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hightide
APRIL 2009
SCARBOROUGH’S ESSENTIAL GUIDE
Obama and
me: writer
Niall Stanage
Oven clips:
performance baking
Jazz Club’s
freeform party
AND: music arts theatre comedy
film exhibitions poetry food & dr ink
www.hightidemagazine.com
hightide
SCARBOROUGH’S ESSENTIAL GUIDE
APRIL 2009
NEWS
This month
News
The books, the brutes
and the beautiful
3
Making oven clips
4
Janis Bright on a
performance baking event
So inevitable as Barack Obama’s rise to the US
presidency seems now, it’s hard to remember that
only a couple of years ago he looked like being an
also-ran to Hillary Clinton.
By luck and a good call, writer Niall Stanage was able to
get an up-close view of the journey to the White House.
Stanage visits Scarborough this month for the literature
festival - and he talked exclusively to High Tide. See our
main feature.
The innovatory On the Edge performance season at the
University Campus is set for an inflammatory night when
four cooks produce a soufflé of sound, images and an
actual soufflé. We asked performance artist Christophe
Alix what it’s all about.
Cover story:
5
Obama and me
Roger Osborne talks to
writer Niall Stanage about
an extraordinary journey
Listings
All the happenings
for April
6
All up for a
freeform party
The illustrious
Scarborough Jazz Club
celebrates 25 years
8
Writer roughs up
Vikings for festival
Scarborough’s fearless
literature festival tackles a
ticklish subject this year with
a session on the Vikings.
Were they the founders of
Scarborough, or destroyers of
an existing settlement?
Writer Martin Arnold will
attempt to keep the peace.
Other speakers in this year’s
event from 23 to 26 April
include Kate Adie, Jenni
Hunter: one
to catch at
comedy club
Murray, Libby Purves, Barrie
Rutter, Lee Child and Graham
Hurley. Irish journalist Niall
Stanage
tells of his
journey
with
Barack
Obama see our
feature on
Page 5.
Yorkshire-based poet James
Nash also returns with
selections from his impressive
book Coma Songs (left).
Workshops on everything from
script writing to rap and street
art complete the programme.
Main events are at the library,
plus other venues. Tickets
from the library; website
www.scarborough
literaturefestival.co.uk
A little house
appears on prairie
And last but certainly not least, one of Scarborough’s,
nay, the country’s, finest institutions celebrates its
quarter century this month. Scarborough Jazz Club has
hosted some of the greatest local, national and
international talents over that time, and its anniversary
party is set to do it again in style. Stroll on the fiftieth!
Top comedian Reginald D
Hunter is to appear at The
Other Side comedy club in
June.
Described as ‘the Samuel L
Jackson of standup’, Hunter
has brought his brand of
ultra-cool to television with
appearances on Have I Got
News for You. He has been
nominated for a Perrier
Award three times.
He appears at the Blue
Lounge on 8 June.
High Tide is edited by Janis Bright and published by Roger Osborne
High Tide Publishing CIC, Woodend, The Crescent, Scarborough YO11 2PW
02
editor@hightidemagazine.com
April 2009
April 2009
You had to be quick to notice this small cabin on the lawn at
Woodend, Scarborough. It was there as the first stage of an
exhibition called Wild created by Emma Rushton and Derek
Tyman. The cabin was a replica of the retreat used by the
American writer Henry David Thoreau in the 1840s. As Emma
explained: ‘Thoreau wanted to live a different life and escape from
the material world.’
The cabin was used as a rehearsal space by seven rock bands
from the area. Music and film from the week will appear in a full
exhibition in July, inside the Woodend gallery.
www.hightidemagazine.co.uk 03
H
ow do you get to be
involved with the most
astonishing political
campaign, and the
most amazing politician, of
recent times?
Making
oven clips
Janis Bright talks to performance artist and onstage cook Christophe Alix
T
he possibility of falling
flat in performance
obviously holds no fear
for Christophe Alix. The
theatre and performance
lecturer is about to try that
most dangerous of culinary
tricks, making a cheese
soufflé live on stage.
It will be the centrepiece of
Cuisine 2, an aromatic piece of
performance art by Christophe
and three colleagues currently
working in Paris and Berlin.
The four originally came
together in Paris some 15
years ago. Later Christophe
moved to London, Birmingham
and then to Scarborough. Now
he works at the university
where he has had a chance to
combine his performance work
with theory and lecturing.
Jerome and Janfrancois
Blanquet are brothers who
work with sound and film.
Jeanfrancois says he has been
‘composing sound with
modified cheap recycled
electronic instruments to
make semi-controllable
expressive tools’. Jerome says
he can be found ‘at the
intersection of experimental
video and live performance’.
Their colleague Benoît Bellet
04
editor@hightidemagazine.com
irrestistibly describes himself
as a live cooking sound
grabber. And that’s what they
are going to do as they sit
round the table at this month’s
On The Edge performance at
the university. As Christophe
cooks, his collaborators will
wire up a minuscule camera to
investigate the soufflé and relay
images to a big screen, while
the cooking sounds will be
‘cooked’ into blended noise.
He says he has been much
influenced by watching
celebrity chefs on television
shows. ‘We’re cooking with
sound, image and so on, round
the table. And we own the
product, it’s not mass
produced.’
‘It’s a simple performance,’
says Christophe, ‘with a simple
narrative. And comic. But there
is tension as well.’ There will
certainly be anticipation as the
soufflé rises for the occasion.
As the publicity for the event
comments, ‘The audience may
take the time to observe its
disinflation posture while
travelling from the oven to the
guest table.’
Cuisine 2, 7.30pm, 22 April,
the University Campus.
In Niall Stanage’s case it was a
combination of luck and
judgement. His paper, the New
York Observer, wanted
reporters with access to the
Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama campaigns, but with an
outsider’s viewpoint. That’s
where luck came in, as Niall
told High Tide: ‘Back in
November 2007 everyone
thought Hillary Clinton was the
likely winner, so my senior
colleague got that job, which
left Obama open.’
Niall, an Irish journalist based
in New York, took the chance
and stayed with the Obama
campaign all the way to the
White House.
From the beginning he was
impressed: ‘It wasn’t that I
thought ‘He’s going to win’ but
there was definitely something
about him.’ Any impression of
Obama as an interesting
outsider was banished by in
early January 2008 when he
won the Iowa caucus. Niall sees
this as a massive event. ‘I
definitely felt the landscape of
American politics change that
night. For Obama to win in
almost exclusively white state,
and against someone like
Hillary Clinton, signalled a real
change.’
For the next few months, as the
race hotted up, Niall was part
of the press corps following
Obama from state to state. At
first he was just one of the
gaggle – but sticking with it
eventually got him a seat on
Obama’s campaign plane.
At what point did he think of
writing a book about a man
who, after all, could turn out a
April 2009
COVER STORY: NIALL STANAGE
Obama
and me
Journalist Niall Stanage followed Barack Obama’s campaign all the way
from hopeful outsider to landslide president. Roger Osborne spoke to him
ahead of his appearance at this month’s Scarborough Literature Festival
gallant loser? ‘That came quite
early on. In February Obama
addressed a rally in Baltimore,
Maryland, a state he was going
to win. The atmosphere that
night, the speech and the
crowd’s reaction was so
extraordinary, I thought, I have
to write something about this.’
Niall was filing news reports
knowing he needed to write a
book to convey the emotion that
was such a feature of the
campaign. ‘The emotional
intensity of his supporters was
a big feature, but it’s not
something that’s easy to
include in news journalism.’
The expansion of the electorate
April 2009
through Obama’s personality
and through innovative use of
the internet helped Obama win
the nomination and then the
election. By October 2008 he
had 1.5 million active
supporters, willing to knock on
doors. History helped, as Niall
recognises. ‘Americans were
looking for some way to feel
better about the country after
Bush. Obama tapped into a
mythic vision of America as a
place of optimism and hope,
and people across social and
political divides bought into
that.’ And electing an AfricanAmerican president was full of
meaning; ‘By the time of the
inauguration even Republicans
were saying that this was a
great statement about
America.’
By then the heat of battle was
over, and Niall had his book
finished and published within
a month of the election victory.
It is the story of one of the
great political events of our
time, by a man who was there
from start to finish. Now that
is hard to resist.
Niall Stanage will be talking
about Redemption Song at
the Scarborough Literature
Festival on Friday 24 April at
Scarborough Library
www.hightidemagazine.com 05
listings
April events
To 19 April
Tracy Himsworth:
Outside/Inside
Scarborough Art Gallery
To 10 May
East Coasting: Edward
Bawden & Eric Ravilious
Scarborough Art Gallery
To 19 April
Vanessa Plews:
Floral Essence
SJT Restaurant
5 April
Life drawing workshop
with Andrew Cheetham
Crescent Arts
6 to 11 April
Only When I Laugh
To 15 May
Rachel Welford:
New Works in
Architectural Glass
8 April
Scarborough Jazz:
Sara Littlefield
Sigma at The Cask
To 31 May
East Meets West: 10
Artists from the Dale
9 April
Rotunda Geology Group:
Preserving Geological
Heritage
Blandscliff Gallery
University Campus
1 & 2 April
The Young Victoria
10 to 17 April
Revolutionary Road
Futurist Theatre
Stephen Joseph Theatre
1 & 2 April
Slumdog Millionaire
13 April
Comedy Club: Idiot
Of Ants
1 to 3 April
National Student
Drama Festival
Blue Lounge
14 to15 April
Jackajack
I thought I was new to the
work of both Eric Ravilious
and Edward Bawden until I
realised I’d seen Knole Park
1929, a design for wallpaper,
at the Design Museum many
years ago. Work in this
exhibition goes from the late
1920s right through to the
1990s and shows an
extraordinary range of
painting, print making –
lithograph and linocut – and
one very witty collage.
Near the beginning of the
exhibition two beautiful
watercolours, pencil on paper:
Views from Great Bardfield
1932 by Eric Ravilious and The
Pond, Great Bardfield 1933 by
Edward Bawden. Two different
artists here with their take on
views of Great Bardfield, yet
again you recognise it’s the
same place.
Edward Bawden’s Knole Park
strikes me as a fine example of
the versatility of this artist, given
it’s from 1929 – some three years
before the Great Bardfield
watercolour. Spend a moment at
Bawden’s lithograph of New
Haven Harbour 1937, great artdeco type lines here, then look at
Ravilious’s Paddle Steamers at
Night. Beautifully constructed
pieces.
of stunning John Piper pieces
and, dominating the larger of
the two rooms, Bawden’s
bizarre Two Bays – if you live
in Scarborough find your street.
Finally, out on the walls
overlooking the foyer, are a
couple of late linocuts of
Brighton – I particularly liked
Brighton Pier.
I notice both are from the Tom
Laughton Collection - what a
canny collector he was.
Suddenly we fast-forward to
Bawden’s Tyger Tyger, a print
from 1991 in a totally different
style. Tucked away are a couple
See this exhibition before it
ends; it’s a gem, showing yet
again that Scarborough can
give you good value more often
than you think.
Stephen Joseph Theatre
The Spa
Stephen Joseph Theatre
1 & 2 April
The Boat That Rocked
15 April
John Renbourn and
Robin Williamson
18 April
Audio Mafia
22 April
On The Edge: Cuisine 2
National Centre For Early Music, York
Vivaz
University Campus
15 April
Scarborough Jazz:
Players' Night
19 April
Scarborough Jazz:
25th anniversary
celebration
22 April
Pavel Haas Quartet
27 April
Comedy Club:
Milton Jones
Stephen Joseph Theatre
Blue Lounge
22 April
Scarborough Jazz:
Rob Lavers
29 April
Scarborough Jazz:
Time Zone
Sigma at The Cask
Sigma at The Cask
23 to 26 April
Scarborough Literature
Festival:
The Long Weekend
30 April to 9 May
Moonlight and Magnolias
Futurist Theatre
1 April
Scarborough Jazz:
Real Book North West
Sigma at The Cask
2 April
Whitby Film Society:
The Band's Visit
Whitby Coliseum
3 April
Love In The Time Of
The Cholera
Scarborough Library
4 April
Brazilian Party
Dance Night
Kirkbymoorside Memorial Hall
editor@hightidemagazine.com
Stephen Wood reviews the
Bawden and Ravilious show at
Scarborough Art Gallery
4 April
Music Cafe Night
Stephen Joseph Theatre
Electric Angel Gallery
REVIEW: EAST COASTING
Stephen Joseph Theatre
Wave Gallery
Hollywood Plaza
06
4 to 9 April
Australia
Sigma at The Cask
16 April
Whitby Film Society:
Riding Alone for
Thousands of Miles
Whitby Coliseum
Sigma at The Cask
20 April
Scarborough
Historical Society:
Cleopatra the Great
Scarborough Library
16 April
Poetry Café
21 April
Blues Club:
Aynsley Lister
Return Visit
SJT Restaurant
17 April
Whitby In Shorts 4
Sigma at The Cask
Whitby Coliseum
April 2009
April 2009
The Silver Screen
Stephen Joseph Theatre
Scarborough Library
25 April
Robert Powell and
Gabrielle Drake:
See our website for full
event details. Check
timings with venues
www.hightidemagazine.com 07
MUSIC: JAZZ CLUB BIRTHDAY BASH
All in for a
freeform
jazz party
Scarborough’s illustrious home
of goodtime music is 25 years
old this month. Organiser Mike
Gordon marks the occasion.
T
his year Scarborough
Jazz will have been
running for twenty-five
years, fifty nights a year
– and in the history of British
jazz clubs that’s quite an
achievement!
General Cluster, Joel Purnell,
Chris Hodgkins , Ron Burnett,
Greg Wadman, Stony Jazz, Pat
McCarthy, Jon Taylor, Martin
Jones, Jim Corrie, Julie
Edwards and Kevin Dearden.
Entry will be £5 at the door.
In that time some great
players have performed in
Scarborough – Harry ‘Sweets’
Edison, Gene ‘The Mighty Flea’
Connors, Mundell Lowe,
Martin Taylor, Peter King,
Gerard Presencer, Don Weller,
Clare Teal, Stacey Kent, Jack
Purnell, Alan Barnes, Anita
Wardell, Tina May and many
others.
Barnes storming
To celebrate, a fantastic jazz
party will take place at the
Cask on Sunday 19 April. From
midday until 9pm in the Sigma
Bar some of the finest players
who have starred for
Scarborough Jazz will perform
backed by three great rhythm
sections. The programme will
include Jim Birkett, Thom
Whitworth, Frank Brooker,
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editor@hightidemagazine.com
The highlight of the day will be
from 9.30pm until midnight in
the Sigma Bar when the
stunning The Alan Barnes
Quintet will entertain. What a
line-up: – Alan (clarinet and
saxes, pictured above), Bruce
Adams (trumpet), Robin
Aspland (keyboards), Alec
Dankworth (bass) and Bobby
Jim Corrie
Worth (drums). These are truly
top-class UK musicians.
Limited tickets (which are
selling quickly) at £12 are
available at club nights on
Wednesdays at The Cask, at
Mojos, from Mike at (01723)
379818 or from The Bookshelf
on Victoria Road.
From midday onwards in the
upstairs Cask bar some of the
best student jazz in the area
from University of Hull, Leeds
College of Music and Newcastle
University will be performing.
Entry to this is free. A wide
range of food will be available.
This will be an incredible day to
remember – and one not to be
missed.
By the way, the history of
Scarborough Jazz is nicely
documented in a display in the
Library where Dennis Hitch has
scoured the archives for an
exhibition illustrating the
performers and venues over
the last 25 years.
April 2009