Events

Previews of forthcoming events and reviews of past events.

Events

January 12 is Delia Derbyshire day

13 December 2012 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Delia Derbyshire

Is this music familiar to you, perhaps?

It was, of course, composed by Ron Grainer, but the person who ‘realised’ it – not using a synthesiser, since they hadn’t been invented yet, but by creating each note manually – was Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Derbyshire went on to be extremely influential in the world of electronic music and on January 12th 2013, Band on the Wall in Manchester is going to have a Delia Derbyshire Day to celebrate her work and to screen a documentary about her.

Here’s the itinerary:

Daytime “mini-symposium” event 3pm-6pm includes:

  • Screening of award-winning documentary “The Delian Mode”
  • Q&A with The Delian Mode director Kara Blake exciting panel of ‘Delian’ experts from around the UK
  • Deep listening session and sharing of some of Delia Derbyshire archive material

Evening event 8pm-10.30pm includes:

Premiere performances of new commissions by:

Ailís Ní Ríain (contemporary classical)

caro c (was caro snatch – experimental electronic)

Naomi Kashiwagi (gramophonica)

With live visual accompaniment by Kara Blake

Plus DJ Tukatz playing Delia inspired experimental music

Evening event will present new commissions by Manchester based caro c (experimental electronic), Ailís Ní Ríain (contemporary classical) and Naomi Kashiwagi (gramophonica) inspired by spending time with Delia Derbyshire archives held at University of Manchester. Plus DJ Tukatz playing Delian sounds and live visual accompaniment by Kara Blake.

Tickets are dirt cheap – Full Day: £10 Early Bird (before Dec 12), £12 after. Afternoon event only: £6. Evening event only: £7.50 – so if you’re in the area, go along!

Totally Serialized returns with Jean Reno and Jo, Spiral and Grégory Fitoussi, Ashley Pharoah, Doctor Who and more French & UK TV

22 November 2012 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Remember Total Serialized, the French and British TV Series Festival? Well it’s back again. Here beginneth the press release/

From 16 to 20 January 2013, Ciné Lumière at the Institut français will hold the second edition of Totally Serialized. It will showcase the best of new productions from both sides of the Channel and also European TV shows on the big screen – with actors, screenwriters and directors in attendance.

Highlights include:

  • The UK premiere of the first episode of Spiral series 4, followed by a Q&A with actor Grégory Fitoussi!
  • The first episode of the mini-series Labyrinth, based on the multi-million selling novel by Kate Mosse, followed by a panel Q&A with cast and key creatives
  • The UK premieres of new Scandinavian TV show Real Humans, and innovative French shows Rebound, Spin and The Church Men
  • A panel on TV screenwriting with Jack Thorne (The Fades, This is England), Ashley Pharoah (Life on Mars) and French screenwriters
  • The world premiere of Flight of the Storks directed by Jan Kounen
  • The world premiere of Jo attended by Jean Reno
  • A comedy medley of French and British sitcoms (The Thick of It, Peep Show, Kaboul Kitchen, Workingirls)
  • A Skins revival to say goodbye to the cult show ending this year, with a screening of the very first episode and a Q&A with the creator Bryan Elsley
  • A night of Doctor Who fun with fancy dress, music, quizzes and a writing masterclass with Toby Whithouse.

Other events will be announced in the next few weeks so please like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter (French Institute account) and check our website. The official Twitter tag for the festival is #TS2013.

BFI events

How the bloody hell does the BFI’s membership thing work?

11 September 2012 Rob Buckley Post a comment

You may or may not – probably not – have noticed that I haven’t been doing the BFI TV round up for the last few months. There’s a simple reason for this: I haven’t been getting the screening brochure. There’s a simple reason for this, too: the BFI’s online membership management scheme is a sucky usability nightmare.

So, to be helpful to to the BFI and save it money, you can choose not to have certain mailings sent to you. And here’s what I chose.

BFI membership screen

What do you think that means? Does that to suggest that by ticking the boxes you’re opting out of something or does that mean you’re going to keep getting the stuff you tick?

I went for option b and the result is no brochures. And this morning I got this.

BFI brochure

So that’s definitely confirmed. If you’re a BFI member, you need to tick an option to opt out of the mailing. I’ve now swapped over the options and fingers-crossed, I’ll be able to restart the What’s On at the BFI feature again.

PS There’s no online help and no one replied to my email asking, in case you’re wondering why it’s taken so long to find out. I suppose I could have Tweeted them or something…

Elisabeth Murdoch’s MacTaggart lecture and two MediaGuardian Edinburgh Festival masterclasses for you: Sherlock and Modern Family

30 August 2012 Rob Buckley Post a comment

For the uninitiated, the big UK media event of the year is the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival, which took place last week. As well as a chance to get extremely hammered, while smoozing the famous and powerful with your great idea for a new TV show, there are interviews, masterclasses and the famous MacTaggart Lecture (this year’s speaker: Elisabeth Murdoch):

However, today I shall be presenting to you two masterclasses: the Sherlock masterclass involving Sue Vertue, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and Andrew Scott, and the Modern Family masterclass with co-creator Steve Levitan. Enjoy!

Events

Because there needs to be more pictures of Patrick Stewart in a Greek tragedy half-mask and knitted wig on this blog

8 June 2012 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Patrick Stewart in Oedipus

Yes, in 1976, as part of course A307 Drama, along with Shakespeare’s Macbeth and other famous works of English theatre, the Open University mounted a production (or at least half a production) of Sophocles’ Oidipous Tyrannos. Starring Patrick Stewart, Rosalie Crutchley, Ronald Radd, Roy Marsden and John Forbes-Robertson, it was a semi-authentic (well, not full masks, it was in English and there was an actress involved) version of the play, complete with false echoes to suggest it was filmed in an amphitheatre.

Why don’t they do great things like this any more? I don’t know.

Anyway, it was on last night at the BFI as part of the BFI’s Greek Plays On The Small Screen season in a double bill with a Play of the Month version starring Ian Holm. The event was organised in association with the AHRC-funded research project Screen Plays: Theatre Plays on British Television, which is concerned with all plays written for the theatre produced for British television since 1930 and will publish a database of productions, a book and journal articles, as well as organise screenings, conferences and other events.

It’s worth noting they have a rather an impressive seminar organised for the afternoon Friday 22nd June (fingers crossed for a half-day off work…), by the way, so do try to go along to that and the rest of the season if you can.

As a treat, after the jump, a couple of videos: a discussion from Utah State University on the play and Don Taylor’s 1984 TV production with Michael Pennington, Claire Bloom, John Gielgud, John Shrapnel, Michael Byrne, Cyril Cusack, Dvaid Collings, Edward Hardwicke and Nigel Stock. Sorry, no Patrick Stewart in a tea cosy.

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