Image from @monsters_art on Twitter

This month, Nottingham plays host to a unique arts event – the Carnival of Monsters is coming to town! From 15th-29th October, if you trot along to the Bartons Buses site at Chilwell, you’ll find all sorts of amazing arty goings-on. From music to art to poetry to comedy, there’s a bit of everything

Over 30 artists living and working the East Midlands will be exhibiting. There will be 5 pavilions acting as art galleries, showcasing the artists’ work in a whole range of different environments, from warehouse space to disused offices. These are open from Monday-Saturday for the duration of the Carnival.

But wait, theres more! On Saturday 15th October, there are special events taking place to open the Carnival:

Black History Month is running from 1pm-5pm
MissImp, Nottingham’s improv comedy group will be performing.
And there will be live music from Chris McDonald.

And on Saturday 22nd, you can take your little monsters along to The Big Draw and let them go crazy with paint, pens and paper as they make their own monsters. Just make sure they’re not wearing their best clothes…

The same day also sees Oxjam take over Beeston for a live music event to raise money for Oxfam. This is a wristband only event, so sign up here: Oxjam Beeston Takeover if you don’t want to miss out!

The Carnival closes on Saturday 29th with more live music from the Denizen record label.

Find out more about the Carnival here: http://www.carnivalofmonsters.co.uk. Or follow them on Twitter @monsters_art

Do you agree with this statement – and is it possible that being more creative gives us more reasons to be happy?

A toolkit to get everyone started on the path to ‘happiness’ has been launched this week, through a new group called ‘Action for Happiness’.  And it started me thinking, about what this really means – how it might manifest for me and for my community in Nottingham. Surely, you can’t just tell people to be happy – we’re either happy already, or not, aren’t we?

Not necessarily, maybe there is a need to look at what they have to say.

I think we’d all agree that taking on new and exciting challenges makes us happier – from the pure and simple sense of achievement and pride. And so why not set yourself some additional ‘creative’ challenges to help yourself, and others.

We know that Nottingham is a creative place, so on that basis, does this also mean that it’s a happy place too?  Making lots of money shouldn’t be your main objective, and it certainly isn’t guaranteed to make you happy – but if you begin from a sense of pride and achievement, and meet new people in the process of growing a reputation for being enthusiastic and selfless – this is a good place to start.

There are plenty of creative individuals out there in Nottingham that may hold the answers. We’d love to hear what creative actions make you and others happy, so let us hear them.

Visit the ‘Action for Happiness’ website and see if you can pick up some tips for life. Get those creative ideas buzzing!

Nottingham of today continues to develop this reputation, and non-more so than through the homegrown actor/producer talents of Daniel Hoffmann-Gill.

To see him, many of you would probably recognise Dan from TV.  He has appeared on countless commercials, worked on projects for the BBC, done theatre and more recent feature films.

Most exciting is his new play – ‘Our Style is Legendary’ – written to depict the coming of age experiences of two friends who became brothers and the humour of life growing-up in 1980s Nottingham.

It sees its premier on stage at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London on 14th March 2011. Its tongue-in-cheek title will escape many, but I think provides a little insight into the kind of ‘real’ Nottingham humour we can expect to see threaded throughout this masterpiece. (Graphic poster shown left, provided courtesy of DHG).

Excited about the prospect of a play about Nottingham, I caught up with Dan to ask him a few questions about his latest creation. 

What gave you the inspiration to write a play about growing up in Nottingham? My best friend died when he was 16, we were the same age and it struck me at the time that he wouldn’t be remembered and I wanted to tell our story to anyone that would listen. That was nearly 20 years ago so it’s took a while to get it out of me but Michael is the inspiration.

Did you have specific actors in mind to play each character, as you were writing it?  No, because I’ve been writing it for a long time but when I knew it was happening, which was about 12 months ago, I really wanted to see James Hooton involved as The Swinging Man, the only adult in the whole show, who is a personification of Nottingham. Thankfully he said yes when we asked him, although he insisted we audition him to make sure he was right and he was. When I heard him read the part it made me cry.

What was your earliest memory of Nottingham?  I was born here, City Hospital! And proud of it. Earliest memory of Notts is how steep all the roads were between Porchester Road and Westdale Lane, as a small boy they were like Everest. Brilliant in the snow, in a treacherous way.

What do you think makes Nottingham so special to the people that live here?  The East Midlands as a whole is pretty unique and Nottingham is the capital of that uniqueness. It’s what I’ve said in the play, it’s not North, not South but all Notts. Our unique identity, accent and phrasing makes us proud I reckon.

What do you think makes Nott’m folk different from people elsewhere?  Not sure how different we are but I suppose we’re very friendly and open but on the other hand we can be very sarcastic and guarded, a real mix of typical Northern and Southern qualities means we get the best of both. I also reckon our economy shaped us, a mix of pits and manufacturing and service and big industry. Also we’re pretty big for our boots for a provincial city.

How do you think Nott’m of the 80s - depicted in your play – differs from the city of today?  Massively, poverty was a large problem and the city was coming to terms with the rise of the yuppie and this gaping void between haves and have-nots. Also, although I’m proud of Nottingham’s ethnic minority history, it’s far more diverse now than it was then. Some things change, some things stay the same and I think many of the themes are relevant now, young men still like to do the same stuff then as they do now.

Are the characters in your new play based on real ’proper Nottm’ folk you knew as a boy?  Yep, all the characters are true, real people, some of the dialogue is verbatim as I can remember it, everything that you see as the spectator actually happened and the names have not been changed to protect the innocent. I know that when some folk come and see it they’ll be shocked by it’s honestly and truth.

What sums up the Nott’m personality through your characters?  A sense of humour, a sense of fun but a darkness there, a willingness to use violence if required. We’re a hard people.

Are you proud to tell people in the world of TV and Hollywood that you’re a Nott’m boy?  Yes, I wear my Nottingham-ness like a badge of honour, it’s unique, part of me and I never hide it, I find it useful; most people have a connection with Notts.

What response do you receive when you say you grew up in Nott’m?  If they know the city they ask me where and when I say St. Ann’s their eye brows go up and they usually say summat about it being rough. If they don’t know the place, most people mention Robin Hood or the myth that we’ve got lots of gun crime, that kind of thing. Someone needs to get marketing Nottingham better, hopefully my play will do a better job.

Being now a successful actor-type, you live and work around the globe – do you think Nottingham has a good reputation for being a creative city these days?  I had to leave Nottingham to take my career to the next level, sad but true and I’ve been in exile for 6 years or so and that means I can’t really answer that question. I think there are a lot of creative people there, obviously, I think our city makes creative people, just that I think they go to London, you have to, it’s where everything is. Wish it wasn’t that way.

Do you plan to bring the show up north, to face a Nott’m audience? What reaction do you think you would receive?  I’d love to bring Our Style is Legendary home, I think Nottingham folk would love it, we need a show like this that shows the reality of it without mentioning Robin Hood or any of the other easy tag lines. It should be on at the Playhouse so if people can nag Giles Croft to put a show on by Notts, about Notts featuring all Notts actors that would be much appreciated. We’d bring the roof down. Literally.

Let’s hope Dan’s wishes come true – and we all get to see this on stage in Nottingham too!

Our Style is Legendary
Tristan Bates Theatre, London
From 14^th March 2011 @7.30pm
Tickets cost from £10 to £14 and are available from the website: www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk

And with so many exciting things to do and see – it will be hard to know where to start. So we’ll try and help you out.

Nottingham is an extraordinarily creative city with great potential – most of us know it – but we need to get the message out there to prove it. There is no better way to do so, than Creative October – now well and truly under way.

Supported by Nottingham City Council, the month-long celebration covers a whole range of creative talents the city has to offer – and it’s worth giving you a reminder of just some of the events taking place during the first week.

Details of the following events can be found on the Nottingham City Council website.

• Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Masterclass
• Sunday Tea Party with Jeanne Roberts
• TEA PARTY and launch of fashion and craft exhibition at Dwell
• Tour and presentation of the Nottingham Creative Business Award winners
  - Moot and the One Thoresby Street art complex
• Hetain Patel showreel
• Graphic Design – Nick Chaffe at the Train Station
• Exhibitions – John McLean Photography at Castle Galleries,
  Katrin Moye Ceramics at Stuart Thexton and Scene Photography
• Nottingham Playhouse exhibition
• Lakeside Arts Centre showreel
• Maber exhibition
• Q Byke exhibition
• Scene Photography
• Antenna Mondays, Beck Street
• Create and Celebrate and the best of Nottingham film makers
• Nicola Monaghan and Michael Pinchbeck (previous Creative Business Award Winners)
• Labels Album Launch
• Dance4 presents The Featherstonehaughs: Edits
• Artful Minds – Art Exhibition
• Creatively Confident
• Oxjam
• You Minx Window Exhibition
• Local Designers Market

If you want to put your own creative talents to the test, look out for events that are part of THE BIG DRAW.  The Campaign is taking place in 20 countries around the world. It aims to encourage and connect visitors to museums and gallery collections, urban and rural spaces – and the wider community – through the medium of drawing in new and enjoyable ways.  A very worthwhile mission – so look out for opportunities to join in.

Presenting a nostalgic reflection on memory and history, ‘UNNAMED’ is the new Exhibition by Yelena Popova, at the Lakeside Arts Centre, Wallner Gallery. (See picture).

A Russian born artist now living and working in Nottingham, Yelena is currently a second year student at the Royal College of Art (MA Painting).

Open until Sunday 7th November, opening times can be found on the website.

A reminder that Monday 4th October is Wine Tasting Night at Antenna.  See the Antenna website for further details.

It starts at 7pm until 12am (smart casual dress is requested for this special occasion).  This is a great opportunity to support this venture and help celebrate a new era for this continually evolving initiative, based on Station Street.

This official re-naming pays homage to the building’s former use – when it was once known as Hopkinson’s Hardware Store. And what a great building it is too.

There’s a genuine community spirit among Nottingham’s many artist groups – of which we can now boast many – and Hopkinson’s is definitely one of the more intriguing venues. The Tea Rooms have a great selection of teas (or coffee) I can vouch for – and you can sit and surf, or take a look at the exhibitions in the gallery while you drink and chat.

A great deal of work has been done to upgrade the facilities over the past 12 months too – and they can now boast contemporary gallery spaces, open studios events, regular classes, workshops and exhibitions – all part of their offering to encourage and grow the artistic community of Nottingham.

There’s a full schedule of exciting and unusual activities planned for this Saturday. With ‘Naked Ant Wrestling’ (a comedy sketch – do not fear, I understand no harm will be done to ‘live’ ants during the performance) – live bands and a DJ – along with the open studios events and a chance to see the work of some of the artists based there.

More details of activities for the official opening, future events and opportunities can be found on the Hopkinson Gallery, Tea Rooms and Studios website.

October sees the return of the wonderfully eccentric MissImp comedy show – and improvisation with a difference. If you enjoyed the MissImp Guest Blogger musings last month, even half as much as I did, you should get yourself over to The Glee Club and see the team in action for the first of their major shows in this exciting Nottingham venue. Here’s the next date to plot in your diaries:

Event Date: Wednesday 13^th October

Title: MissImp In Action: Live Improv Comedy Show

Type: Comedy

Description: A wholly unscripted high-energy comedy show, on the second Wednesday of every month, starting on 13th October 2010. This is improvised comedy and there’s nothing else like it.?Nothing is planned, anything can happen – the performers are totally dependent on the audience and each other. Prepare to be amazed.

The MissImp team take ideas and suggestions from the audience and turn them into things you could never hope to imagine. The result is the coolest blend of sketch comedy, stand up and theatre you’ll see this side of the afterlife. You might have seen ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ but you ain’t seen nothing yet! It’s a fast paced two-hour show of your dreams and nightmares made flesh and laughed at.

Doors open at 7.30pm, last entry at 8.00pm. Show starts at 8.15pm.

Ticket prices: £4.50/£3.00 for students (discount for booking online with Glee – http://www.glee.co.uk/)
Venue: The Glee Club, Castle Wharf, Canal Street, Nottingham NG1 7EH  http://missimp.co.uk/

Enjoy the fun on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/missimpuk

For more details contact: info@missimp.co.uk

World-class entertainment

It’s true that we’re never short of quality entertainment in this great city of ours (world-class even) – with Nottingham Playhouse being one of our finest venues, we have it in abundance. Their current production is ‘Twelfth Night’ and is showing until Saturday 16^th October – Ticket prices range from £7.50 to £26.50 – and further details of ticket prices and times can be found on their website.

The show is visually stunning, and with a fabulous cast, it looks set to make for a spectacular evening out – yellow stocking are optional!

Image shown provided courtesy of Nottingham Playhouse. Photograph by Robert Day.  Cast shown are: Velile Tshabalala, David Webber, Ashley J & Marcus Powell.

For those of you that are intrigued to see backstage or maybe looking to tread the boards yourself one day – Nottingham Playhouse have a Theatre Open Day on Saturday 2nd October, from 12pm to 4pm.  It promises to be a fun day of backstage tours and demonstrations. See the website for more details.

Community spirit

On the other side of town, Shakespeare’s dark comedy ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ opened last night at Nottingham Arts Theatre in Hockley and runs until Saturday 2^nd October. This great venue offers a chance to see the very best in community theatre performances. Shakespeare would be proud!

Venue: Nottingham Arts Theatre, George Street, Nottingham NG1 3BE.

Date: Tuesday 28^th September to Saturday 2^nd October 2010

Time: 7.30pm – there is also Saturday Matinee at 2pm

Tickets: £10 / £8 concessions / school groups £7 per ticket

You can buy tickets from the Theatre Box Office on George Street or you can visit the online box office.

In addition, later in October Nottingham sees the British Art Show 7 hosted in three venues – Nottingham Contemporary, the New Art Exchange, and the Nottingham Castle Museum, so if you’re looking for some heavy hitting names, those are the places to hang around. If, on the other hand, you’re after the next big names (or perhaps you prefer supporting more local endeavours) then Sideshow, running from late October through until December, is the one for you. Look out for more information on these very pages…

Looking closer to the present, if you find you often need a pick-me-up at the start of the week, get down to Antenna on Monday evening. No info on the website but it’s up on our Community site here. They’re hosting a wine tasting event from 6pm, FREE for members and just £2 for non-members. Wine+free=WINNER in my book… From the official info:

…experts from world-renowned wine merchant Hallgarten Druit will be on hand to lead you through a fabulous variety of must-try wines.

Hallgarten Druit is one of the UK’s leading wine specialists with over 70 years’ experience so you’ll be able to learn from the best and find out how to choose the perfect wine for every occasion – including Christmas of course!

As well as being able to taste a great selection of wines, served with a variety of snacks and cheeses, you’ll also be given free tasting notes, including ideas for matching food and wine.

The ‘Davenport Shop of Originality’ will be a distribution point for those we believe in. Situated in the magical Flying Horse Walk in Nottingham, it will retail highest quality produce locally and nationally designed and made as well as eventually some key pieces from places such as the Netherlands and Milan. We will also be providing bespoke solutions for domestic and commercial projects and putting talented teams together to deliver beautiful results. By taking the best of our past and merging it with the opportunity of the future we can be both a fresh, innovative and inventive ‘youthful’ company reacting to change and a ‘mature’ time-honoured company with heritage, expertise, experience and sophistication. The result will be a unique, inspiring environment for the city full of lovely things you just have to have!

This photo makes me smile - http://beestonblog.blogspot.com/

So summer’s over.   This Thursday (16 September) you can hear about How to be happy – strategies for making a good living.  More details and how to book are available on the Creative Greenhouse website. Another cheering gathering (for those who meet the obvious entry criteria) is the recently returned Geek Girls Dinner. Book your place now for next Monday’s get together.  Yet another reason to smile is the return of Nottingham Comedy Festival next week. Grab your tickets now to ensure merriment! That’s in addition to Glee, Nottingham’s brand new £1m comedy club. There’s good news on a more serious note, too. Not only is a £6.5m research centre to develop low carbon technologies due to be built in Nottingham, but the place has just been named as England’s least car dependent city! Time to go for a nice walk…in the rain.

So much to do, so variable an amount of time

Why so busy? Well, if you recall this week was a Pigheart week – Cap’n Ignatius Pigheart that is, noble master of the Good Ship Lollipop (and another ship less easily mentioned in polite bloggitude). I’ve achieved roughly half of my aims. And that ain’t bad as I can see now I was rather over-ambitious.

The First Task of Nick

New website with a proper domain name – accomplished. New content will follow, but for now all the stories are there and are accessible. You can also go through the Crewmates menu and choose stories by the characters who are in them, for example First Mate Billy No Mates, Monty McBuboe, Captain Aaaarsbeard, Hamish McMuffin and so on… Soon I’ll be adding some kind of representative picture for each of them, and add artwork for the stories. It’s gonna be cool and very piratey. I’ve now got to contact anyone with a link to the old website and change everything over. Sigh, but GAAAAARGH!!

The Second (more time-consuming) Task of Nick

Edit a new story and publish it. Fail. Yarr. I have been doodling over the new story – a revisit to the charming mermaid lady Ignatius met in my first ever tale. So the second draft is halfway there. To give you some idea of the re-writing process I go through, here’s the first version of the story’s beginning:

1st (frantically scribbled on a train) draft:

I peered out through the crab’s eyeholes and made to scuttle a bit behind some kelp. Twas not awful graceful, for me limbs did ill-fit in the recently vacated crabshell. I scuttled as if half-paralysed and blind. The reason for me caution burst into the chamber, flicking his fishtail agitatedly.

2nd (initial type-up) draft:

I peered out through the crab’s eyeholes and made ready to shuffle a bit behind some kelp. Twas not awfully graceful, for me own limbs were an ill-fit into the recently vacated crab shell; I scuttled as if recently scuttled. The reason for me caution had just burst into the chamber in a rush of bubbles, thrashing his fish tail behind him.

3rd (lots of pink corrective ink) draft:

The view from the crab’s peeper pocket was narrow, but directed at the Queen’s bosomy bounty. I were content. Nonetheless I attempted to compromise me obscuration with better oversight. Twas tricky, for me own limbs were ill-wedged into the recently-vacated crab shell; I scuttled as if scuttled. The cause of my cuckoldish caution burst into the chamber in a rush of bubbles, thrashing his muscular tail behind him.

I’ll need a couple more revisions – they’ll come to me when I’m trying to sleep or in the shower, y’know, convenient times. Hopefully you can see it improving! I still find it best to just hammer the damned thing out before the muse escapes; you can always abduct her again later. That’s a story in progress, and I might actually get some time on it this weekend.

The Third Most Audible Task of Nick

The awesome super-cool thing which I have achieved this week is to finally publish a story, in audiobook form on cdbaby.com! The captain and I are delighted. I’ll be uploading two more stories this weekend which will then also be on sale around the middle of next week. The way the site works is that over the next 5 weeks the Mermaid Adventure will be distributed across their partner network which includes iTunes, Amazon and Napster.

Hopefully lots of people will buy the single and share it with their friends. Exciting! I also enjoyed creating the cover artwork and all the other details I hadn’t previously considered. It feels like a great new opportunity and I’m going to be pursuing it with vigour and piracy.

MissImp Round Up

While I had hoped to do more piratical print-work this week, once again MissImp has overtaken everything. It is a very exciting time – not only are our end of the month shows at The Art Organisation (Hopkinson Gallery) attracting a splendid following of splendid people, but we’re about to start our new show at The Glee Club, MissImp in Action.

We’re developing a training programme of workshops to build improv skills for current and future members alongside shipping amazing professional talent in from the States to heighten our performances. In short, it’s getting kinda serious for improvised comedy!

The Nottingham Comedy Festival kicks off in just two weeks, which we’re headlining and oh crap! I still haven’t started learning any of my lines for Naked Ant Wrestling, the Microwaving Ants sketch show in the festival. There’s loads of wicked comedy on, and you should definitely check it out – Nottingham deserves a comedy festival and these guys are laying it on well.  I think I jabbered about some more of the events the MissImp crew are involved in last week – click here for a bit more of that.

Thanks guys, you’ve been awesome – hope to see you at some of the very many events I’m involved in, and I hope you enjoy my pirate stories. If you’d like to get in touch with me directly for any reason, feel free to email.

Now look, if you’ve enjoyed reading this guest blog and would be interested in having a crack at some of these things, here are some opportunities:

Participate & Play:

Saturday 11th September – Super-Short ‘taster’ improvised comedy workshop - FREE – at The Art Organisation on Station Street. It’s going to be about an hour of fun. We think it starts at 3pm. Click here for updates on the times as we get them.

Monday 13th September – Pub Poetry Nottingham – FREE – at The Canalhouse on Canal Street. Comic verse – bring your own, someone else’s or just your ears. More information here.

Saturday 25th September – Introduction to Improvised Comedy workshop – £8 (£6 in advance) – at The Art Organisation on Station Street, 2-5pm. More fun than you can shake a pointy stick at – learn to make your enemies laugh and then stab them with the stick.

Shows:

Friday 10th September – The Glee Club ’soft opening’ night – £5 in a great new venue for stand-up comedy, a MissImp preview, free food and cheap booze.

Saturday 18th September – Improv in the Dales – £5 – Red Lion Hotel, Wirksworth. We play the Wirksworth Festival – woo, big time!

Friday 24th September – ImproCop: The Future of Live Comedy – £3 – The Art Organisation, Station Street. Our monthly show and the start of the Nottingham Comedy Festival.

” More background about our guest blogger,  Nick Tyler. Fancy guest blogging for Creative Nottingham? Here’s how. “