Stage for emerging choreographers The annual EMERGE Festival offers choreographers a five-day run in London, choreographic mentoring, rehearsal space as well as technical and marketing support. see below They’re back The Specials – formed in 1977 in Coventry – are playing at the Troxy. see below Out & About News in brief A very Specials night at the Troxy SKA-pop legends The Specials play a show at the Troxy next week. The band, well-known for their 1981 hit Ghost Town, come to Stepney on Friday, November 21 after three sold-out gigs in Camden. Tickets were still available for the Troxy show at the time of going to print. Call the box office on 0844 800 9224. Dance at EMERGE EMERGE Festival enters its second week at The Space on the Isle of Dogs on Tuesday. The dance event, which supports emerging choreographers, features contemporary performances organised with Adam Towndrow. Some of the picks for week two include Gerrard Martin, who presents Heyoka: Evolution, a piece influen ced by house dance and yoga. Other highlights are Julia Thornycrocft’s Crufts & Great British Menu, a satirical dance theatre comedy, along with Nina Vonderwerth’s Gender Bender. Next week, the festival closes with performances from the likes of Natasha Lee and Brian Gillespie, plus a guest turn from Adam Towndrow. Tickets for the shows, which start at 8pm, cost £12/£10. EMERGE runs from November 18-21. The Space is at 269 Westferry Road, E14. Tickets can be booked at www.space.org.uk or by calling 7515 7799. Jewellery course BUDDING designers are invited to enrol on a jewellery making course, which starts in January 2015. London Jewellery Workshop in Swanfield Street, Bethnal Green, has launched the sixmonth diploma course run by Nina Gilbey, a silversmith and teacher for over 20 years. The course is suitable for complete beginners and those with basic skills who wish to learn through a structured programme. Visit www.london jewelleryworkshop.co.uk Lizzie’s knockout show LIZZIE Bates is a comedian who lives in Stepney Green. She was previously one-third of sketch group The Boom Jennies, who recorded a series for BBC Radio 4. In 2013, along with co-writer Anna Emerson, she won the 2013 BAFTA Rocliffe prize for new comedy screenwriters. This summer her hour-long solo show Reprobates – which includes an array of Lizzy’s quirky characters – was a critical success at the Edinburgh Festival. On November 23, she is bringing the show to Etcetera Theatre in Camden. East End Life spent five minutes with Lizzie. How long have you lived in Tower Hamlets? For something like seven years. I’ve lived in Whitechapel, Bethnal Green and now Stepney Green. I love it here. Has living in the borough influenced the development of any of your characters in the show? Definitely. Living opposite York Hall, and seeing all the crowds spilling out after the boxing, inspired my youth boxing coach character. A UNIQUE vision of London is promised by a new photography exhibition opening in Roman Road later this month. East End artist Antony Cairns has returned to his roots for his latest project, once again using the Metropolis as his muse. Carins’ contemporary pieces – opening to the public at the Roman Road Gallery on November 27 – employ silver gelatin prints on aluminium plates to map the constantly changing urban landscape. The display also includes a largescale photographic montage of one of the artist’s prints. Ahead of the exhibition, Lizzie Bates In the show, I make a guy in the front row put boxing gloves on then get I get him up on stage as if I’m running over strategy and ‘the moves’ in between rounds. Then I say Cairns is set to launch a book, titled LDN3, at Le Bal Books in Paris on November 15. His ‘forget I’m a woman and just punch me.’ In Edinburgh, most guys looked terrified and would mime a punch but one guy took an enormous swing at LDN series will be showing at Roman Road Gallery, 69 Roman Road, E2, from me, clipped my chin and knocked me to the ground. I don’t know who let out the biggest gasp – me, the audience or the man who had just punched me in the face. It was, however, hands down one of the best things that happened in the run. After the initial shock, none of us could stop laughing. Character-based comedy seems to be a very popular form at the moment – why do you think this is? I think character comedy is popular because everyone in the audience can relate to it. My favourite character comedians will take an archetype and exaggerate what’s funny about that type that we all recognise from real life. Do you have any other projects in the pipeline you can mention? The other Boom Jennies and I are planning to film some of our favourite sketches so they should be online soon. And after winning the BAFTA Rocliffe new writing prize last year, Anna (fellow Boom Jennie) and I are working on some TV sitcom projects. So watch this space! November 27 until December 20. It is open Wednesday to Saturday, 11am-7pm. Ben Hurren Playwright’s big break A TOWER Hamlets man has launched his first fulllength theatre production. The Remains of George is a new comedy-drama penned by Ben Hurren. The play hit the stage at Walthamstow’s Ye Old Rose and Crown theatre pub earlier this month and runs until Saturday (November 15). Playwright Hurren’s story centres on a case of mistaken identity. Edward, Adam and Grace are three dysfunctional siblings who visit their widowed father on his birthday for what proves a testing but humorous week. Hurren directed and produced the self-funded show, which he hopes will be the first in a series of plays. He said that attending an interview with the American actor John Lithgow was his initial inspiration. “This experience enabled me to realise that sometimes we need to create our own opportunities,” said Hurren. “Since then, I have completed the play, funded the space and attended constant rehearsals while keeping down a full time job in the city. It is hard work but so worth it.” He added: “I felt that to get my writing seen in a wider field I had to self-fund a production.” “I’ve learned so much more along the way.” Visit www.theremainsof george.com to buy tickets. The website contains a full list of the cast involved in the play. 10 – 16 NOVEMBER 2014 N E W S F R O M T O WER HAMLETS COUNCIL AND YOUR COMMUNITY 21
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