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ART & CULTURE: Bridesmaids: Anatomy of a Hit at the Tyneside

February 1, 2013

Wendall Thomas the the Tyneside CinemaA ray of sunshine penetrated the wintry gloom of the city centre last December when Los Angeles film lecturer, casting director and writer Wendall Thomas visited the Tyneside Cinema to present her one day film masterclass: ‘Bridesmaids: Anatomy of a Hit.’

When you think of the Tyneside Cinema you might think of its plush seats, the glorious fact that you can take your glass of wine or chilled beer into the cinema or its beautiful Art Deco décor. What doesn’t spring to mind quite so readily is that the Tyneside regularly plays host to a wide range of activities and international guest speakers that support the arts scene in the North East.

Listening to a woman who has hands-on experience of working in the Hollywood film industry was like being an avid baker given an audience with Mary Berry (throw in Paul too and you’ve got more Hollywood than you can shake a stick at!).

The Roxy Cinema was full of people as eager to learn about ‘the three-act structure’, ‘ensemble comedies versus the hero’s journey’ and ‘universal themes’ as I was. We were guided through a recent history of successful international comedies: The Full Monty, The Tall Guy, Notting Hill and Meet the Parents to name just a few. And we learned that it’s the universal themes behind these films that mean that they travel – and sell – so well across the world. Notting Hill is ‘a dream come true’; Meet the Parents is about the fear commonly experienced when meeting your prospective in-laws; and Bridesmaids? Well Bridesmaids is all about ‘What happens when your best friend in all the world announces she’s getting married.’

Watching a few minutes of the film and then listening as it was explained in terms of how the story was constructed by a mixture of scenes and sequences was fascinating. To go back to our keen bakers it was like those episodes of The Great British Bake Off where Mary and Paul bake something from scratch and hold your hand as they take you through each stage. Suddenly you find yourself thinking “Sachertorte! What a doddle! I could do that!”

I have written one screenplay so far in my life. It took a year and a half to complete. I used three reams of A4 paper and several cartridges of printer ink to produce something that’s just ninety pages long. And that’s ninety pages with a lot of white space. What I learned at the Tyneside with Wendell Thomas is that there’s a lot more to Sachertorte than meets the eye – It’s back to the laptop I go!

by Katherine Wildman © 2013

Katherine Wildman is the Creative Director of Haydn Grey Ltd, a copywriting agency based in Cullercoats.

Discover how Haydn Grey can help you find the right words to promote your business at www.haydngrey.co.uk or call the office on 0191 289 3170.

Filed Under: Art and Culture, Features, Katherine Wildman

ART & CULTURE: Beautiful Burnout at Northern Stage

January 1, 2013

Beautiful Burnout - Frantic AssemblyAs soon as I turned the corner I heard it. A bass line that shook the floor and messed with my heartbeat. The room was dark but for the flickering lights that illuminated a small, square stage. While the rest of the nation sat glued to Strictly Come Dancing and the X Factor, I entered a dark and dangerous world. A world of violence, damage, fear and despair.

And what’s more, I had paid for the privilege.

The music pulsed through the floor as I made my way down the stairs to my seat. It felt like being twenty-one again, standing on a podium in a packed nightclub. I clutched my respectably small glass of red wine and sat down. A wall of flashing video screens behind the stage bombarded my eyes with images of bodies, numbers and boxing gloves.

For an introductory sequence, this was utterly thrilling.

Beautiful Burnout, written by Bryony Lavery, was brought to Northern Stage by Frantic Assembly and the National Theatre of Scotland last November. I went to see it at the last minute after reading a Facebook message from an old school friend telling me that it was extraordinary. I can’t thank her enough for the push.

We all know that television isn’t just reality shows. It can be brilliant. Especially when either Sir David Attenborough or Hugh Bonneville are involved. We know, too, that the cinema can leave you open-mouthed – but there is something extraordinary that happens when you are at a theatre.

To see people moving in the harmony that only happens after months of rehearsals, to marvel as they become someone else, someone new and someone real. To watch the words on a page come to life. I knew I was entranced by Beautiful Burnout when I realized, a good half an hour into the play, that the woman on the stage in front of me was not just the downtrodden single mother of an aspiring boxer on the mean streets of Glasgow where the play is set. She was also ‘Miss Hooley’, the primary school teacher who always wears green and has bobbed hair, from the CBeebies children’s show Balamory.

This woman had been in my front room for years, and now here she was, a few feet away from me, dressed in cheap leggings and a baggy grey sweatshirt with her hair scraped back, fighting for her son and considering “the best washing powder to remove sweat – and blood”.

For ninety glorious minutes I was transported. I felt afraid, aghast, astonished and amazed. I laughed, I cried and, when it was all over, I stood up by myself and thumped out the loudest applause I could muster.

Stepping out into the freezing cold night air outside the theatre, my mind whirring with the final scenes, the world seemed a little bit brighter, a little more alive than it had two hours before.

Thank you, Northern Stage, for an amazing night. No X Factor required.

by Katherine Wildman © 2013

Katherine Wildman is the Creative Director of Haydn Grey Ltd, a copywriting agency based in Cullercoats.

Discover how Haydn Grey can help you find the right words to promote your business at www.haydngrey.co.uk or call the office on 0191 289 3170.

Filed Under: Art and Culture, Features, Katherine Wildman

GREAT DAYS OUT: Hunting for Dragons in the Deep Dark Wood at Seven Stories

December 1, 2012

Did you know that the Dark Ages could be found in the Ouseburn Valley? Were you aware that Deadly Dragons and Hairy Hooligans lurked in corridors and nestled in alcoves just waiting to surprise you? Would you have guessed that there was an entire dictionary of ‘Dragonese’ and that you, yes you, could add to it?

Well it’s all waiting to be discovered at Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books, because the charming Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third (he of the Hairy Hooligans tribe) has come to town.

The new exhibition, ‘A Viking’s Guide to Deadly Dragons’, offers a fascinating insight, not just into the much-loved characters of author Cressida Cowell’s books, but into her writing – and the publishing – process.

If you are a small visitor to the centre then you can get stuck in and design your own Viking helmet, marvel at the costumed staff members who pass you on the stairs brandishing stuffed dragons and enjoy listening to some Viking story-telling. If, like me, you’re that bit bigger then it’s a chance to be really quite nosey about how the books that make it onto our children’s bookshelves actually get there.

Beautifully detailed preliminary sketches for Cowell’s books are framed alongside video interviews with the author as she talks about the remote Scottish island she lived on as a child and that provided her with the inspiration for the wild and bleak landscapes her heroes live in.

Upstairs, the exhibition ‘A Squash and a Squeeze: Sharing Stories with Julia Donaldson’, reveals that wonderful books like ‘The Gruffalo’ actually started life, not on some whizzy computer screen, but on the pages of an A4 exercise book like the ones you or I might have at home. Sketches for artwork by the brilliant illustrator Axel Scheffler go through a number of drafts before they’re approved and are subject to changes from ‘the powers that be’ in the publishing world and what is clear is just how much work goes on behind the scenes of creating a children’s book.

With one of the best bookshops around, helpful and friendly staff and a brilliant café overlooking the river, Seven Stories is a treasure trove of delights that’s just waiting to be explored. And don’t worry – Hiccup’s Dragon won’t bite. He’s called Toothless.

For more information on Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books, go to: www.sevenstories.org.uk

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is the Creative Director of Haydn Grey Ltd, a copywriting agency based in Cullercoats.

Discover how Haydn Grey can help you find the right words to promote your business at www.haydngrey.co.uk or call the office on 0191 289 3170.

Filed Under: Features, Great Days Out, Katherine Wildman

TRAVEL: Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside!

November 1, 2012

There’s just something about a traditional British seaside holiday isn’t there? Although you might be hard pushed to find a line of striped deckchairs and a man with a knotted white handkerchief tied on his head, the British seaside offers a plethora of delights for everyone.

Since I can remember my family has decamped to the golden sands and fish and chip scented air of Whitby in North Yorkshire for a week or two every summer and, I’m happy to say, that in that time very little has changed.

Of course the weather can never be guaranteed, the hopeful stocking-up of ‘3 for 2’ sun creams can be a complete waste of money and you always need to pack a woolly jumper but still…

A picture-postcard pretty fishing town, Whitby Harbour is overlooked on the East Cliff by the Gothic ruins of Whitby Abbey and the ancient church of St. Mary.

Over on the West Cliff a pair of whalebones forms an archway leading to an imposing statue of Captain Cook who trained as a seaman in the town before embarking on his epic voyages around the world.

Whitby is a heavenly place if you love food, from the award-winning Magpie fish and chip shop to the vanilla-scented dens of Justin’s Original Fudge and Toffee shops on the cobbled streets of Church Street. Expect all thoughts of diets, points and restraint to be forgotten.

Standing in the gardens of the newly restored YMCA on West Cliff you might spot plumes of white smoke emerging from the rooftops in the centre of town. Panic not! The North Yorkshire Moors Railway operates steam trains that run from Whitby through the North Yorkshire Moors to the pretty market town of Pickering, passing through Goatland Station – also known as Hogsmeade Station in the film of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

The beach on Whitby’s north harbour runs for nearly three miles down to the beautiful village of Sandsend, where children build sandcastles and launch dinghies onto the freshwater pool on the beach.

This year our trip to Sandsend was quite possibly our most ‘typically British’ yet. As my sister and I queued to get a pile of fresh crab sandwiches from the brilliant Sandside Café an almighty downpour began. Cue an extended family of wet children, grandparents, aunts and uncles huddled under umbrellas and draped in towels, picnic blankets and groundsheets happily munching fresh crab sandwiches. Alan Bennett would be proud!

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is the Creative Director of Haydn Grey Ltd, a copywriting agency based in Cullercoats.

Discover how Haydn Grey can help you find the right words to promote your business at www.haydngrey.co.uk or call the office on 0191 289 3170.

Filed Under: Features, Katherine Wildman, Travel

GREAT DAYS OUT: Sleep Beneath the Stars

September 29, 2012

“If you hear two whistles from me in the middle of the night, you’ll know it’s happening.”

We sat on bales of hay in the sunshine, eating a feast of roast lamb and freshly picked salads from the nearby vegetable garden.

“I don’t think it will …But if it does, you’ll hear it” said Lee, one of the farmers at Christmas Farm.

Looking behind us at the rolling hills of Northumberland it was clear that one of the beautiful Dexter cows in the field was moving considerably more slowly – and looking a lot more rotund – than her friends. A new calf was expected on the farm at any moment.

“They’re very sensible,” said the other farmer, Beth. “They usually wait until it’s all calm and quiet just before dawn and then the action starts.”

“If it happens, can we watch?” the kids at the table asked eagerly. Lee laughed, “You can! You never know. I might need you to pull!”

G&S Organics at Christmas Farm in Longframlington hold monthly Farm Focus Dinners and, for the price of your dinner ticket, you can also camp out beneath the stars.

After devouring puddings of home baked ginger cake and fresh cream, we decamped to the other side of the fence and started to pitch our tent. The campsite has a compost loo – which is more fun than it sounds – a fresh water standpipe and apart from that it was just us, a few other guests from the dinner and the occasional swallow, diving out of the great big beautiful skies overhead.

As the only campsite in Northumberland that allows you to build a real fire you can watch as your kids turn completely and happily wild, like the heroes and heroines of a Famous Five story. With hair scented with the delicate scent of wood smoke and armed with a large stick each, we didn’t see either of our two for hours as they sat at the bottom of the field and played with Billy and George, the boys who are lucky enough to live on the farm all year round.

Towards evening we heard a chorus of squeaks from the bottom of the field as the latest litter of kittens appeared near the children to play in the long grasses, followed by a parade of ducklings obediently following their mother back to their pen for the night.

The sun sank behind the hills and we put out our fire and crept into our tent, falling fast asleep after a day filled with delicious food, laughter and fresh air. All was silent until a little eight-year-old voice whispered in my ear “Mummy – you will listen for the two whistles won’t you? I don’t want to miss it!”

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is the Creative Director of Haydn Grey Ltd, a copywriting agency based in Cullercoats.

Discover how Haydn Grey can help you find the right words to promote your business at www.haydngrey.co.uk or call the office on 0191 289 3170.

Filed Under: Features, Great Days Out, Katherine Wildman

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The deadlines for the 2020 issues are:

MonthDeadlineDistribution Dates
January 20205th December (2019)27th, 30th, 31st December (2019)
February 20209th January29th - 31st January
March 20206th February26th - 28th February
April 20205th March27th, 30th, 31st March
May 20209th April28th - 30th April
June 20207th May27th - 29th May
July 202011th June26th, 29th, 30th June
August 20209th July29th - 31st July
September 20206th August26th - 28th August
October 202010th September28th - 30th September
November 20208th October28th - 30th October
December 20205th November26th, 27th, 30th November
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