Arts Diary: Will Marriott

the lovely people at Opera North will have lots to celebrate in the coming months – no less than five of the staff at the company are expecting babies this spring and summer. Hannah Dilworth, education producer, Helen Mahoney, education programme manager, Judith Padmore, assistant company manager, Rebecca Willett, press officer and Helen Wilson, orchestra manager are all expecting in the coming months. Best of luck to Rebecca Willett who went on maternity leave this week – she suggested, “there must be something in the water at Opera North”.
By The Newsroom
Published 25th Mar 2011, 10:11 BST

The dissolvable wedding dress, designed by students at Sheffield Hallam University that caused a world-wide stir when it was on display last year, is enjoying another moment in the spotlight as it goes on tour around the UK. The dress is currently on display in the Home Office in central London for the first time as part of Climate Week 2011, before it comes home to Sheffield next week, where it will be displayed at Vulcan House. The dress, the result of an unlikely, but happy, marriage between fashion and engineering students at Sheffield Hallam University, can be dissolved after the wedding to transform it into five new fashion pieces, all of which will also be on display.

Big congratulations are in order to the panel of Trouble Shooting, held at the National Media Museum as part of the Bradford International Film Festival. There they were, a bunch of first time film-makers, handing out advice on how to make films when panel chairman Bill Lawrence pointed out to the audience that for the past ten minutes another filmmaker had been quietly standing at the back of the room. Mischievious Terry Gilliam had decided to pop in. So well done the novice filmmakers for having the guts to keep going while the legend looked on.

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How’s about this for dedication to your art: ever since Leeds Amateur Operatic Society started rehearsing for South Pacific in January, two members of the cast have travelled almost 8,000 miles between them to attend evening and weekend rehearsals, as well as the forthcoming performances at the West Yorkshire Playhouse from tomorrow for a week. Jonathan Penton plays the lead role of Emile de Becque, and lives in Loughborough, 90 miles away, so he will have covered 4,500 miles attending the 25 rehearsals and chorus member Averil Ashworth lives in Barnoldswick, and she will have attended 37 rehearsals and performances, adding up to 3,330 miles at 90 per session in preparing for this production. We hope they have a great show.

Now here’s something you don’t get to do every day – a chance to play a concert on an historic railway station. This summer will see the inaugural Rock And Rail festival which will see musical acts playing at Keighley and Worth Valley Railway Station, the Oxenhope Train shed – and on a steam train. The organisers are looking for local acts to play at Keighley station – if you want to be part of the action log on to www.rockandrail.co.uk