffiths
The Jeannie Avent Gallery, 14 North Cross Road, London SE22 9EU
March 17-31
Private View with the Artist on Friday 19, 6-9pm

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Emily Lim (23), who has lived in Dulwich all her life, is directing a pared down, contemporary take on Shakespeare’s Henry V at the Southwark Playhouse this month to rave reviews – ‘wonderful; inventive, accessible and an amazing antidote to traditional productions. Something completely fresh and new.’

DOV: How did you get the job?

EL: I was lucky enough to win this year’s Better Bankside Shakespeare Award which gives a young director the chance to direct an accessible Shakespeare production at the Southwark Playhouse. The theatre stipulated certain requirements – the production had to be Henry V, 90 minutes long, immersive and suitable for both primary-school children and adults. I submitted a proposal outlining my concept for the play, attended a few interviews, and was successful!

DOV: You have set the play on a life-sized board game; how did you get the idea for this unusual and contemporary approach?

In rehearsal

EL: However old you are, I know how boring Shakespeare can sometimes be! I was on the lookout from the start for something slightly different. A large part of Henry’s journey is to do with his struggle to win – be it the confidence of his men, the throne of France, or Princess Catherine’s heart… As children, we’re more often than not introduced to the idea of winning and losing through the form of game play. I got to thinking about strategic, political board games such as ‘Risk’, and decided it would be interesting to design a board game on which the story of Henry’s war is played. I decided not to root this game in any specific historical context but to create a unique, ficitious world constructed entirely from imaginative play, given how Shakespeare constantly acknowledges the power of thought and imagination through the beautiful Chorus speeches.

DOV: Do you think Shakespeare would be a fan of your interpretation?!

In rehearsal

EL: I’d like to think so! His imagery certainly introduces the concept of war as sport – the war is compared to a game of tennis by Henry, and there are even references to dice play.

DOV: So how do the actors and audience actually play the game?

EL: Each audience member is given a mission card when they come into the theatre, recruiting them either to the French or the English army. The whole theatre floor has been painted as the board – during the show they’re required to sit on the correct side of the board with the rest of their team mates. The actors enter dressed as life-size ‘counters’, acting out the scenes on different parts of the board and occasionally seeking help from the audience with a few small tasks! The Chorus moves the action forward with the help of a dice and a stack of Chance cards.

DOV: What were the biggest challenges you faced as director of the project?

In rehearsal

EL: I think the toughest challenge (but also in many ways the most exciting) has been crafting a version of the play that’s suitable and engaging for such a wide age range. Knowing that the language would be particularly difficult for the younger audiences I wanted our visual storytelling to be very clear and this pushed me towards a more physical style of production. There’s lots of music, lots of movement, lots of bright colours. It’s been great seeing the kids react to it so well. Oh, and it was also pretty tough figuring out how to convey Shakespeare’s crazy list of 45 parts with only 7 actors…

DOV: What previous experience have you had as a director?

EL: I directed several shows at University which convinced me that I wanted to have a shot at making a career out of it. Since graduating last summer I’ve worked on a few pieces of new writing for the Community Interest Company Art Saves Lives, been to France to direct a tour of Graham Stansfield’s new opera, and co-directed a show with the Southwark Playhouse Young Company. I’ve done a couple of assistant directing jobs as well – whatever I can get my hands on!

DOV: When did you first start to be interested in the theatre?

EL: I was a student at James Allen’s Girls’ School until I was 16 and had a great introduction to acting there, playing everything from a badger to a chair, and enjoying some brilliant theatre trips. They have a wonderful drama department and we were given a really diverse range of opportunities. More recently I’ve been very inspired by the work and ethos of inclusive companies such as Chickenshed.

What other’s think: Kultureflash

Henry V plays until 20 March at Southwark Playhouse. To find out more and to book your tickets, check www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk or call the box office on 020 7407 0234.

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Every evening all of these lovely, cuddly, little hamsters climb into the wheels which are so neatly positioned in their cages and begin to run. Some of them hardly stop all night. Others take the odd break for a sunflower seed. But as all hamster owners know, these are creatures of great determination and commitment. What power they represent! Have you ever thought of harnessing that power? If we did, I am sure it would make the much mooted Severn Barrage pale into insignificance. And hamsters are a lot cheaper.

It’s easy really. All we need to do is add a small generator to each of the four thousand plus hamster wheels, and connect them to a junction system that will pour the resulting kilowatts of electricity into our homes. There may well be a surplus that we can sell to EDF or Enron. The benefits to the environment are considerable, of course, with reduced generation of power from coal or gas, and indeed a probable net gain to the National Grid. And the hamsters are doing this anyway, quite voluntarily. It’s in their genes really, they love running in their wheels so we are not taking advantage of them or being cruel or anything awful like that.

The best ideas are simple and this one is so simple. So come on. What are we waiting for? Let’s make Dulwich an example to the nation.

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“I remember sitting on the long wooden form just like the other children, grasping my slate and chalk and trying to get on with the task in hand. I was chewing on my knitted string cleaning cloth. I could taste the chalk dust. I was concentrating and chewing and pulling and out came one of my bottom teeth. This was the beginning of 1946 and also the beginning of my schooling and I was a new pupil at Dulwich Infants.

I was anxious and sad. The war was over, the father I did not really know had come home, we had moved to this place called Dulwich, away from my beloved Nana and now I was here in this place called school with a lot of strangers. Our new home was off of Lordship Lane. The cottage was on the end of a row of four. There were two rooms downstairs, a living room and a ‘best’ room. Upstairs were two bedrooms, no kitchen, bathroom or inside lavatory. At least the latter was attached to the back of the building so we did not have to walk to the bottom of the garden or across a back yard. The living room was a reasonable size. There was an under stairs alcove, the part with the lower ceiling was a cupboard with a sunken floor and the part of the alcove with the higher ceiling housed a shallow brown stone sink. The copper boiler was built next to that.

To heat the water for washing clothes you had to build a fire under the copper. My mother was having none of that so my father knocked the copper down and put a drainer over the space. He had the gas board install an Ascot water heater on the wall above the drainer. The gas stove was also in this alcove. My parents put a full-length curtain up that could be pulled round the alcove to afford some privacy when washing. The black range on the other side of the room stayed in place for rather longer but that eventually gave way to a gas fire.

The old St Barnabas church, Carlton Avenue

Although the walk to school seemed quite long to my little legs, in the summer I enjoyed it. We would walk along Townley Road past Alleyn’s school playing fields and round into Carlton Avenue, up the rise to the church and down the other side to the village.

That autumn my brother was born. The small bedroom was mine so he slept in his cot in my parents’ bedroom. There was a fireplace in each bedroom, but I can only remember there being a fire in either room during someone’s illness. There was a gas ring in the main bedroom. My mother would take a small saucepan of water and a bottle for my brother’s feed, up to bed with her. By the time he was ready for his next feed the water in the pan would be solid, and my brother would be blue from the cold, literally, because he always kicked his blankets off during the night. This was the winter of 1946/7.

No double-glazed windows, no loft insulation, and in our house no electricity, the only spark we had was my father, he was an electrician! He would put a little oil lamp under the water pipe in the outside loo to stop it from freezing. This worked but of course it made no difference to the lavatory seat so it was our rear ends that froze. The lamp did provide some light so there is always a bright side. Ice on the inside of the windows and icicles nearly as long as my arms hanging from the roof greeted us every morning.”

More from Beryl soon.

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East Dulwich Odeon

The Odeon was one of the best cinemas in East Dulwich; the Odeon was a household name and the cinema was known for its maritime-inspired art deco architecture. Each Odeon cinema had a different character from most other cinemas in the UK, often having a unique and spectacular interior.

A small number of Odeon cinemas opened in the post-war years, but many single-screen cinemas closed, sub-divided into smaller screens or were converted for other uses. An Odeon cinema opened in East Dulwich in 1946, but it closed in 1972. It was located in Grove Vale, right where the new build flats stand next to Goose Green Primary School.

Dulwich Cino was another cinema in East Dulwich, but the exact location of the cinema remains a mystery, some say it was situated at 121 Lordship Lane, where the Gourmet Burger Kitchen stands today. Whereas others argue that the Dulwich Cino was situated in Grove Vale; comparing the pictures of Dulwich Cino and the Gourmet Burger Kitchen below, you can notice a similarity however the exact location and information about the cinema remains unknown.

There are not many known facts about Dulwich Cino and Odeon cinema in East Dulwich. When did Dulwich Cino close? Does anyone out there know or remember these cinemas? Do use the comment boxes for your memories.

East Dulwich may not have any cinema buildings now, but it has a thriving film society, the Dulwich Paradiso Film Society. See DOV articles about it.

• Paradiso Film Society in the Community
• Calling Local Filmmakers!

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And there is free wine and canapés kindly donated by Franklins Restaurant, East Dulwich

Originally intended as a promotional film for Eurostar, highlighting the redevelopment of the St Pancras/King’s Cross, Somers Town is the uplifting tale of how unlikely friendships are forged writes Rob Andrew for TalkTalk.

Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) is a 16 year old runaway who is hoping to change his fortunes in the ‘Big Smoke’. The dream is shattered almost immediately when his meagre possesions are stolen leaving him homeless, penniless and hopeless. A chance meeting with a sensitive Polish teenager Marek (Piotr Jagiello) gives Tomo’s spirits a lift – especially when Marek suggests that he can stay at his small flat. The two form a firm friendship and share similar interests – mainly their obsession with a French waitress (Elisa Lasowski) and dodging Marek’s hard working father.

The two embark on a series of comic escapades as they attempt to woo the waitress and get money working for the wheeler-dealer Graham (Perry Benson) on an ill-fated deck chair scam. The unscripted dialogue between the main protagonists is top notch with Benson leading Turgoose through what seem to be tense scenes to often hilarious conclusions.

Peter Bradshaw’s review for The Guardian highlights the quality of Turgoose’s comedic acting:

Turgoose has a natural flair for laughs: especially when he starts telling Marek, with an air of spurious authority, that he, Tomo, is Maria’s rightful boyfriend. With his insolent, unreliable smirk, combined with heartbreaking vulnerability and innocence, Turgoose looks like a cross between Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale in Porridge; he’s a true likely lad, like a young James Bolam, or perhaps the standup comics Ken Loach recruited to star in his excellent, underrated rail privatisation drama The Navigators, from 2001. Remarkably, he is still only 16: I could easily imagine Turgoose being a stand-up comedy star in his own right.

Part of the charm of Somers Town is the fact that Meadows hasn’t topped it off with the flourish of violence that he has often used in the past as an arbitrary device to close off the storyline. Despite its serious moments, it’s a happy, sunny film and this is attractive. It has long been a bee in my bonnet that Meadows’ film-making is more accessible, more human and more convincing when he isn’t playing the tough guy.

And Sukhdev Sandhu for the Telegraph comments on the film and on Shane Meadows as a director:

JB Priestley once claimed that comedy requires a feeling for irony, a sense of the absurd, a certain contact with reality, and a surprising affection for one’s characters. Meadows has these qualities in spades. Almost every scene – Marek trying to persuade Tomo to defecate in a plastic bag so as not to be discovered by his father; the first time the boys get drunk; Tomo polishing Graham’s silverware while wearing a lady’s apron – abounds with absurdity, realism, kindness rather than scorn.

This has always been true of Meadows’s films. Why then does Somers Town feel so fresh? Because, I think, working here for the first time from a script he didn’t pen, and prevented by the commissioning brief from showing too much violence, he has managed to avoid the tics and traps that have marred previous features: clunky and often brutal tonal shifts (A Room for Romeo Brass); allowing his stories to be shaped too heavily by genre codes (Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, Dead Man’s Shoes); trying to squeeze too much socio-political significance from thin material (This Is England).

As a result, he has not only been able to stick two fingers up to the anti-Pole hate-mongers of the popular press, and to create an enchanting portrait of growing up in a British city; he has made his best film to date.

Running time: 72 minutes
Production year: 2008

Monday 15th March, 7.15 for 7.45pm in the Linbury Room at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Free wine and canapés kindly donated by Franklins Restaurant, East Dulwich.
Free raffle prize – DVD ‘This is England’ also directed by Shane Meadows

Tickets £8, £6 for Friends
Telephone bookings on 0208 299 8750 or the Friends’ desk in Dulwich Picture Gallery.
More info at GalleryFilm.

Join us on Facebook – its an opportunity to talk to us and tell us what films you would like us to show etc.

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