Crosstown Lightnin' and Bex Marshall at Black Velvet: pix

Crosstown Lightnin' played their first gig in a while, the first of many more the way things are looking.

Charles Shaar Murray, Buffalo Bll Smith, Marc Jefferies and Pete Miles were tight as a gnat's bum and rocked the swanky new W14 venue, Black Velvet, with their punky blues.

Bex Marshall headlined with her 4-piece blues band. She has an amazing textured voice — from gravelly and snarling to sweet and melodic, and she wields a mean resonator. It's an awesome full-blooded BIG sound from a home-grown Brit.

Special mention to her backing singer who gave a soaring gospelled up acapella "New York, New York".

Some pix here. Videos of Crosstown Lightnin' to come.

VIDEO: Bird Call Blues

Steampunk Opium Wars: gorgeous new photos & poems

Finally uploaded the lovely portraits taken by Sukey Parnell of the cast of The Steampunk Opium Wars debut at the National Maritime Museum in London earlier this year.

As well as Sukey's pix, the poems written by cast-members are also on these pages.

There's a serious intention in writing and performing the show. After we performed it, we were all pleased to hear audience members telling us that this was all new to them. However, I was then shocked to read Julia Lovell's The Opium War, published last year to acclaim and some pretty critique-free reviews. Reading it felt like having someone yelling "You're shit and you know you are!" in your face for hours on end.

Revisionist "historians" do this from time to time. The most shocking example is probably the move to blame Afro-Caribbeans for their wretched slavery because some black people and Arabs helped to run the slave trade in Africa. I hope The Steampunk Opium Wars is an antidote to some of the callous rewriting of this part of history.

THE STEAMPUNK OPIUM WARS: CAST PORTRAITS AND POEMS

Premiére of The Steampunk Opium Wars: photos

MORE PIX HERE

The debut of The Steampunk Opium Wars went brilliantly well on Thursday to an audience of nearly 300, something approaching a record for the National Maritime Museum Lates. I feel honoured and very lucky to have such a talented and enthusiastic team entirely in sympathy with what I was trying to achieve with this piece. Not just the truly excellent cast, but all the friends who dived in to help: notably Jan Jefferies (hugely supportive as usual), Hi Ching, Lucy Sheen and Oliver Shykles. The stage and light tech, Jon Crawley, turned out be a great asset as well.

It was lovely having a sizeable audience to bounce off — and seeing so many friends cheering us on. The museum had originally planned to put out 90 seats and were surprised (although we weren't) when so many people made the effort to go to Greenwich on a dark winter's evening to get some of what we were offering. Afterwards I got some heartening feedback, mostly along the lines that most people didn't know anything about this dark episode in British History because it's rarely taught in school. Only one person so far has told me that she learnt about it in history lessons.

I've now posted the pictures that Jan took with my camera. Jeff Willis brought our Steampunk Victoriana baby into the 21st century with a live stream that reached friends in Canada and America. I've yet to see the video footage but I will get something together soon.

So, once more, thanks to: Charles Shaar Murray, Marc Jefferies and DJ Zoe Baxter for providing music; actors Paul Anderson, John Crow, Neil Hornick, Hugo Trebels, John Paul O'Neill and Louise Whittle; Gary Lammin and the Hackney Tea Ceremony; Sukey Parnell (assisted by Will) for managing to set up her studio in the main building; Denborah Evans-Stickland who was magnificent and scary as Britannia; and a double-mention for John Paul for his excellent Farrago History Poetry Slam — and all the poets who came along and took part.

We want to take this show further so, if you missed it, you may very well have a chance to see us perform it one day.

The Steampunk Opium Wars pages:
The Steampunk Opium Wars Home Page
Afterview
The Company: who we are and how to find us.
Gallery: debut performance at the National Maritime Museum.
VIDEO: Lin Zexu Just Says No!
VIDEO: Britannia sings "Money"
What they said ...

St Ives Arts Festival heaven 2011: Porthmeor Beach

Anna with Steve Ingamells on the balcony of the flat he and Denise were renting.





Here, for your pleasure, a selection of pix from my stay in St Ives during the Arts Festival. More to come.

St Ives Festival 2011: Intro and "Kicking A Dinosaur" video
St Ives Festival 2011: "Big Society: on a conversation in the Foundling Museum" video
St Ives Festival 2011 pix: Artists & Tate Balloons
St Ives Festival 2011 pix: The Island and St Nicholas Chapel

St Ives Comedy Club first night

Rod Bullimore, Anna Chen, Charles Shaar Murray

Rod Bullimore, Anna Chen and Matt Price

Tonight's opening (Wednesday 2nd July) of St Ives's first ever comedy club at the Western Hotel got off to a lively and shambolic start with comics versus hecklers. Talk about clash of cultures! The comics fought back and regained ground but the body count was high.

Anna Chen found some of her best lines stomped on by one table of pissed punters, although her "From flapping lab to flapping gob" line about Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone and her statement that the Chinese earthquake was karma over Tibet, went down a storm (so to speak!). Demitris Deech smiled his way wickedly through some killer put-downs but it was former boxer and headliner Matt Price whose controlled explosions rocked the house. Passionate and ever so slightly charged with the threat of violence, he gave a masterclass in how to deal with a troublesome audience.

Rod Bullimore was the gentle poet and wit who steered us through the rocks and a great time was had by all. Now that's my kind of dangerous sport!

Thanks to Alan Gillam and Steve McIntosh for inviting me.

St Ives Comedy Club first night

Rod Bullimore, Anna Chen, Charles Shaar Murray

Rod Bullimore, Anna Chen and Matt Price

Tonight's opening (Wednesday 2nd July) of St Ives's first ever comedy club at the Western Hotel got off to a lively and shambolic start with comics versus hecklers. Talk about clash of cultures! The comics fought back and regained ground but the body count was high.

Anna Chen found some of her best lines stomped on by one table of pissed punters, although her "From flapping lab to flapping gob" line about Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone and her statement that the Chinese earthquake was karma over Tibet, went down a storm (so to speak!). Demitris Deech smiled his way wickedly through some killer put-downs but it was former boxer and headliner Matt Price whose controlled explosions rocked the house. Passionate and ever so slightly charged with the threat of violence, he gave a masterclass in how to deal with a troublesome audience.

Rod Bullimore was the gentle poet and wit who steered us through the rocks and a great time was had by all. Now that's my kind of dangerous sport!

Thanks to Alan Gillam and Steve McIntosh for inviting me.