Christmas Show 2016 - LOOKING BACK: Writers Read their Own Work

The NEWS AGENTS CHRISTMAS SHOW

Experiments in news and arts with Jude Cowan Montague.

A selection of literature read by writers on the show during 2016. With contributions from Paul Burston, Emma Roper-Evans, Deborah Lawrenson, George Szirtes and Duncan Campbell.

Sat 17 Dec - The Pre-history of Ealing Studios and the Topical Newsfilm: W G BARKER

John Leman Riley talks to Jude Cowan Montague about her work on W G Barker who set up the first film studios at Ealing. Will Barker was also one of the foremost pioneers of topical and news pictures in early cinema in Britain. 

LISTEN AGAIN - Jude Cowan Montague talks to John Leman Riley - W G Barker and Ealing Studios

Sat 3 DEC - EXPLORING THE BLACK PATH: Paul Burston on domestic noir and the world of the army family

Award-winning writer Paul Burston talks about thriller writing and his latest novel, 'The Black Path', looking at the psychological secrets of the war hero and the inner world of an military spouse. Thoughts on official reportage, deployment, childhood trauma and separation discussed with the acclaimed writer also known for hosting the LGBT literary salon Polari at the Southbank Centre.

LISTEN AGAIN - Paul Burston - Domestic noir 

Sat 26 Nov - I AM A CAT: The Feline Consciousness of Natsume Sosecki

Kazumi Taguchi discusses Natsume Sosecki whose satirical novel 'I Am a Cat' in 1905 looks at the conflict between group mentality and individuality in ways relevant to social issues in Japan and London today. Kazumi performs the music of Okinawa.

LISTEN AGAIN - Kazumi Taguchi and Natsume Sosecki 

Sat 19 Nov - Genealogy and the Media: A FAMILY STORY

Megan Cherie Owens, researcher and writer, TV genealogist, goes behind the scenes of the current love-affair with ancestry, DNA and identity to uncover skeletons in the media's closet and discusses why we research our personal past anyway.

Jude CM brings in research from her own family history and works by her poet-ancestor, John Cowan.

LISTEN AGAIN - Megan Cherie Owens - Genealogy and the Media 

Sat 12 Nov - TV News and the Detective Novel: INSPECTOR MONTALBANO AND ANDREA CAMILLERI

Andrea Camilleri, writer of the Montalbano novels has a background in TV and their popularity means he has become a media icon himself. Jude Cowan Montague investigates the complex relations between journalism, television and public life in the fictitious adventures of Salvo Montalbano.

LISTEN AGAIN - Inspector Montalbano, TV News and the Detective Novel, Sicilian culture 

Sat 25 Nov - HUNGARY AND MIGRATION: Stories with Emma Roper-Evans

Writer Emma Roper-Evans talks about her lifelong intimate relationship with Hungary and reflects on the country and tales and migration through her stories. Looking at the recent rise of the far right within a personal tour of the culture and streets of Budapest.

LISTEN AGAIN - Hungary and migration - Emma Roper-Evans 

Sat 29 Oct - LARA PAWSON: On Angola and Writing Memory

Author Lara Pawson, former foreign correspondent, discusses her reflective book 'This is the Place to Be', an innovative memoir looking at her experiences in Angola and times before and after.

LISTEN AGAIN - Lara Pawson - Angola and Writing Memory

Sat 22 Oct - IMPROVISED INTERNATIONAL NEWS - Process, Poetry and Avant-Pop Music

Jude CM reflects on her former work on the Reuters television collection as an archivist and her work with the material as an artist, poet and musician/composer over the past ten years. Includes improvised news songs from 2010-1016.

LISTEN AGAIN - Reuters Television Collection News, Jude Cowan Montague 

Sat 15 Oct - VIRTUAL REALITY OF A REBEL: Sean O'Hagan

Musician, composer and writer Sean O'Hagan on creating the virtual reality experience 'Voice of a Rebel' which marks the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising alongside Sean O'Casey's 'The Plough and the Stars' at the National Theatre. Discussing memory, rebellion and dramatising history.

LISTEN AGAIN - Sean O'Hagan - The Voice/Virtual Reality of a Rebel

Sat 8 Oct - GRACE JONES AND JOSEPHINE BAKER: Americans in Paris

The artist Geraldine Gallavardin shares her enthusiasm for the performance work of Grace Jones and Josephine Baker. Looking at how the two artists re-imagine their own bodies for the stage and how they have used humour, satire and self-portrait to create a voice in the contested worlds of popular music and photography.

LISTEN AGAIN - Geraldine Gallavardin - Grace Jones and Josephine Baker

Sat 1 Oct - RACHEL MAYFIELD - Music, art and Birmingham

Songwriter and artist Rachel Mayfield shares her artistic journey and the reflections of an artist recently returned to her hometown of Birmingham. She is curating a multi-media exhibition 'Show Me Your Birmingham'. She performs new songs live.

LISTEN AGAIN - Rachel Mayfield - Birmingham 

Sat 24 Sep - FOREIGNERS IN PORTUGAL: Suspense and sunshine in the Algarve with Deborah Lawrenson

Author Deborah Lawrenson discusses the research and reflections behind her new novel, 300 Days of Sun. Looking at real-life child disappearances including the international search for Madeleine McCann, and tourist perceptions of the Mediterranean whose shiny surface flickers with sun and shadow.

LISTEN AGAIN - Deborah Lawrenson - Foreigners in Portugal

Sat 17 Sept - MIGRATION AND INVENTION: talking with the writer George Szirtes

The poet George Szirtes reflects on personal experiences of migration and discusses issues of movement and relocation within and outside our changing Europe. Looking at how stories of crossing, loss and reconstruction feed art and creativity.

LISTEN AGAIN - George Szirtes - Migration and Invention 

Sat 10 Sept = IMPROVISED INTERNATIONAL NEWS - Process, Poetry and Avant-Pop Music

Jude Cowan Montague reflects on her former work on the Reuters telelvision archive as an archivist and her work with the material as an artist, poet and musician/composer over the past ten years. Includes improvised news songs from 2010-1016.

Listen Again - Improvised News Song

Sat 3 Sept = DARK WAVES: Sian-Kate Mooney on soap, psychology and violence

Artist Sian-Kate Mooney's experimental sculpture addresses popular symbols of violence. Her work Dark Wave reflects on Merian C. Cooper's King Kong and the political and racial metaphors in a parallel era of right-wing politics to today. Dark Wave is exhibiting at the Elements/Lubomirov Angus-Hughes Gallery.

LISTEN AGAIN - Sian-Kate Mooney - Dark Waves

Sat 30 July - WISDOM'S BOTTOM: A New Press for Poetry and Related Arts

Wisdom’s Bottom Press is a new cooperative venture based in England,
centred on relatively small runs of poetry and related arts. Daniel Lehan, Peter J. King and Jude Cowan Montague present the first three collections on the press and discuss social and political issues in their work.

Listen Again - Wisdom's Bottom Press - Peter J King, Daniel Lehan

Sat 23 July - STORIES FROM THE SHE-PUNKS: Music with a different agenda

Gina Birch (The Raincoats) and Helen Reddington (The Chefs) on their documentary in progress revisiting punk. The project includes new interviews of women who played instruments in punk bands. The pioneering women of punk rock dealt with the practicalities of punk and DIY culture and their experiences and reflections are inspiring young people's creative work today.

Listen Again - Stories from the She-Punks - Gina Birch and Helen McCookerybook

Sat 16 July - DANCE, CHOREOGRAPHY, RACISM, ABSENCE: Vania Gala

Vania Gala, choreographer and thinker reflects on politics, performance. She shares tales from her journey from Coimbra to London and beyond, giving an insight into possibilities and practice from avant-garde and professional dance. Thoughts on what is collaboration, choreography with an absence of performance and on being a black woman growing up in activist Portugal.

Listen Again - Vania Gala - Dance, Choreography, Absence

Sat 9 July - ZIG ZAGS THROUGH THE MONTHLY PERIODICAL: The Strand Magazine

The Strand Magazine is famous for bringing Sherlock Holmes's stories to a wide circulation but it did much more. Writers like Arthur Morrison and artists like J. A. Shepherd contributed to its unusual combination of fancy, trivia, 'small news', story, celebrity and whimsy. A leaf through the pages of this influential and well-loved London periodical which ran from 1891 to 1950.
Also features a meditation on the Resonance studio piano on the 'noir chord' as explained by Neil Brand, film historian, writer and composer.
A solo show by Jude Cowan Montague.

Listen Again - The Strand Magazine

Sat 2 July: WE'LL ALL BE MURDERED IN OUR BEDS: Duncan Campbell on the History of Crime Reporting

Author and veteran journalist Duncan Campbell chews over tales from the old days of Fleet Street to the recent News International phone hacking scandal. Discussing the embedding of crime reporters in police circles, Soho's significance and the journalists who go undercover from W.T. Stead onwards up to this remote, digital age.

Listen Again - Duncan Campbell - History of Crime Reporting 

Sat 25 June - LONDON ABSURD: Vis the Spoon

Vis the Spoon has been running the most eclectic, 'out-there' open mic for years, A Spoonful of Poison. From the punk tradition, Spoon has been keeping the spirit of DIY experimental live arts alive on the margins of the capital. An accomplished alternative poet himself, Spoon will talk about programming and performance, and street creativity in the changing city called London.

Sat 18 June - LADIES OF THE PRESS: Performance print, activism and girl gonzo journalism

The high-colour, hi-res duo discuss girl gonzo journalism, activism and why the print form is still relevant even in our multimedia digital age. The performative artists Ana Cavic and Renee O'Drobinak Ladies of the Press' re-imagine the role of the publisher and publicist into a theatrical persona.

Sat 11 June - HOW TO WRECK A HOTEL ROOM: Hunter S. Thompson against the hired bullshit

The hero of new journalism made his brutal journey into the heart of the American dream exposing decadence and vanity. A pilgrim in a landscape of apocalypse. Hunter S Thompson gave wildness and excess a home in the staid, neutral zone of reportage. He founded that home on the crest of a high and beautiful wave ... until that wave finally broke and rolled back and the counterculture retreated with it. With text, discussion and improvised music.

 

Sat 30 April - SING AS WE GO: Gracie Fields and Coming from up North

Fran Isherwood, poet and actor, looks at highlights of Rochdale's comedian and singer Gracie Fields, an incredibly popular performer and northern icon whose career has faded from public attention. As an active performer and educator Isherwood discusses life as a Mancunian woman in East London's alternative arts scene. With musical illustrations and digressions.

Sat 23 April - PADDINGTON IS NOT THE ONLY BEAR: Clive Shaw on animation, bears and Vinyl Therapy

Clive Shaw aka the Southwark Bear in conversation on cartoons including the work of Halas and Batchelor known for their ground-breaking political pieces. Clive's 'Girls and Boys' won the prestigious Shooting People award from Matt Groening (The Simpsons) and he is a freelancer in post-production. He is also the founder of Vinyl Therapy and spins discs as he shares some of its inner secrets.

Sat 16 April - ANGLOPHONES IN PARIS: Impressions from the cafe/théâtre

 Accounts from Jude Cowan Montague's mini-tour performing on the spoken word scene. Adventures in the company of poets and musicians and traveller's impressions.

Sat 9 April - IT'S OBVIOUS: Lesley Woods (Au Pairs) in conversation

 Lesley Woods writer and lead singer with important post-punk band Au Pairs discusses women in alternative music with stories from her personal experience. Sexual politics, songwriting, performance and the art of attacking the social cliché. With sonic adventures and digressions..

Sat 2 April - RAKES AND ROMPS: Sex in the Papers with Matthew Caley

 Poet Matthew Caley discusses sex in the news and libertines in European history while leafing through his fifth collection 'Rake' out on Bloodaxe Press. Plus adventures in sound and performative discourse.

that most notorious rake, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Sat 26 March - THE CUL DE SAC AND THE MANUSCRIPT: Cinema of Poland and Beyond with Andrew Stys

Artist Andrew Stys in conversation on cinemas of Eastern Europe before the perestroika movement in the Soviet Union. Discussing the associated avant-garde cinema poster artists. Focusing on Andrew's native Poland and spreading wider into the expermental, surrealist and anti-realist waters of the 1960s and 1970s.With exploratory sound adventures.

Sat 19 March - STORIES FROM COLOMBIA with Dr Raquel Ribeiro

Dr Raquel Ribeiro has been a recent recipient of the Garcia Marquez Foundation  for New Journalism (FNPI) in which a creative program for reporters across the globe allows participants the opportunity to strengthen their skills in cultural journalism.

Raquel has returned from a trip to Columbia funded by the Foundation where she took part in opportunities to explore narration - in Spanish and English - contemporary stories from the region.

Introductory potted history of Colombia and its literature is combined with personal insights into the music and popular culture an important part of Foundation training.

Sat 12 March - LIFE IN SONG with Kath Tait and Helen McCookerybook

How do you put observations into the modern song? Is it a good art form for addressing specific, political and generational themes or is its content stronger when more universal and generic? Two acclaimed songwriters - Kath Tait and Helen McCookerybook - talk about their craft in relation to their world-view and personal experience.

http://www.mccookerybook.com/ - HELEN McCOOKERYBOOK

SUBURBAN PASTORAL
14 songs full of delicate and achingly beautiful songs recorded over the past two years - think a mix of Astrud Gilberto, the seminal 80's el records back catalogue or a bossa-folk soundtrack
HELEN MCCOOKERYBOOK
A great 24 track compilation covering Helen's work with The Chefs, Skat and Helen and the Horns. Includes classic '24 Hours' and indie hit 'Freight Train'

http://www.shaunwill.plus.com/kath/ - KATH TAIT

Sat 5 March - 'CONVERSATIONS': Talking Art in Mumbai and Goa

An art residency in India curated by Rekha Sameer gave Jude Cowan Montague the opportunity to work with young Indian artists and to exchange stories of practice. From the conversations with the women artists she learned how the Delhi gang rape case has intensified gender and generational clashes and how their response is affecting a new generation of creativity. She also shares her personal notes on the early Bollywood song industry.

Sat 27 Feb - 'SEMBLANCE' and 'PLACE, WASTE, DISSENT': Sarer Scotthorne and Paul Hawkins

Alice Foster talks to poets Sarer Scotthorne and Paul Hawkins about new published work. Sarer is an expert martial artist/tutor and explores in text her relationship with two of her swords, a Juan and a Mioa Tiou. Paul discusses the importance of untold (his)tories and how collaboration can shape future scenarios for an era of climate change.

 

 

Sarer Scotthorne shares poetry from her new pamphlet 'Semblance'. An expert martial artist and poet, Sarer explores in text and form her relationship with two of her swords, a Juan and a Mioa Tiou. She has been training with the two swords for the last twenty eight years and her work reflects on the strange and wonderful thoughts and physics for a female martial artist of 48 years old. Sarer has recently performed a unique creative fusion of her work at 'Situations' at 'Sanctum Project' in Bristol. A completely unique presentation.

Sarer will also be performing at Scaledown on Fri 4 March

 

Paul Hawkins presents work from his Influx Press book, Place Waste Dissent. He discusses the importance of untold (his)tories, what people can achieve when they have a common aim(s), and how this collaboration could shape future scenarios in the 21st century and beyond, with the effects of Climate Change . . .

Paul will read some o the experimental work from Place, Waste, Dissent live on air.

Sat 20 Feb - SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC: A reimagining of the expedition diaries

Robert Falcon Scott famously perished on his return from the South Pole. His diaries were serialised in the Strand Magazine in 2013. His personal narrative, told through these expedition journals, stirred and inspired people with ideas of exploration and self-sacrifice and an ideal of Britishness/Englishness which has been challenged and questioned since the 1970s. His incredible voyage to failure and death old through his own words inform a live improvisation by Jude Cowan Montague.

Sat 13 Feb - ART SURVIVAL STRATEGIES IN LONDON

Everything you ever wanted to know on art survival strategies and was too afraid to ask? From DIY aesthetic of launching a gallery space, to the 10th anniversary of artists resale rights being established, to crowd funding, the new economy of hours, public commissions, to role of patrons, sponsors and the dangers of art wash.

In the studio Rebecca Feiner navigates the territory with guests from DACS and Iranian born Artist Architect, Phillip Hall Patch about his quietly controversial dissolving salt sculptures. Hall Patch's work investigates the tensions between stability and transience, often through ephemeral, time-based works creating traces of memory.

Phillip Hall Patch was selected artist for the HOUSE Brighton Festival 2014 along with Yinka Shonibare MBE http://housefestival.org/house-yinka-shonibare-MBE, APT Gallery, London, July 2013, and Orange County Centre for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles 2012. Spring 2016 he is the chosen artist for London's first dedicated space for outdoor art, which engages directly with outside conditions responding to, rather than withstanding the elements. Elements Gallery London @ Lubomirov/Angus-Hughes https://www.facebook.com/elementsgallery1london/ .

Sat 6 Feb - BREAKING THE BOUNDS: Walking London and Beyond

Artists Rebecca Feiner and Calum F Kerr are discussing alternative ways of walking London with Charlie Fox (Counterproductions, Inspiral London) and Clare Qualmann (walking artists network, walkwalkwalk, Perambulator). With an appearance by J. D. Swann, Muswell Hill’s leading Ornithological Investigator. Rebecca will be wielding a bell in case anyone should lapse into all too familiar walking words (Psychogeography, Iain Sinc…)

Talking to Clare Qualmann about walkwalkwalk and the shifting terrain of the 'near' East End, the Perambulator project - everyday walking and re-discovering the minutiae of the city with children, the East End jam project - which has thrown up a lot on bye laws that forbid the picking of fruit/berries.

There will be recorded sounds from Clare’s walking projects.
http://www.clarequalmann.co.uk/

Charlie Fox will talk about Inspiral London and his other walking projects. Inspiral is an artist-led walking project to map and create an urban and semi-urban walking trail through and around the whole of London. The route hacks into existing footpaths and ways, creating a novel walking experience for London. The walk spirals from a central point within the heart of London, corkscrewing out 7 times to finish at Gravesend Ferry, finally crossing where the World’s End at Tilbury. The approximate overall length of the walk is 225 miles crossing the Thames at 10 points – using bridges, a tunnel, a cable car and ferries. The trajectory of the trail is designed and marked out by a loose collective of artists, writers, architects, geographers, planners, urban explorers, and walking enthusiasts. He will perform a sonic evocation of Inspiral London for the show. http://inspirallondon.com/

Clare Qualmann is a London-based artist working across disciplines: from drawing and sculpture to performance and live-art events (often in the form of walks). Everyday routine, the ordinary and unnoticed and the meeting of the personal and the political are sources of inspiration. She creates walks as site specific performances, as live art events and as research method for developing text, installation, film, audio and performance works. Ongoing walking projects include Perambulator (walking with prams) and East End Jam, a walking, foraging and preserving project. Clare is a founder member of the Walking Artists Network, and led an AHRC funded project (2012 - 2015) to facilitate its development. Clare is a part-time lecturer at University of East London, and at London Metropolitan University, where her teaching and research focus on live art, participatory and interdisciplinary practices.

Charlie Fox is a London-based artist, writer and curator, and founder of interdisciplinary art platform counterproductions, producing international art projects that challenge existing models of artistic and audience engagement. Counterproductions facilitates collaborative projects that generate new artistic culture, through experimental performance, and engaged art practices*; creating work that offers the potential of an art for all. From 2012-2014 he facilitated DeCentreDer Space in Marseille and from 2015 has been working on Inspiral London. He is currently a trustee of CGP London.

As an artist he sometimes works with counterproductions, other times solo, but always with an audience in mind; working tirelessly to harness the forces and charm of artistic practice. In his work the serious and slapstick combine, in the occasional and unexpected appearance of laughing bear.*NOTE - counterproductions research interests include collective models for creative education and/or art practice, transdisciplinary art, interactions between visual art and performance, performance affect, intervention and dialogical artistic practice.

J. D. Swann is Muswell Hill’s leading Ornithological investigator. He has searched for the Queen’s Wood Warbler (2009) and in 2010 interrogated the wildlife of the Alexandra Palace Lake which led to a year on the boating lake island (2010-2011). Since his recovery in 2012 he has been researching the History of Western Orniphilosophy, which led in 2014 to a publication ‘J. D. Swann: An Ornithological Outsider’. He is joining the Inspiral London walks for sections that particularly excite his socio-ornithological proclivities.

Sat 30 Jan - THE ORLEANIST AND THE ORIENT: Aleppo's Merchant City and the Paris of Louis-Philippe with Historian Philip Mansel

King Louis-Philippe's reign cultivated the arts quarter reputation that Paris became famous for in the nineteenth century. At the same time foreign affairs, colonial ambitions led him to campaigns in Algeria and Syria. Philip Mansel looks at the history of Paris and the merchant city of the Aleppo and their cultural and colonial links before Syria gained independence from France in 1946. The city's rich history creates a brutal contrast with the modern political isolation, instability and the current devastation we are still witnessing in Aleppo. Philip Mansel's forthcoming book 'Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria's Great Merchant City' will be published shortly by I.B. Tauris.

Sat 23 Jan - THE TRUTH IS SIMPLE: Vertov, film and social experiment in the 1920s

John Leman Riley joins Jude Cowan Montague to discuss the work of Dziga Vertov and Bolshevik newsfilm during the Russian civil war. Vertov acted on his own manifestos of a new culture where human and machine acted together in a new synthesis to blast away Romanov tradition. The Kino-Glaz would record the present to create the future. Did the films that he created with Elizaveta Svilova (his wife) and Boris Kaufman (his brother) represent reality or were they a new theatrical illusion?

with Jude Cowan Montague

Sat 16 Jan - WAITING/PLATINUM - Jason Larkin, Photographer

 Jason Larkin, photojournalist, talks about his new project 'Waiting' shot  through Johannesburg over the last three years during the harsh summer months. The book is a collection of portraits of people waiting in the shade across the city. The photography comments on infrastructure and the legacy of apartheid on the city. Plus Jason's work 'Platinum' which was created in response to the Marikana massacre of 2012.

Sat 9 Jan - SOUNDS OF SENSATION - The Illustrated Police News

Sound artist Ian Thompson and Jude Cowan Montague in a live improvisation on some of the sensational accounts of crime disseminated via the Illustrated Police News.A best seller of mid to late Victorian times, the IPN was a part of the publishing boom in illustrated newspapers attracting mainly working-class audiences. Selected stories from the magazine include the dream of the infamous Kate Webster, hung for the Richmond murder in 1879. Another in our series on early journalism.