WEEKLY ROUND-UP (15.05.23)

Image: Alasdair Beckett-King

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 May issue of NARC. magazine – out now in print and online.

COMEDY Alasdair Beckett-King
Alasdair Beckett-King’s short bursts of comedy are overflowing with personality, parodying various genres of comedy, cinema and TV. His show will demonstrate Beckett-King’s knack for twisting astute observations into the whimsical and aloof, but also his passion for multimedia. The Interdimensional ABK explores a series of timelines, fighting to make ours the best. Focused on happiness and overcoming misery, the comic leaps into the obscure and the random with ease, plucking out hilarious anecdotes, aided by his equally stylised illustrations. 
Tuesday 16^th May @ The Stand, Newcastle

ART & LIT Degrees of Separation
Teesside University’s Fine Art BA (Hons) degree show features a variety of work including installations of noisy, visual and playful art by a group of women which explores how when fractions are put aside we are all alike. Artists include Leah Brydon Roberts, Niamh Hawes, Emily Maclean Unthank, Katrina Bate, Molly Oliver, Alishia Beadle and Laura Kelbrick. Runs until 19^th May.
Tuesday 16th-Friday 19^th May @ Waterhouse Building, Teesside University, Middlesbrough

MUSIC BBC Introducing: Komparrison
The fiery pop quintet perform at Middlesbrough Town Hall in a brand new series of performances in partnership with BBC Introducing. Komparrison will bring their feel-good observational songs of life as a working class woman in the North East, alongside brat-pop duo ZELA and retro funk band Moon Wax. 
Thursday 18^th May @ Middlesbrough Town Hall

MUSIC Marrapalooza
Marrapalooza aims to introduce audiences to new DIY artists from across the UK as well as pay homage to some of our region’s most successful acts. Of particular note for fans of angst-driven indie punk will be a headline set from Durham faves Martha; hard-hitting fuzz rockers Pit Pony; Edinburgh-based indie rocker and regular face in the region Withered Hand; quirky noise makers The Wave Pictures; Sheffield’s witty popsters Trust Fund; anti-folk artists Crywank; Sunderland’s oddball rock outfit SLUG; alt. lo-fi duo Mouses; power pop punks bigfatbig; folk punk trio Toodles & The Hectic Pity; riffy guitar band Feeble Strength, indie punks Good Grief and many more.
Friday 19^th & Saturday 20^th May @ Various venues in the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle

Image: Richard Hardisty

COMEDY Richard Hardisty
Richard Hardisty’s soul-wrenchingly raw show chronicles an unusual life and experiences of mental illness such as anorexia and bipolar disorder as well as drug addiction. His work radiates the promise of authenticity, nerve and paradox and Hardisty’s show has not only been praised for its quality as comedy, but for its educational value: he was even invited to perform in front of 150 therapists at an NHS conference.
Friday 19^th May @ Gala Theatre, Durham

ART & LIT Fluxus Fields
The exhibition will showcase new works and site specific art that invites the proletariat to engage with art without feeling intimidated or self-conscious, and the elite to loosen the fuck up, stop overthinking and actually permit an emotional rather than cerebral response. 
Friday 19^th May-Friday 30^th June @ The Cluny, Newcastle

ART & LIT Larry Achiampong
Reformulating patterns of Britain from the vantage of somewhere within its very coughing mosaic, Larry Achiampong’s Wayfinder madlibs the collective unconscious to excavate the relation between who speaks history and who controls it. Wayfinder illuminates the junkyard almanac of history whilst confronting its colonial encryptions. With the kind of cultural acquisition in the migrant experience, Wayfinder accrues these artefacts like powers that might unlock previously foggy corners of maps.
Saturday 20^th May-Sunday 29^th October @ BALTIC, Gateshead

MUSIC Get Hip!
Renowned for their legendary parties and choice performances from interesting and fun artists, promoters Get Hip!’s shows offer up everything from 60s soul and R&B to Latin, garage and psych sounds. Their May event features psychedelic pop trio The Type Five and North East punk surf masters The Milk Lizards.
Saturday 20^th May @ The Green Room, Stockton

ART & LIT X – Contemporary British Painting
A new exhibition at Newcastle Contemporary Art seeks to demonstrate some of the many and varied approaches to the painting art form, and brings together the work of over 80 artists in a vibrant exhibition which is ambitious in its scope, exploring everything from photorealism to gestural abstraction, tiny intimate studies to big bombastic works, and paintings that come off the wall and make you question what you’re looking at.
Saturday 20^th May-Saturday 17^th June @ Newcastle Contemporary Art

Image: X – Contemporary Painting, Abigail Hampsey, An Allegory of Life and Time, Oil on Canvas with Mixed Media, Bronza and Plastic, 170x160cm, 2022

MUSIC House of All
If any of the faces in House of All look familiar, it’s because they should. Mancunian punk outfit The Fall may effectively be no more since the passing of founding member Mark E. Smith, but one benefit of an almost revolving door of band members means there’s plenty of choice when it comes to ambitious reunion projects. House of All’s line-up consists of longest serving bassist Steve Hanley alongside drummer and brother Paul, fellow ex-Fall-drummer Simon Wolstencroft, and The Fall’s final guitarist Pete Greenway. With relentless chords and philosophies wrapped up in Bramah’s purring Mancunian drawl, House of All claims to take its space amongst its predecessor’s finest.
Monday 22^nd May @ The Cluny, Newcastle