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Photos from Volunteers Afternoon Tea
On Saturday 1 June Metal kick-started National Volunteers Week in style!
We had a creative, workshop style afternoon tea party and good fun! Thanks to all 25 volunteers for coming and joining in with the fun and games. As well as getting to know each other, we created our own ‘wall’ and sampled some lovely sandwiches and cakes...
It’s never too late to join in with our volunteering programme – we can guarantee a rewarding and exciting time, with all the food you can eat thrown in!
E-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more details or see our Volunteering page.
Here is what the volunteers said they liked about the event:
'Meeting others and feeling part of something good.'
'Writing on the blackboard, friendly atmosphere, cake.'
'It was an interesting and fun way to get to know everyone.'
'Meeting fellow volunteers so that I don’t feel out of place at the event.'
'Getting a feel for the level of enthusiasm.'
Photos by Bradley Keeble.
Written by Colette Bailey 14 June 2013
Diamond Street App Launch
The Diamond Street App
Rachel Lichtenstein
Launched on 14 June 2013 at 7pm, Leigh Community Centre, Elm Rd, Leigh on Sea
Please reserve your free ticket here.
Rachel Lichtenstein will discuss the research, production and development of The Diamond Street App: a freely downloadable GPS-activated, rich media digital app for smartphones and tablets, which takes readers on a journey through the historic jewellery quarter of Hatton Garden and the stories in her latest book Diamond Street.
Using content from the book, along with specially developed rich media, soundscapes and specially commissioned films, this app allows you to go on either a virtual (armchair version) or a real guided tour around the area. This beautifully produced and designed app is the first of its kind, an immersive and embodied publishing model enabled by new technologies that transforms content from a literary non-fiction book about place into a dynamic interactive walk around the city streets.
Part new media experience, part walking tour, this location-based app fuses text, documentary film and image with real-time interaction. Guided by the author, along with a host of other characters, the secrets of the streets around you will be revealed as you wander around the area. The jewellery quarter of Hatton Garden is one of London’s most mysterious areas – home to diamond workshops, underground vaults, monastic dynasties, subterranean rivers and forgotten palaces. The Diamond Street App is your passport to this fascinating hidden world.
The Diamond Street App is funded by the Arts Council and produced by Rachel Lichtenstein in collaboration with Metal, Calvium, Phantom Productions, Field Studies Ltd & Hamish Hamilton.
The app in now available to download free of charge in the iTunes app store and from Google app store for Android phones and tablets.
Read more about the development of The Diamond Street App on Penguin blog here.
Rachel Lichtenstein is an artist, writer and curator. She is currently writing a trilogy of non-fiction books for Hamish Hamilton on different London streets. The first, On Brick Lane, was published in 2007 to much critical acclaim and shortlisted for the Ondaatje prize. Diamond Street: The Hidden World of Hatton Garden is the second in the series.
'Lichtenstein has brought alive something of London… how one street can be a kind of Tardis, a portal to another world of parallel commerce, codes, rituals, history.' The Times
'A superb oral historian, she comes from three generations of jewellery dealers, and proves to be both an indefiable explorer and a skilled interviewer of people not in the habit of sharing their life-stories. The most impressive revelation of this splendid book is that trust, in this tiny, hidden world, carries a value high above wealth.' Miranda Seymour - The Sunday Times
See www.diamondstreetapp.com for more information.
Written by Colette Bailey 11 June 2013
Future Park 13 June
Future Park is Metal’s networking and information sharing evening for practicing artists, working in all disciplines, from across South East Essex.
The format of each evening is as follows:
7pm – 8pm: Practical session / ‘surgery’ run by experts on different (useful) subjects for artists.
8pm – 8.30pm: Up to 10 x 3 minute ‘open mic’ spots for artists to tell you about new ideas, existing projects, opportunities coming up etc. If you want to sign up for a slot, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
8.30pm: Invited guest speaker with opportunity for Q&A
ROHINI DEVASHER - Born in 1978, Rohini Devasher lives and works in New Delhi. She received her MA in Printmaking from Winchester School of Art in the UK and her BFA from the College of Art in New Delhi. Her work has been exhibited widely in India and abroad.
9pm – 10pm: Networking and drinks.
Artists, working in all disciplines who think they may benefit from engaging with a dynamic, ambitious, artist-led environment are welcome to drop by.
Venue: Please note that this month's edition of Future Park is at Cafe Valise, Leigh Community Centre, Elm Rd, SS9 1SP
Written by Colette Bailey 10 June 2013
Old Trunk at Village Green
Don't miss Old Trunk's stage at Village Green. Consisting of Writer/actor Sadie Hasler and actor/improviser Sarah Mayhew, Old Trunk will present original theatre that is 'compelling, fast-paced and visceral'.
Our interview with Old Trunk:
What is Old Trunk?
Well. The professional-sounding spiel is that Old Trunk is a new-writing theatre company that creates darkly comic, visceral, multi-role journeys of the soul for the stage, or something deep like that. But the less fluffy truth of it is that me and my co-Artistic Director and best friend Sarah Mayhew decided that there's a lot of nobs about and we'd like to create our own work and work with each other more. Under the officialdom of running a company we pretty much just chat about stuff we want and then do it.
How old is Old Trunk?
Although Sarah and I have worked together on loads of things (mainly comedy) for years, Old Trunk is only just turning one. In baby terms we're not yet on solids and you have to keep checking our bums every five minutes. I keep meaning to look through my phone for the date of the exact text where I said in a huff one day "Ugh. I just want to set up a theatre company and do plays all the time" and Sarah said "Alright wench, let's ruddy do it." That text would yield our proper birthday and we would know when to celebrate instead of just guessing and eating cake every day in the month of June for good measure. It feels pretty amazing to have done so much in just a year.
What projects have you done so far?
Our first play The Bastard Children of Remington Steele started off as an idea for a sketch show initially - over a pint in Old Leigh, then we changed our minds and I went away and wrote it as a play - the first I'd written in quite a while having been focused on solo character comedy - then we came together to read and edit, produce and stage. We premiered at the Camden Fringe and then had a near sold-out run at the Leicester Square theatre. We're now following the same model with our new play The Secret Wives of Andy Williams, which is the prequel to the last. It's an amazing joy to see it all start from nothing and then grow into a real living thing, thanks to the dedication and amazing talent of our fellow actors Charlie Platt and Edward Mitchell. We're very lucky girls. The hard work is paying off, with lots of top industry people being very supportive, and our wonderful patrons Jenny Eclair, Phill Jupitus and Deborah Frances-White bolstering our confidence, and it's all so much fun sometimes we almost feel guilty.
What can people expect to see on your stage at Village Green?
People can expect to see a mixed bag of utter delight. We've got local artists proffering their wares in the early part of the day - sketches, world theatre, physical theatre, puppetry, storytelling, song, music and dance... Then we're showing a sneaky peek of our new play. Then we've got the pant-splittingly funny Radio 4 sketch group Jigsaw, one of the finest character comedians around, Being Human's Colin Hoult with his show Characthorse, the Fringe First Award winning play Dirty Great Love Story which wowed audiences in Edinburgh and at the Soho theatre, and then we're finishing with another show of ours - The Vagabond Diaries - a collection of tales about being human, featuring the sublime music of M G Boulter and The Lucky Strikes. We could only fit more in if the day was longer and we booked the world's tiniest contortionists. But we went for regular sized people who flings their bits about. We think that's more fun.
Written by Colette Bailey 09 June 2013
D B COHEN
DB COHEN will perform at this year's Village Green main stage.
Produced by Snowboy, his new album Scratchcards and Wine is out now and here is an exclusive access to one of the song:
Do you love me now Daddy by dancohen
OUR INTERVIEW WITH DB COHEN
How did you start in music?
I always travelled with an old acoustic guitar and would always pick up new chords and songs whilst on the road. But it was during four years living in Japan that I started writing my own songs. I played in Nirvana and Velvet Underground cover bands in Tokyo (I was drunk and western enough to be considered as a good front man!). After 2 years I formed a band called the 'Dogs Bollox' and played gypsy music, Kinks and Sex Pistols covers alongside newly penned originals venting about the hedonistic, but ultimately superficial nature of living in modern Japan.
Who are the members of DB Cohen?
Most of the band hail from Southend. I'm lucky to have members of Florence's Machine, The Baddies, Emile Sande and Two Tone legends 'The Specials' all in the band. They are: Toby Gore on drums, Mark Saunders on bass, Mike Webster on guitar, Ladonna Harley-Peters backing vocals, with Andy Gray leading the 3-piece brass section. Also Rochford's own Simon 'Sting' Davies will be playing hammond organ for us at Village Green 2013 too.
Which musicians have influenced you?
I was brought up listening to the Stones, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, and old blues records my Dad collected of artists whose name always had a 'Lightning' or 'Gatemouth' before their surname. I'm a 60's throwback really, but I love Paul Weller, Trojan Ska, Supergrass. My first ever gig was Ocean Colour Scene at the Royal Albert Hall. I was a wannabe Mod during my teenage years.
How did you met Snowboy and what is it like working together?
I first saw Snowboy at the Kentish Town Forum when he played with the James Taylor Quartet. I'd bought my brother tickets for his birthday, standing in the front row, I distinctly remember both of us being blown away by this huge man smacking the hell out of these poor congas. Years later I would frequent Snowboy's long standing Funk night at Madame Jojo's, and it was there where I approached him, 2am and blind drunk, I asked him if he would listen to a demo I'd written. Being the gentleman he is, he agreed, and fortunately, he loved what he heard. Snowboy has since become a good friend and my musical mentor, producing the entire album over a period of 3 or 4 years, tireless in his effort to create the right sound, always finding me an array of amazing musicians to play and record with. Many are still working with me now. He is, as anyone who knows him will testify, a hugely talented and knowledgeable music man, but above all, a loyal friend and a real family man.
Do you like playing at festivals and why?
Village Green 2013 will be my first ever festival appearance! I'll let you know afterwards if I like it! I'm sure it's going to be a fantastic experience, I am really looking forward to giving Southend a great performance. I've got to know Southend quite well over the last 4 years, most of the band are based here, and I recorded most of the album at Big Noise Studio's in Rochford. So I feel like I'm an adopted Southender at times.
What is your new album about?
Each track has it's own story. I do love a good story. Robert Zimmerman taught me that if songs aren't conveying an emotion directly they best have a good story, or at least some humour and irony. Most of my songs are personal experiences filtered through a style of music that I'm listening to at the time. You can hear past Trojan Ska obsessions in 'Do What', 'Dinner Party' and 'Rockahula', whilst you can hear my Exile on Main Street obsession on another 'Don't Follow me Down'. But songs like 'Scratchcards' from which the album title 'Scratchcards & Wine' borrows the line from, is a fictional story about an immigrant family and the mess that's left, when one member leaves to find work overseas. The track 'Bus 142' is inspired by the Sean Penn directed film 'Into the Wild' which celebrates the eventful life of Christopher McCandless. Whilst 'Dinner Party' is about all the famous people, dead or alive, you'd like to have round for your imaginary dinner party. But my favourite subject matter is 'Do you love me now Daddy' which is something I'd like to think Ray Davies would be proud of, to fondly take the piss out of middle class England, it's alcoholic tendencies and the cruel fact that Daddy left the family business to the dog and not you.
Written by Colette Bailey 09 June 2013