Arts Diary: Will Marriott
We admit when we first found out about it we thought: "Quirky, but not so sure our readers will be that interested".
The Grassington Festival launched this weekend and the organisers seemed very excited about a set of 25, two-metre tall fibreglass curlews. We just didn't get it. However, it turns out the curlews are the talk of the festival.
A Flight of Fancy is the collective name for the 25 bird sculptures. A single sculpture was created for the festival by sculptor Dominic Tuck, which was then cast in fibreglass 25 times. Each of the curlews was then given to different artists all over Yorkshire who then decorated their bird. The artists include watercolourist Ashley Jackson, who has used acrylics in a piece of work for the first time in a very long while.
The curlews have been sited round Grassington – each one has a name and is differently decorated: Disco Curlew is covered in tiny mirror tiles and rotating with full lights and music; God save the Curlew painted in the Union Jack complete with crown; Night – a night landscape and sky which twinkles with LED stars and Credit Crunch Curlew, covered in cut-up credit cards. And all of them have proved very popular.
Last year they just didn't turn up. There was no announcement or anything, we just never saw them.
Similarly this year they're back – and with just as little fanfare.
The British Shakespeare Company has been bringing outdoor productions of the Bard's work to Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds for over a decade. Then last year it just didn't. Loiner RJ Williamson, the RADA graduate who operates in the old-fashioned actor/manager role, had been threatening for years that it may come to the point when he couldn't afford
to bring the production to his home town and last year that warning came true.
It was announced this week that the company will be returning with Shakespearean favourites A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing – the shows will be coming at the end of July for a couple of weeks. Watch this space for more details.
Toby Jones is a name that, if you're into comedy and live in Yorkshire, you may well know. Based in Leeds suburb Chapel Allerton, he is a comedy uber-promoter with a contacts book that stand-up fans would kill for.
And he's pulled off another coup.
Because he's so popular with comedians, Toby is able to book really impressive names and get them to play intimate gigs in the venues he runs – and we're talking comedians who play very, very big gigs. Hence the lack of surprise when we found out this week that Toby has managed to get Rhod Gilbert to play one of his little venues – Toby's comedy clubs are at the Original Oak pub in Headingley and the City Screen in York next month, where he'll play to a combined crowd of about 250.
Tickets on 0113 275 1322 for Headingley, and York on 0870 583219.
If you've never uttered the word Abracadabra, you might be surprised to hear that Huddersfield has had a magic circle for six decades.
The Huddersfield Circle of Magicians will celebrate its 60th year tomorrow with a day of magic. The town's Lawrence Batley Theatre will play host to the event, which will be held in the theatre Courtyard from 12.30pm to 3pm and is free. In the evening in the theatre's main auditorium the Huddersfield Circle of Magicians present their Anniversary Spectacular Show featuring a host of national and international artistes.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 1 C to 6 C
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Sunny spells
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