The World’s Greatest Pink Floyd Show – an amazing journey through five decades of Pink Floyd.
BRIT Floyd – The World’s Greatest Pink Floyd Show, returns to Europe in 2015 to present its Space & Time World Tour, its most ambitious show to date; with a spectacular new light show, and an even bigger stage production.
Celebrating five decades of Pink Floyd; from their creation in 1965 right through to the release of their brand new album, The Endless River, this new show includes performances from all Pink Floyd’s biggest selling albums, including The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall and The Division Bell plus a host of other Pink Floyd musical surprises.
Following last year’s critically acclaimed Discovery World Tour, Brit Floyd lead vocalist, guitarist and musical director, Damian Darlington, said:“The audience reaction has been phenomenal. Absolutely amazing everywhere. Thank you to everyone who came to see the show. We can’t wait to get out on the road again in 2015!”
Paying attention to every musical detail and faithfully recreating the ‘true’ live Pink Floyd concert experience, Brit Floyd will take you on an amazing musical journey, featuring the best moments from the Pink Floyd back catalogue, and combine the latest state-of-the-art sound and light technology to create a performance that is as sonically perfect as it is visually awesome.
Event: BRIT Floyd – Space and Time World Tour
Where: Brighton Centre, King’s Rd, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 2GR
Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) has congratulated Brighton and Hove’s newly-elected MPs, saying they have a prime opportunity to raise awareness of HIV in Parliament, in the most affected area for HIV in the UK outside of London.
Dr Rosemary Gillespie
FIGURES show 1,487 people are living with diagnosed HIV in Brighton and Hove. The rate of diagnosed HIV in the city is seven per 1,000 people, compared with a UK rate of two per cent.
Dr Rosemary Gillespie, Chief Executive at Terrence Higgins Trust, said:“People living with HIV need strong champions in Parliament and we hope the newly elected MPs for Brighton and Hove will continue to keep HIV prevention, treatment and support at the top of the political agenda.
“We look forward to working with them closely on upcoming issues such as funding for prevention and new innovations including PrEP.”
Ms Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion and Mr Kirby, Conservative MP for Brighton Kemptown, have previously attended events in Brighton and Hove to mark World AIDS Day. The pair have also undertaken public HIV tests as part of National HIV Testing Week.
In Parliament Mr Kirby sat as Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for HIV and AIDS. Ms Lucas also tabled Private Members’ Bills calling for inclusive sex and relationships education in all schools.
The newly elected Labour MP for Hove, Peter Kyle, last month attended an election hustings event at Terrence Higgins Trust’s centre on Ship Street, Brighton, along with the re-elected Mr Kirby.
As well as being our most celebrated dramatist, Shakespeare was a prolific story-teller. In Theatre North’s Mirando, the Gay Tempest, which has just finished a run of performances at Brighton Fringe, Martin Lewton’s one man show brings Shakespeare’s play to new life through a remarkable tour de force of storytelling and physical acting.
The performances were staged in a reception room of the terraced house in Kemp Town which is home to Lewton and his partner, Andrew McKinnon, who directed the piece. Apart from some coloured LED lighting the design is completely stripped back, much like Lewton himself, who remains completely naked throughout the duration of the performance.
In the absence of props and costumes, Lewton uses his naked body as a tool for telling the story, differentiating his many characters through tone of voice, manner of gait and small, subtle gestures here and there. And like Prospero, Lewton makes the most of his significant power over language and artifice to transport his audience and achieve the sense of magic that is central to the play.
At the heart of this gay imagining of the story, Lewton’s Prospero uses his mysterious powers to bring together Mirando, his son, with Ferdinand, the son of the King of Naples, who had conspired with Prospero’s brother Antonio to usurp and exile him. The two sons fall in love, and in fashioning their betrothal Prospero restores justice and order to the world after 12 years of injustice and exile. With the gay marriage secured, Prospero breaks his magic staff and relinquishes his magical powers.
Lewton’s storytelling is boisterous and compelling throughout, but also deeply touching, especially in the central love scene between Mirando and Ferdinand. But while the sons’ marriage restores order and brings justice and resolution, it also results in an end to magic, and there is perhaps a suggestion from Lewton that although equal marriage has brought us equality, it is also another step towards making our lives more mainstream, less different, and maybe less magical for it.
Bristol Pride have announced the full lineup for this year’s festival which will culminate in an outdoor community arts and music festival in Castle Park.
Heather Small
BRISTOL Pride will take place on Saturday, July 11. Entry to Pride Day is by a £3 donation entry and will feature a local food and market zone, on site bars, community area for services and groups, a performance hub, cabaret stage and an expanded family area with bouncy castle, lawn games and kite making workshops.
The festival in Castle Park boasts over 40 acts performing across 3 stages with main stage acts including Tina Cousins, Kym Mazelle, Amelia Lily, Ryan Dolan, La Voix, Nicki French, Justin Utley, new girl band Salute and a secret afternoon headliner who were one of the biggest UK pop groups in the 80s scoring three number one hits.
The main stage will also feature a performance from Ladytron’s Marnie with her band and will be headlined by Heather Small of M People who has amassed an incredible 10 top 10 hits and will have everyone singing along to her iconic anthem Proud.
Whilst entry to the festival is by donation, organisers are calling on everyone who can to get a £5 supporter wristband to support the cost of staging the event.
Wristbands offer discounts on site including on food and the bars, priority re-entry when at capacity and free travel on Pride Day with First Bus.
Joint evening tickets are available for £15. All ticket sales help to keep the event, which doesn’t receive funding, to happen.
Pride Night will see a takeover the O2 Academy for the official Pride after party headlined by Smokin’ Jo, the only ever female to be voted international DJ of the year.
Bristol clubnight’s D-T-Y-M and Psycho Drama perform along with London’s Eurofest who will be taking over room 2 with Eurobeats and 2 live PAs from Eurovision finalists. There will also be roaming performances, aerial performances from Circomedia students and interactive installations from local artists and Harry Clayton-Wright.
Pride ‘Week’ runs from the July 3-12 and will use venues across Bristol to showcase the LGBT community, use the Arts to champion equality, tackle community issues and develop a platform to support local talent.
Highlights of the week include the Pride Theatre Night (Wednesday, July 8) at the Bierkeller, Comedy Night (Thursday, July 9) with Jayde Adams, Joe Sutherland and headlined by Zoe Lyons and even a special collaboration with the Shakespeare Festival blending Midsummer Night’s Dream with The Rocky Horror Picture Show as the Pride Team celebrate 40 years of this cult classic with a special outdoor event.
Be sure to catch the Pride Dog Show at Make Sunday Special on Sunday, July 5, a week-long film festival Queer Vision at the Watershed and new gaYming event for computer gamers.
The festival which attracted over 31,000 people to its events last year was also named the UK’s No2 Best Pride event (Coop Respect Awards) and was calculated as boosting the local economy in Bristol by £953,000 in 2013.
As the UK’s first ever EU Green Capital Pride the team have been working hard to make it one of the greenest festivals in the UK this year with a re-usable cup scheme, food recycling and generator free stages supported by EDF Energy. The waste from the festival port-a-loos will even be used to the power the first ever Bristol Bio-Bus.
Daryn Carter
Organiser Daryn Carter, said: “Pride is a vital and fantastic event for the city, we’re one of the biggest Prides in the UK and I am proud of all the events and artists we’ll be bringing to Bristol this year. I’m also very proud that even without core funding we’ve still managed to keep Pride an event that’s open to everyone, but it’s been very hard work.
“Pride is an exciting and celebratory event but also has a more serious message. It’s the chance to make a bold, visible stand for equality and to tackle issues both here in the UK and to support those in countries around the world. Young people are still being made homeless by prejudice, LGBT hate crime is worryingly prevalent within our city and globally there are countries that still have archaic laws and even death sentences for LGBT people, Pride shows that sadly there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
Bristol Pride is a celebration of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and as well as an opportunity to combat the rising incidents of hate crime taking place in Bristol and the UK, aims to highlight the plight of LGBT+ people across the world especially in EU countries.
Pride Day starts with a parade through the city, which has been extended this year, and organisers want as many people as possible to come together to make a proud and visible statement of solidarity and equality, for all. To celebrate Green Capital, Pride have introduced the theme Green Rainbow whilst still calling for global equality especially across the EU and want people to create placards and outfits for the parade.
Whilst receiving no funding from Green Capital, Pride is a Green Capital partner event and will be one of the greenest festivals in the UK this year with a number of initiatives and events planned including powering the UKs first ever Bio-Bus with the festival portaloos, reducing overall energy consumption whilst being generator free across the stages and creating public water stations and re-usable cup scheme to reduce plastic waste.
Event: Bristol Pride
Where: Castle Park, Bristol
When: Pride Week July 3-12: Pride Day, Saturday July 11
Girl Power returns to the Manchester Pride this August, as Atomic Kitten, attitude-packed vocal trio, Stooshe and Lucy Spraggan are added to the Big Weekend festival line-up which will take place from Friday August 28 to Monday, August 31.
Atomic Kitten
MANCHESTER DJ legend, Graeme Park, is also set to join Texas, DJ Fresh, Union J and Andy Butler, with many more acts set to be announced every Friday until the full line up is revealed in July.
Famous for their hits The Tied Is Hide and Whole Again, Atomic Kitten took the late 90s and early 2000s by storm, spending over seven weeks in the Top 40 with their debut single Right Now and winning awards across the globe for Best Pop Act and Best British Newcomer.
After reuniting on ITV’s The Big Reunion, Kerry, Natasha and Liz are now setting out on their first Arena tour since getting back together in 2013.
Popular British girl group Stooshe are best known for hits such as, Love Me featuring American rapper Travie McCoy, and Black Heart. The vocal trio, made up of Courtney, Alex and Karis, are currently working on their next album which is set to be released later this year.
Lucy Spraggan
Back due to popular demand, The X Factor 2012 contestant Lucy Spraggan will be returning to Manchester Pride’s Big Weekend. Lucy has recently released a new album entitled We Are… and is currently on The Unsinkable Tour.
Legendary house music pioneer, DJ Graeme Park, has over 30 years experience on the decks and 20 years experience on the radio. He shot to fame on the club scene following his residency at Manchester’s Haçienda in 1988 and has worked with internationally-renowned artists including The Brand New Heavies, Inner City, Eric B & Rakim, New Order and Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Graeme’s radio shows have included Kiss, Galaxy, Key 103, Radio City, Juice FM and Forth One.
Mark Fletcher
Mark Fletcher, Chief Executive for Manchester Pride, said:“We’re really pleased to be welcoming back Lucy Spraggan again following the popularity of her performance last year, She is a big crowd favourite. Parky is the perfect addition to the line-up due to his Manchester roots. It’s great to be able to such a Haçienda legend to the Big Weekend and Stooshe’s catchy pop songs and strong image are sure to get the crowds excited. I know I’ll be singing along to Black Heart!”
The Big Weekend tickets are currently priced at £22 for a weekend ticket, £12.50 for day tickets and children’s tickets are also available from £5.
A ticket provides guests with access to the event site, including the Main Arena, Sackville Gardens, the Gaydio Dance Arena and the Expo and helps Manchester Pride raise money for LGBT and HIV charities and organisations in Greater Manchester.
There’s much more to Manchester Pride festival than the Big Weekend, events take place throughout the month of August and this year has seen the launch of Superbia, an all year round calendar of events that showcases, supports and celebrates LGBT and relevant arts, comedy, debate, film, literature, music, sport, theatre, family and community led projects within Greater Manchester with the aim to encourage engagement, wellbeing and culturally enhance our communities.
For more information on The Big Weekend, click here:
Pride season kicks off on Saturday, May 16 with the seventh annual Exeter Pride.
EXETER Pride, the biggest FREE LGBT celebration in the country goes ahead this weekend thanks to a National Lottery Awards for All grant of more than £4,000.
The event begins this Saturday (May 16) at 12 noon with a parade from the St Sidwell Centre down Exeter High Street to Exeter Phoenix, Exeter Library and Rougemont Gardens, where a packed programme of activities will await you.
More than 2,000 people are expected to take part in the largest rainbow parade the city has ever seen, including community groups, firefighters, police, students, trade union groups, businesses, LGBT groups and individuals.
Everyone is invited to join the parade which will include stilt walkers, roller skaters, the Street Heat samba band, circus skill performers, a fire engine, Morris dancers and volunteers carrying a 50 metre rainbow flag.
The events at Exeter Phoenix will be family friendly and will include activities for children, young people and adults.
For the first time, the bigger and more exciting Pride Marketplace, which will include dozens of stalls from various organisations, will be held in Rougemont Gardens.
There will be a heath zone, ceilidh, workshops, panel debate, drumming circle, trans workshop as well as information from local and national organisations.
To round off the evening there will be live music from popular local bands and DJs.
Admission to some evening activities will be by wristband only, which will be available from selected local outlets.
Neil Clements, chairman of Exeter Pride committee, said:“Exeter Pride is a celebration of the city and county’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans communities.
“It is about us having pride in our contributions to not just a vibrant and diverse city, but all of Devon and the city and county having pride in us.”
“Exeter Pride would not be possible without generous donations from local businesses, organisations, individuals and the fundraising efforts of many volunteers.
“Together with generous sponsorship from our partners, we are able to keep all our daytime events, free-of-charge.”
He added:“Volunteers are a vital part of helping to make things run smoothly and it would not be possible to stage the event without their help for which we are very grateful.”
For further information about Exeter Pride, click here:
Resound Male Voices will be performing at a Charity Gala for The Martlet’s Hospice in Hove, on Saturday, May 16 at The Windmill Theatre in Blatchington Mill School.
THE evening will be presented by the Rotary Club of Brighton and Hove and include performances by Resound Male Voices, Rebelles, a new nine piece female vocal group; and International Soprano Yvonne Patrick.
The choirs, both led by opera singer and vocal coach, Stefan Holmstrom, will perform an eclectic repertoire including works by Britten, Manhattan Transfer, Gershwin, Berlin, Jobim, several 1940’s close harmony songs and many more besides.
The evening promises to be a fun-filled event, raising funds for a very worthy cause.
ResoundMale Voices will also be performing with Rebelles on Saturday, June 20 at St. Andrew’s Church, Hove, in a new show entitled Out of the Woods – Music at Midsummer, including an eclectic repertoire of standards and new material.
Event: Charity Gala for Martlets Hospice
Where: The Windmill Theatre, Blatchington Mill School, Nevill Close, Brighton and Hove, BN3 7BW
Labour and Co-operative will form a minority administration following the local elections.
Labour supporters celebrate taking back Queens Park Ward which gave them control of the city council
A clean sweep of Labour councillors winning in troubled Queens Park Ward pushed Labour, three seats ahead of the Tories, making them the largest party on the city council at the local election count yesterday, (May 9).
In a spectacular reversal of the 2011 local election result when the Greens took control of the city with 23 seats (Conservative 18 seats and Labour 13 seats), Labour leap-frogged from third place to become the largest party with 23 seats, the Conservatives taking 20 seats and the Greens coming in a poor third place with 11 seats.
Councillors holding important portfolios in the Green administration swept from power included; Sue Shanks the chair of the Children and Young People’s Committee, Geoffrey Bowden, Chair of Economic Development & Culture Committee, and Stephanie Powell, the chair of the Licensing Committee
Cllr Warren Morgan
Councillor Warren Morgan, Leader of the Labour and Co-operative Group, said: “I am grateful to voters across Brighton and Hove for electing Labour councillors in large numbers, making us the biggest group on the city council.
“Labour candidates won 20,000 more votes than the Conservatives, and as many seats as the Greens won in 2011. We gained 12 seats from the Greens whilst the Conservatives gained just one, so Labour has a clear mandate in terms of seats gained and votes won to lead the city council.
“We will lead a Labour council which will implement the sensible policies we put to voters having listened to them on the issues that matter to them: getting our basic refuse, recycling and street cleaning running properly, tackling the issues of housing and poverty, making our city’s economy work for everyone, and getting the city’s transport networks and roads working as they should.
“We will ask all councillors of all parties to support these common goals that will benefit our city, and we will work constructively and cooperatively with them. The next elections are four years away. It is time to put political rivalry and advantage to one side and put Brighton and Hove first.
“Our city and our residents face enormous challenges under very difficult circumstances, but we will lead with purpose and vision, based on our values of fairness and co-operation, to get the best for everyone in Brighton and Hove.”
Out with the old: Queens Park Councillors, Bowden and Powell lose their seats.In with the new: Three new Labour Councillors Morris, Chapman and Barford give Labour minority control of the council.Colleagues console Green, Sue Shanks after losing her Withdean seatCaroline Lucas MP pays a visit to the countCouncillors Mo Marsh, Dan Yates and Anne Meadows see off UKIP challenge in Moulsecoomb and BevendeanGzunder Campbell the Official Monster Raving Loony candidate brought some much needed colour to the campaign in Brunwick and Adelaide wardGreens hold Brunwick & Adelaide by 65 votes from Labour challenge
These three girls are the demented daughters of David Hoyle. They seem to be doing funny stuff while all the time slowly making you wake up and smell the bitter stench of reality. They wriggle and jiggle in their golden sequined frocks while offering genuine hope, love and compassion then they slap you to keep you from slipping back into an advertising induced coma, press wine on you then make you watch as they empty the bile, bitterness and confusing disappointment of contemporary life into a bucket, and yes, they make it funny.
They invite us on a night out, while making us take our places in the roll call of shame and over indulgence that make up a great British drunken night out. They make the joke, we laugh, then they hold the joke, and then hold it some more until it stops being funny and we see it for what it is. An ugly, wriggling, awkward truth. It’s a hard kind of comedy, very Northern, one that makes us sit up and own our laughter and it’s a bloody great gust of fucking feminist fresh air in a festival stuffed full of middle class safe male apolitical twaddle! Thank goodness for the Eggs’ Collective, there is hope in this brave new Tory majority world!
The show is a series of sketches rolled into and over each other, with echoes and repetitive elements, just like a drunken night out, but with some deeply uncomfortable spotlights on the feelings behind what drives us, and particular the pressures on young women in Britain, although it’s relevant to us all. I’m not sure if they are this clever or I just wanted them to be that clever, but I felt the show was a kind of cover for something deeper, something more experimental and something ennobling and empowering. Deep deep down these girls are really shallow or is that what they want us to believe, it’s rare to leave a show feeling both disturbed and also elated but the trio from the Eggs collective left me feeling just that. Not only from the quality of writing and performance on stage. Slickly hidden behind seemingly chaos and cheap tricks, these women perform sleight of hand all the time, keeping our cynical, entitled eyes distracted by some seedy bauble of grief or tragedy while slipping a sharp boning knife of hope between our ribs into the space where our hearts used to be.
See the trailer here:
It’s a hard kind of comedy, one which makes us sit up and own our laughter and it’s a bloody great gust of fucking fresh air in a festival stuffed full of middle class safe non threatening twaddle! Thank goodness for the Eggs’ Collective, there is hope in this post Cameron world
This is fresh, raw theater, using common clichés and sad tragic lives to spear us with some uncomfortable truths about our empty consumer lives, it’s not completely original, but god is it powerful and all the more so as it’s unexpected, ruthless and done with utter relentless charm and class.
There were plenty of highlights in this short punchy show; a microphone lowered slowly onto a churning drunken girl as she heaved into a bucket; her inebriated ramblings slowly coalescing into a searing rant of the appalling wretched everyday disappoints, utter brilliance like something Bill Hicks might have thought up! And then a moment when three separate stories come together on stage, one repetitive dark story of dire drunken mishaps, one sadness and dissolution and one song of love and hope and glory, slowly they wound tighter and tighter around each other until blended they became a pitch perfect Kafkaesque feminist Dreamgirls. This was a comedic cacophony of chaos and seriously good. I was impressed and my regular reader knows how hard that is.
Keep your eyes out and check them out next time you have the opportunity, one of my fringe highlights so far! You will love them and they will love you, unconditionally.
Eggs Collective are part of the Marlborough Theaters continued efforts to showcase new, original talent on their Pink Fringe, see the rest of their programming, events and up coming and to book tickets see the website here:
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