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Our pick of some of the best events taking place across the region this week…
Image: LEAD IN THE PIPES – Katarina Jimack, Colonel Grunckle, 2025,
glazed ceramics, approx. 80x60x55cm
Every week we pull together some of the best events taking place across the region, from music and theatre, to comedy, art and film. Read more on these, and other events, in the latest issue of NARC. magazine in print and online.
STAGE
Blackbird in the Snow tells the tale of two elderly comedians who have both wound up in the same hospital, needing the same heart surgery – decades after they first worked together. The only problem is that nowadays they hate one another. This earnest, bittersweet comedy play comes to Laurels in Whitley Bay, opening Tuesday 6th May. One half of the double act had a glittering career and the other continued on the struggling local circuit; but can time heal wounds which have been left unspoken? In this triumphant and moving piece of theatre, a story unravels that will warm the heart and move anyone who watches. With heartwarming humour, tender moments, and a brilliant story showing the complexities of friendship – Blackbird in the Snow explores what happens when years of built up pride, regret and memories collide in a shared hospital room. As the clock ticks down to their surgeries, the old friends must confront the feelings of a life gone by. This powerful play is a celebration of second chances, and the timeless magic of British humour. Don’t miss this heartfelt story of love, loss, and laughter at Laurel’s in Whitley Bay, running from Tuesday 6th May – Saturday 17th May.
Tuesday 6th May @ Laurels, Whitley Bay
ART & LIT
Lead In The Pipes brings nine Newcastle University Fine Art students together to showcase their liminal, surrealist and often deeply thought-provoking artworks at Vane Gallery. The work spans a myriad of themes and mediums, so there’s bound to be something for everyone.
Wednesday 7th May – Saturday 10th May @ Vane Gallery, Gateshead
COMEDY
Kool Story Bro is the sell-out sensation about… well, just about anything. The improvised phenomenon latches onto a series of stories ripe from the audience and spins them into a hysterical and unique narrative night after night. While Kiell Smith-Bynoe (the chameleonic star of Taskmaster, Ghosts and Stath Lets Flats) may be the eye-catching lead here, it’s the onslaught of improv talent he brings with him on his roadshow that really cements the performance at Northern Stage on Thursday 8th May as one that cannot be missed. With a rotating line-up that comprises of the incomparable Emma Sidi, hilarious Steen Raskopoulos, Starstruck star Lola Rose Maxwell and Afterlife’s Graham Dixon to name a few, the night is in safe, chaotic hands from beginning to end. Rounding out the star-studded cast is a special guest host, each night tasked with plucking the anecdotes from the crowd and beginning to thread the ever-expanding yarn of the night. Guest hosts have included Guz Khan, Lily Allen, Matthew Baynton, Munya Chawawa and Rose Matafeo. With the stars in line, the confident prowess of ringleader Kiell is what keeps the night moving and achieving time and time again his ambition of “making improv kool again”, thanks to a hilarious plot and a multitude of twists and turns.
Thursday 8th May @ Northern Stage
MUSIC
Mystic rockers with celestial vocals, dreamy vibes and thunderous chords make up Death Valley Girls. Summoning Fleetwood Mac as vivid inspirations, these powerful, spell-like songs explore journeys through pain and healing, serving up a gorgeous night to get lost in their enchanting music. With support from Bella & the Bizarre.
Thursday 8th May @ The Cluny, Newcastle
MUSIC
New Notes for Newcastle: Kainos Ensemble
If you’re looking for the chance to catch a musical act for the first time ever, why not head to Newcastle for the debut of Kainos Ensemble, a contemporary classical collective aiming to challenge the way classical music is perceived. They’ll be bringing a selection of modern local works to The Lit & Phil.
Thursday 8th May @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle
MUSIC
Synth-pop royalty and king of charismatic vocals Andy Bell, legendary frontman of Erasure, brings his solo tour to The Glasshouse on Thursday 8th May. Celebrating the release of his brand new album Ten Crowns, Andy is back in the region promising a euphoric, uplifting evening, mixing the new and nostalgic with pulsing dancefloor energy. Ten Crowns is set to be a bold, gospel-tinged exploration of resilience, joy and identity. In these crazy times, experiencing tracks like Breaking Thru The Interstellar and Don’t Cha Know in the peerless acoustic excellence of the Glasshouse will be a perfect opportunity to leave our personal and planetary troubles behind. Featuring collaborations with Debbie Harry and Sarah Potenza, and shaped alongside Grammy-winning producer Dave Audé, this new work shows Andy Bell at his most honest and vibrant. Fans can expect a night of this new material alongside a career-spanning set that honours his 40 year legacy as one of Britain’s most celebrated performers.
Thursday 8th May @ The Glasshouse
MUSIC
Glaswegian nerd rockers Slime City will bring their brand of dorky, DIY crunchy indie pop anthems to Pop Recs, featuring fast-paced guitars, fun vocals and computer boops that’ll have you simultaneously moshing and geeking out. With support from Cazimi and Johnny D & The Space Cadets.
Friday 9th May @ Pop Recs Ltd., Sunderland
MUSIC
Patrick Wolf has been through enough, and with any luck the release of new album Crying The Neck marks a change in his fortunes. The break in recording is understood, but that doesn’t mean the eclectic singer-songwriter hasn’t been sorely missed. Crying The Neck is not only his first full-length release of new music in over a decade, but it also documents the period of personal turmoil it follows, featuring loss both familial and financial. Its lead single Dies Irae, or “Day of Wrath,” catalogues one of his final days with his late mother before her passing, honouring her with an anthemic and heartbreaking neo-classical tune which balances mournful vocals and orchestral instrumentation with electronic beats. It’s only right on an album so personal that there are even more personal touches, be it revisiting older material and recontextualising it within Wolf’s more recent experiences, or collaborating with his own sister Jo Apps on the most personal tracks. To be able to hear these tracks straight from the Wolf’s mouth would surely be all the more impactful – and that’s exactly what you can do at The Glasshouse on Saturday 10th May. If the only way out is through, then Patrick Wolf is taking us all for quite the emotional journey – but we’re all going to come out the other side kicking.
Saturday 10th May @ The Glasshouse
Image: RESOUNDING DIASPORIC ETC – Liza Prins and Marie Ilse Bourlanges, Field Recording Mixtapes, 2024
EVENTS
Resounding Diasporic Sonic Worlds
The New Bridge Project continually provides diverse, impactful and relevant events and exhibitions in our region, and Resounding Diasporic Sonic Worlds opening Saturday 10th May illustrates this superbly. This magnificent programme of events, which runs until 19th July, will feature an eclectic mix of artists and collectives exploring ideas around music and resistance in communities and their diasporas (meaning the dispersion or migration of people away from their original homeland), and those who’s hometowns are in affected areas of conflict. The exhibition aims to “challenge histories of colonial and racial violence” with multiple ways for you to engage; from listening events, documented memories and archival works to film screenings and the physical artwork itself, providing a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in the cultures and experiences of minority groups who are continually oppressed under capitalism. The exhibition features a plethora of vital voices and powerful collectives such as Majazz: Palestinian Sound Archive, Sara Nacer, Christopher Silver, True Form Projects, Nesh Dadgostar, Arthur Larie and Bastien Massa, Liza Prins and Marie Ilse Bourlanges, Andrea Zarza Canova with the Shieldfield Youth Programme. RDSW will certainly be an incredible and unique experience to help inspire radical change within the world, and an important reminder of coming together in the face of crisis and conflict.
Saturday 10th May – Saturday 19th July @ The Newbridge Project
MUSIC
If folk in its absurdly varied iterations is all over the bloody shop at the moment, Milkweed are somewhere out on its more fascinating, experimental margins, pushing at the very definition. Even the most wonky, auto-tuned Stick In The Wheel tracks sound like Steeleye Span by comparison. Thus far, this mysterious duo have only released a trio of short-run cassettes, but this month sees the release of Remscéla, their take on the first 20 pages of the immense and complex Irish epic Táin Bó Cuailnge. In Milkweed’s music, trad instruments are twisted and manipulated, ballads are cut up and repurposed and the end result is a bewildering, beguiling mixture of Shirley Collins and Mordant Music – something they call ‘slacker trad’. For a project so wayward, the duo – simply G and R – take a strangely academic approach to their sources, and it’s clear that if they played it straight, they’d probably be an impressive folk outfit. But where’s the fun in that? They return to the Lubber Fiend on Sunday 11th May for a show that sees them supported by fascinating, genre-defying Los Angeles musician Jack Name and relatively new local supergroup Powtes, who boast several Tyneside folk luminaries and whose lyrical content seems to be entirely based on the enclosure of fenland in the early seventeenth century.
Sunday 11th May @ Lubber Fiend, Newcastle
MUSIC
Let me give you a list of names that encompasses the full technosphere of the avant-garde and exploratory sonic creativity all the way from the dusty far reaches of the left-field to the fertile grounds of the inner paddock. A list that includes internationally recognised harsh techno pioneers to local experimental house DJs; from propulsive electronics and Berghain veterans to community driven scenesters and purveyors of dystopian ambience; plus a DJ at the sweet spot where UK garage and house music collide… Let me also tell you that all these names will appear at one event on one day in one of the region’s hippest micro-venues where Berlin squat culture meets North East social discourse, from a promoter who, over the last couple of years, has placed themselves firmly at the zeitgeist of all things racket and tumult, and the rituals that take place there. Industrial Sunday Service All Dayer comes to you from Middlesbrough’s Disgraceland on Sunday 11th May from midday to midnight. And the list of names? Well, the line-up includes, from the top, Rainy Miller, Wes Baggley, Richie Culver’s Quiet Husband project, Abby Harris, Burning Pyre, Jon Cornbill and 6J Jacob. With these sorts of line-ups Industrial Coast is really spoiling us.
Sunday 11th May @ Disgraceland, Middlesborough
