Cultural Highlights #Russell
This week we’re welcoming new team member Russell Todd. As well as being one of the UK’s leading community development practitioners, researchers and writers, Russell is a prolific podcast producer whose credits include Wales Council for Voluntary Action, Sporting Heritage CIC, International Association for Community Development and in Cymraeg Podcast Pêl-droed a Creu Cyffro
If you’re interested in talking to Russ about making a podcast, contact us at www.wearebak.com/contact
We asked Russ for his cultural highlights and this is what he sent us
Art/Exhibition
Tales from Terracottapolis at Tŷ Pawb, Wrecsam
I loved how the Tales from Terracottapolis exhibition took pride in Wrexham’s industrial past and character and invited artists to use it as inspiration. Too many British towns and cities are increasingly homogenous in character, vision and their planning. Too many conform to bland, safe perceptions of how the urban realm ought to look, rather than nurture and celebrate its imperfections.Tales from Terracottapolis, centred on the Wrexham’s famous red bricks, and showed how there is charm and character in abundance in the weathered and the worn, rather than erase it in favour of the bland, utilitarian shininess of so much modern architecture and construction.
Campaign
This is one close to my heart as it’s about the local park where I live and which I’ve been involved with for a few years.
It’s a classic David versus Goliath example of local people coming together to face down powerful, well-resourced corporate interests. In our case it’s to protect green space from what we consider to be development that is not only inappropriate for the character and environmental value of the park, but is happening simply to maximise the profit margins of developers.. Will we win? Who knows. But as Margaret Mead said, “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has”. If you want to find out more and offer some support follow the link above.
Film
Barbarian (dir. Zach Creggar)
Barbarian is further proof that we live in a golden age of horror cinema at present. Right from the start, we’re propelled into asking ‘what would I do?’ in a mundane scenario of agonizing social awkwardness, and from there the unease never lets up in a series of bait-and-switches that are truly terrifying. Can’t wait to see what Zach Creggar has next up his sleeve.
Book
Collected Stories by Ron Berry
Ron Berry (1920-1997) is probably the best English language author you’ve never heard of and is a favourite of Niall Griffiths among others. It’s a shame Berry’s centenary and the plans to celebrate it coincided with the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Berry was born and died in the mining communities of the Rhondda and he writes about working class life – the rugged environment, working underground, brushes with the law, religion, drinking, fighting, lusting – with a physicality that is rare in prose. His characters can be scabrous, cantankerous, and dishonest, yet his tales can be as tender, moving and heartbreaking as any romantic literature.
His posthumous collection of short stories, edited by Simon Baker on Gomer Press, is a terrific entry point to Berry’s work. I challenge you to remain unmoved at miner Lewis Rimmer’s bleakly nihilistic response to the news he’s ‘hundred percent’, i.e., the volume of coaldust in his lungs, in the story Time Spent from 1982.
Song
‘Poundland of Hope and Glory’ by Therapy?
One of the lead singles off the brand new LP Hard Cold Fire by Northern Irish alt-punks Therapy?.
Now in their fourth decade they remain one of my favourite bands and although the brilliant Hard Cold Fire has better songs than this one, ‘Poundland of Hope and Glory’ deserves a mention because of how it scathingly demolishes British exceptionalism and populism in less 2½ minutes.
Podcast
Fantastic biographies of ‘evil and complicated queers from history’ dissected and critiqued through a lens of colonialism and imperialism..
The stories are impeccably researched and presented by the pair of hosts and although it’s politically Left leaning, it isn’t hagiographic or sycophantic about the Left and its own role in sometimes reproducing colonial, class, and gender oppression. There’s plenty to laugh along with too. And despite its title, honestly, it’s not homophobic!