The Wotever DIY Film Festival (WDIYFF) showcases the best, queer, DIY film from LGBTQ communities in the UK and around the world.
Now in their fourth year – and fifth festival – WDIYFF has seen a one evening event grow to a three-day festival at the beautiful Cinema Museum in Kennington.
This year they are hosting a retrospective screening at the British Film Institute on August 20, 2015.
With submissions more than tripling this year, organisers are presenting a varied, not to mention packed, programme of films from all corners of our queer planet.
There is a pre-festival, DIY filmmaking workshop on August 16, and a free filmmakers networking event during the festival itself.
On the opening gala nigh they will be a screening Stories of Our Lives by the Kenyan group the Nest Collective which garnered rave reviews at BFI Flare earlier this year.
Event: Wotever DIY Film Festival
Where: The Cinema Museum, 2 Dugard Way (off Renfrew Road), London, SE11 4TH
When: Friday 21 – Sunday 23 August 2015
Times: Various (afternoons and evenings)
Tickets: Start from £7 for screenings (concession/donation tickets also available)
Grassroots Suicide Prevention (GSP) will be marking World Suicide Prevention Day in Brighton & Hove with a series of activities on September 10.
The theme this year is Reaching Out and Saving Lives and will include:
9.30 am – 1.00 pm: Free suicide alertness training for community members at Valley Social Centre
Thanks to funding from Public Health Brighton & Hove, GSP will be offering 30 free places on a safeTALK (Suicide Alertness For Everyone) workshop to community members.
Booking is essential: To learn more about the course and book a place, click here:
7pm – 8.00 pm: Community Event at Otherplace at the Basement, 24 Kensington St, Brighton
♦ Recognition Award made to YMCA Downslink Group for suicide prevention activities
♦ 2 minute silence to remember those loved and lost to suicide
♦ Celebration of Brighton & Hove’s progress towards becoming a suicide safer community
♦ How Grassroots is working with local businesses to help prevent suicide
♦ A personal perspective on reaching out for and receiving help with thoughts of suicide
♦ Guest speaker, Australian firefighter and author Tara Lal, telling her and her brother’s story – making peace with grief and suicide.
8.00 pm: There will be a short break, including a Resources Marketplace:
Grassroots stand will be taking pledge signatures, selling Tara’s books, and giving out suicide prevention resources. They have room for 3 or 4 other local organisations to have a stand.
8.15pm: Screening of Channel 4’s powerful film, The Stranger on the Bridge: The story of one man’s search for the stranger who stopped him jumping off Waterloo Bridge.
9.00pm: Panel discussion about suicide intervention with Tara Lal and local speakers with relevant experience
If you want to attend the morning’s safeTALK training, click here:
To organise these events, Grassroots Suicide Prevention received funding from Public Health Brighton & Hove City Council, and acknowledge Channel 4’s support with screening The Stranger on the Bridge.
GSP will also be holding a public stall at Brighton Station on Saturday, September 5, and organising a Bike Train event with local partners to raise awareness and funds to help train community members.
For more information keep an eye on their Facebook and Twitter accounts to learn more!
Cutting edge venue, the Hackney Showroom in London E8 is presenting in September 12 works that span both theatre and film to shine a new light on LGBTQ issues.
The venue wants to provide a platform for writers and performers to test out raw work in development with a few of the plays being rehearsed readings of work in progress. The productions are more than affordable to see with a few of them being completely free of charge.
The programme includes plays of inter-generational stories of sexuality across the decades, experimental works, monologues, and fusions of real and imagined scenarios. There are a variety of films with a focus on drag, transsexuality and politics.
The objective of this short season which runs between September 8-12 is to attempt to overturn what the venue terms as “apathy and to dig out some clarity” in light of the gains made for the LGBTQ community in terms of tolerance, for example marriage equality in the US. Yet, there is still a long way to go in other countries of the world who are introducing new draconian anti-queer laws.
Ralph Francis Fox Fisher (MA, BA Hons) known as FOX, is a Brighton based artist and the founder of Studio Salute, for screen printing and other creative adventures in design, illustration, animation and film.
He creates mix media prints inspired by the aesthetics of the hand drawn vs. the clarity of the digital.
PART I: THEN
August 15-29: A mini-retrospective of work over the last 6 years
PART II: NOW
September 10-20: Limited edition prints and bespoke one-offs.
Thursday, September 10 at 7pm
Live screen printing + music
Brush Hair Salon and Gallery
84 Gloucester Road, Brighton BN1 4AP
An intimate night of vintage inspired, raucous entertainment!
Hundred Watt Club is returning to its Brighton home, The Old Market this October, with another stellar line-up of award winning burlesque and cabaret artists.
Starring international vintage style songbird Elsie Diamond as hostess for the evening and the emerald inferno herself Bruise Violet providing firey striptease. Hare-brained kazoo wielding comic Elliot Mason will charm with his ludicrous melodies and critically acclaimed neo burlesque comes care of the gorgeous Coco Deville, whilst cabaret royalty Abigail Collins delights with her potty mouth and elastic physique!
Producer Lena Mae, said:“Brighton audiences are so welcoming and wonderfully reciprocal, I’m always so excited to return to Brighton with the show – and see what treats I can surprise them with this time!
Hundred Watt Club produces theatre shows, club nights and pop up shows featuring some of the best UK & international burlesque and cabaret artists. Founded in 2008 by Lena Mae, a Surrey based burlesque dancer, the first event in an intimate theatre was a sell out and the show continues to go from strength to strength with events across the country! To learn more visit www.hundredwattclub.com or email info@lenamae.com
Photo by Mat Ricardo
Event: Hundred Watt Club – Burlesque and Cabaret – Not for the faint hearted, adult themes employed and embraced! Admission is strictly over 18s.
Where: The Old Market, 11A Upper Market St, Brighton, BN3 1AS
The story of Annie is well documented. Young orphan Annie escapes the clutches of the wicked Miss Hannigan who runs the orphanage and after an unsuccessful nationwide search to find her parents is adopted by billionaire Daddy Warbucks.
In post Great Depression America, Annie is more than just a musical! It is a social comment piece about everything that America stands for and aspires to.
Following the Wall Street Crash, times were bad and Annie captures the optimism of a country determined to pick itself up, dust itself down and march forward towards tomorrow. Annie’s rags to riches story gloriously highlights that optimism that epitomises the American Dream.
While Tomorrow is the shows best known number and musically the centre piece of the show, there are other fine songs including Hard Knock Life, Easy Street and N.Y.C which was not included in the original film version of Annie but make a welcome return in this production.
The iconic role of Miss Hannigan is played by Craig Revel Horwood, best know to many as the nasty judge on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. He plays Hannigan campy and vampy rather than nasty and mean. Apart from some work needed with his hand positions, his performance worked well on many levels.
Miss Hannigan is a gin swilling drunk. Between swigs of alcohol, Mr Horwood managed to show how good an actor and elegant dancer he really is. His vocals especially in his solo number, Little Girls were very impressive and all in all, despite the distractions of working with children and Amber the two-year old Labradoodle who played Sandy, his class shone through, as did his great legs.
Alex Bourne played Daddy Warbucks to perfection. At heart he is a big softie, but being a billionaire and advisor to President Roosevelt, beautifully played by Callum McArdle, he had to be very careful not to expose the softer side of his nature to his staff and contemporaries. Daddy Warbucks is the granddad we all dream of having.
The star of this show is undoubtedly Annie played on opening night by Sophia Pettit. Her vocal range was solid throughout her register and she sang and acted with confidence and maturity way beyond her years. She played Annie cute but tough!
The set design by Colin Richmond deserves special mention; a huge jigsaw puzzle which he says is “a metaphor for Annie’s life as she journey’s through New York and tries to put together the pieces of her life”. The set was cleverly lit by Ben Cracknell who managed to transport us from the dark and miserable orphanage to the bright and sparkling mansion of Daddy Warbucks, with the flick of a switch.
Nick Winston’s choreography was excellent as was all the ensemble dancing throughout the evening
One slight criticism concerning the sound. At times I struggled to understand what the kids, who were all very good in their respective roles, were saying. It might have been their American accents but it was an ongoing issue during the evening.
Ceri Dupree is undoubtably the finest female impersonator treading the boards today.
His sister Ria Jones is a singer of the highest quality whose West End credits include Fantine in Les Miserables, Grizabella in Cats and at 19 she was the youngest actress to play the role of Eva Peron in the National Tour tour of Evita.
Together they bring their new cabaret-style show Miss-Leading Ladies to the St James Studio theatre just behind Buckingham Palace in Victoria. It proved to be a wonderful experience and worth the trip from Brighton alone to hear Ria’s rendition of the Doris Day classic, Secret Love.
Many of Ceri’s most popular impersonations including Tina Turner, Shirley Bassey, Amy Winehouse and Camila Parker-Bowles are missing from this production with the focus being on the larger than life, glamourous stars of Broadway and the silver screen.
On press night Ceri’s impersonation of Mae West was on a different level to anything I have seen him produce before. Every movement, every nuance, every noise uttered and every facial expression were brilliantly delivered to an audience that were eating out of his hands right from the start of the show.
Vocally, Ria’s Julie Andrews was spot on, her interpretation of The man who got away, was spine tingling as was No Regrets and If you love me (Really love me), which brought the audience to their feet time and again, but when in Secret Love she opened up for “Now I shout it from the highest hills, Even told the golden daffodils, the audience collectively took a sharp intake of breath. It was a breathtaking moment in a memorable evenings entertainment.
Ceri took us through a range of her glamorous impersonations including Carol Channing, Mae West, Danny La Rue, Eartha Kitt and Marlena Dietrich complete with fabulous costume changes.
Whether he is singing or doing patter, Ceri’s comic timing is impeccable as he draws you into the wonderful world of his glamorous ladies. This is what a night out at the theatre should be about!
As a couple Ceri and Ria complement each other perfectly. They look good and vocally sound great when singing together. Their ensemble singing in I hear singing and there’s no one there was spot on as was their appearance together on stage as ‘stereo’ Ethel Mermans singing Everythings Coming Up Roses from Gypsy.
When Ceri returned to the stage dressed as a man to sing the finale Put your hand together there’s a lady on stage with Ria, It was a perfect close to a perfect evening.
All numbers were accompanied by live musicians, no backing tracks here. Edward Court made many fans from his position as musical director at the piano while Sally Peerless beautifully played her saxophone, flute and clarinet in most numbers.
The venue was a perfect choice for this type of show. The sound was top quality and the imaginative lighting design really did set the mood for each successive number.
Both my partner and myself left the theatre feeling privileged to have watched two quite extraordinary performers deliver two quite extraordinary performances both individually and together. My best night out at the theatre for some months.
To book tickets for the St James Studio, click here:
The story of Annie is well documented. Young orphan Annie escapes the clutches of the wicked Miss Hannigan who runs the orphanage and after an unsuccessful nationwide search to find her parents is adopted by billionaire Daddy Warbucks.
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