Sep-Dec
Sep '18
Nightcleaners
Nightcleaners is a documentary film about the campaign to unionise the women who cleaned office blocks at night and who were being victimised and underpaid by their employers. It is increasingly recognised as an important precursor to current political arts practice.
Artist/Company: Berwick Street Film Collective
Location(s): Chester Lane Library
Dates: 20th September
Other Information: Take Over Festival, presented in partnership with Heart of Glass. Film screening.
Oct '18
Black
This provocative and engaging show from 20 Stories High dug deep into the heart of racial tensions in the UK.
Written by award-winner Keith Saha, with lyricism and live DJ soundscapes from Chunky (Riot Jazz/Hoya Hoya), and the raw talents of Abby Melia, this was a vital and challenging piece of theatre.
Artist/Company: 20 Stories High
Location(s): Parr Library
Dates: 1st October
Other Information: Presented as part of Black History Month.
Common Lore
Stute Theatre, in association with Northern Broadsides presented this inventive, fast paced fusion of theatre, spoken word, projection and live electronic music performed by Sophie Hatfield. Fairy Tales and modern life collided in this contemporary new work.
Artist/Company: Sophie Hatfield, Stute Theatre
Location(s): Parr Library
Dates: 5th October
Other Information: Music and Spoken Word Performance
World Mental Health Day 2018
To support awareness of World Mental Heath Day, three St Helens based artists produced new works funded by Cultural Hubs artist commission funding. Bernadette Hughes presented Help Needed, inviting audiences to meet Victorian librarian Flora Drunkill in a special café, for a unique one-to-one conversation.
Julia Cadman presented Something Rich and Strange, in which four musicians improvised together to create disparate timbres and tonalities for your ears only!
Claire Weetman presented What are you Waiting for?, creating spaces for waiting between Elephant Lane and Thatto Heath Library in this site-responsive live work. Watch What are you Waiting For?
Artist/Company: Bernadette Hughes, Julia Cadman, Claire Weetman
Location(s): Thatto Heath Library
Dates: 10th October
Other Information: A collection of events programmed to mark World Mental Health Day 2018.
Frank Cottrell-Boyce
Audiences were invited to celebrate Libraries Week with esteemed writer Frank Cottrell Boyce, who delivered a series of readings from his popular books including Sputnik's Guide to Life.
Artist/Company: Frank Cottrell Boyce
Location(s): Rainhill Library, Eccleston Library
Dates: 11th - 13th October
Other Information: Take Over Festival, Libraries Week 2018, presented in partnership with Heart of Glass.
The Rank & File
Based on the Pilkington Glass strike that took place in St Helens in 1970, The Rank and File depicts a wildcat strike among rank-and-file union members antagonised by a too-cosy relationship between board and union executives that resulted in the gradual erosion of pay and worker conditions.
Artist/Company: Kenneth Loach, Graeme McDonald, Jim Allen
Location(s): Chester Lane Library
Dates: 18th October
Other Information: Take Over Festival, presented in partnership with Heart of Glass. Film screening.
Salt
In February 2018, Selina Thompson got on a cargo ship and retraced one of the routes of the Transatlantic Slave Triangle - from the UK to Ghana to Jamaica - and back. Salt is the story that was brought back - of memories, questions and grief that took audiences along the bottom of the Atlantic and through the figurative realm of the imaginary past. It is a story about grief, ancestry, home, forgetting and colonialism.
Artist/Company: Selina Thompson
Location(s): Parr Library
Dates: 20th October
Other Information: Take Over Festival, presented in partnership with Heart of Glass. BSL interpreted. Audio Described.
Taut Fibre
Artist Jonathan Beaver was in residence in St Helens Libraries throughout October and exhibited works at Moss Bank Library as part of Homotopia.
Jonathan's work in embroidery, animation and arts education took traditional constructions of gender roles and identities and allowed them to be explored and freed from societal shackles. Much of Jonathan's work was an exploration of his personal gender preferences and identities both as an individual and an artist.
Artist/Company: Jonathan Beaver
Location(s): Newton-le-Willows Library, Chester Lane Library, Haydock Library, Moss Bank Library, Billinge Library, Eccleston Library.
Dates: Residency - 23rd - 27th October. Exhibition - from 15th November
Other Information: Take Over Festival, presented in partnership with Heart of Glass and Homotopia.
Nov '18
An Audience with Jonathan Griffith
Self-taught artist Jonathan Griffith (81) talked audiences through his memories of Liverpool, his journey into painting and drawing, sharing his writings that reflect his lived experiences of cerebral palsy and his encounters with changing perspectives and attitudes to disability over time.
Jonathan's retrospective exhibition at Unity Theatre Liverpool (1st - 8th Dec) accompanied this audience with the artist.
Artist/Company: Jonathan Griffith
Location(s): Chester Lane Library
Dates: 22nd November
Other Information: presented in partnership with DaDaFest. BSL interpreted performance.
What the **** is Normal?!
Audiences were invited to join Francesca Martinez as she pondered...
If you grow up in a world where wrinkles are practically illegal, going bald is cause for a mental breakdown and women over size-zero are encouraged to shoot themselves (immediately), what the hell do you do if you're, gasp...DISABLED?
Artist/Company: Francesca Martinez
Location(s): Chester Lane Library
Dates: 24th November
Other Information: Presented in partnership with DaDaFest. BSL interpreted performance.
Dec '18
The Greatest St Helens Show
Theatre and Performance students from University Centre St Helens returned with another very special show celebrating the movers and shakers from Newton-le-Willows, Haydock, Rainford, Rainhill, Thatto Heath and everywhere in-between...
Fusing music, dance and storytelling, this new work brought the history of St Helens to life, celebrating unique stories of the people that have made St Helens great.
Artist/Company: University Centre St Helens Theatre and Performance Students
Location(s): Newton-le-Willows Library, Rainford Library, Haydock Library
Dates: 13th December
Other Information: BSL interpreted performance
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