Ian Prowse’s Monday Club at the Cavern is the stuff of legend, and Ian himself is a legend in the Music Room. So it only makes sense that we combine the two as part of our Music Room 10 celebrations. Ian Prowse – the Music Room’s most frequent performer – joins us to present a curated showcase of some of his favourite artists in a very special edition of the Monday Club.
By Abbie Billington
Liverpool Biennial returns this summer once again showcasing cutting-edge contemporary visual art across the city region. Running alongside it is the Independents Biennial, with 22 newly commissioned works by 64 artists. Independents Biennial sets out to highlight the incredible work of the city’s grassroots artists, an integral part of the backbone of Liverpool’s creative scene.
Independent galleries and Liverpool’s creative networks are placed into the spotlight, as artists are given a chance to make a name for themselves in the UK’s largest and longest-running free festival of art, as well as celebrating Liverpool’s creativity and cultural significance.
What makes the Independents Biennial truly special is its commitment to non-traditional spaces. Art isn’t just confined to galleries – the festival utilises all spaces to showcase its artists work, including Hilbre Island off the coast of the Wirral, Belle Vale shopping centre and empty units in St Helens town centre. It celebrates the versatility of art, and how artists can use any space and turn anything into phenomenal, thought-provoking pieces of art.
Independents Biennial will span each of Liverpool’s six boroughs, with each location offering something unique and inspirational. Sefton, Knowsley, Wirral, St Helens, Halton and Liverpool city centre will host these 64 independent artists and provide them and their work with a home for the summer.
While the entire programme promises to be unforgettable, we’ve picked out a few exhibitions that are especially worth checking out…
You won’t want to miss The Right Map by Ghost Art School, a collective that exists between margins and creates art that challenges the conventions of traditional institutions. The Right Map is described as “a constellation of art exhibitions across Liverpool, unfolding under the banner of the Independents Biennial.” It brings together a series of exhibitions across the city region, including UNSTABLE in Port Sunlight, In Search of Swallows and Amazons in Kensington, Account in Birkenhead, and Slipstream on Blundell Street in the city centre.
Building on this theme of place and disruption, Tom Stockley and Ruaíri Valentine bring their deep dive into Wirral psychogeography to the festival with Weird Wirral. Inspired by a gothic poem, the duo turns to folklore and legend, guiding us through the shorelines and landscapes of the Wirral to uncover traces of magic and forgotten stories hidden in the land.
Meanwhile, at the Victoria Gallery, Claire Beerjeraz offers a powerful reflection on the legacies of colonialism and slavery. Their multidisciplinary exhibition explores how these histories are displayed, contained, and remembered within institutional spaces. With a tapestry of spoken word and clay, Claire weaves together personal and collective memory, urging us to look beneath the surface of memorials and museum walls—and to reimagine how art institutions can hold space for difficult truths.
In another standout piece, artist Amy Flynn invites us to consider the legacy of our modern waste through Technofossils—human-made objects and materials that will persist in the geological record for millions of years. Her pewter cast sculptures are deliberately alluring at first glance: sparkling gemstones and shiny metals entice the viewer in. But look closer, and you’ll find the contours of outdated mobile phones and discarded plastic food containers—rubbish masquerading as treasure. This journey through desire and disgust mimics the cycle of consumerism, exploring themes of duality: artificial/organic, worthless/precious, temporary/permanent, growth/decay.
Explore Liverpool’s history through a cosmic lens in this bold, multi-part project that blends astrology, storytelling, and live art. Back in 1639, Toxteth-born astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks became the first person to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun—a pivotal moment in the history of astronomy. In astrology, Venus is associated with beauty and creativity, and this project asks how these Venusian themes have helped shape Liverpool’s identity across the centuries. This is part one of a collaboration between Independents Biennial and the Museum of Liverpool’s Global City series—and promises to be an unforgettable deep dive into the city’s star-studded past and artistic present.
Independents Biennial will take place across Liverpool from 7 June to 14 September 2025. This year’s festival is already shaping up to be one of the most exciting yet. With so much to explore, experience, and be inspired by, Independents Biennial is a must for anyone looking to make the most of the city’s creative summer—it’s definitely at the top of our plans!
Visit independentsbiennial.com/events to explore the latest announcements, event details, and artist highlights.
Liverpool Bach Collective was formed in 2013, with the aim of putting on performances of J S Bach’s cantatas in churches in and around Liverpool every month as part of Sunday Evensong or Vespers. The cantatas chosen are based on, or are at least relevant to, the readings of the day in the churches visited.
The Collective usually consists of eight singers and an ensemble of around ten players, generally strings, oboes, bassoon and organ; the ensemble is enlarged when the music demands it. The performers are a mix of professional, semi-professional and amateur musicians, all of whom have a love for the music of Bach and are united in their passion and their commitment in performing these wonderful works.
As the Collective’s season began, so it ends, with a cantata of general praise as the Collective’s contribution to this year’s Prescot Festival. In this festive work, to the usual instrumental ensemble, four vocal soloists and chorus, are added three trumpets and timpani.
By the end of the current season, the Collective will have given eighty-one cantata performances, involving sixty-six different cantatas in forty-three churches, from Hightown to Rainhill and Ince Blundell to Birkenhead. The ensemble continues to enlarge its following of interested listeners.
St Mary’s Church (Prescot Parish Church)
Church Street
Prescot
L34 1LA
Admission: Free on the door
The Sandbox Showcase: A Night of Short Films & Creative Community
Step into the world of short film and retro nostalgia at the Sandbox Showcase. A unique 90s-themed evening hosted by Let’s Make Films, spotlighting the best emerging filmmaking voices from Liverpool & the North West.
Taking place at Picturehouse @ FACT on Tuesday, 20th May, the night is part film screening, part creative hangout and fully focused on community, fun and discovery.
From 4:30, we’re transforming the bar area into a vibrant throwback experience, with 90s-inspired activities for all to enjoy. Expect:
At 6:30 pm, we head into the cinema for a specially curated screening of 12 short films by some of the region’s exciting filmmakers. Bold, Personal and inventive work that captures the creative spirit of the Sandbox.
After the credits roll, stick around for post-screening drinks, chats with the filmmakers, and more time with your creative community.
Event Details:
?Picturehouse @ FACT – 88 Wood Street, Liverpool, L1 4DQ
? 20.05.25
? Doors & Activities from 4:30 | Screening from 6:30
?️ Tickets: £4
Whether you’re a filmmaker, a vintage obsessive, or just curious about Liverpool’s creative scene, this is your invitation to be part of something different. Come dressed in your best 90s look and help us build a new kind od film night for the city.
Not only is Kit de Waal an incredibly talented writer and storyteller, she is also a champion for elevating the voices and opportunities for diverse, working class writers, putting her money where her mouth is by creating the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Scholarship to help improve working-class representation in the arts.
It’s a pleasure to welcome her back to WoWFEST for this online event discussing her latest novel, The Best of Everything, described by Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo as ‘A profoundly compassionate novel of devastating power’. The Best of Everything follows Paulette’s planning for her future perfect wedding, honeymoon, perfect life. But life has other plans for her. Denton disappears without a goodbye, his friend Garfield steps in—and soon, there’s a baby, and Paulette finds purpose raising her son. But it isn’t enough, and Paulette finds can’t she stop thinking about Nellie, a little boy growing up nearby with no mother in sight? A moving tale of unexpected love and the ties that pull us in, no matter our plans. Pull up a chair and get your hankies ready.
British/Irish writer Kit de Waal is the author of multiple novels. My Name Is Leon was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and was adapted for BBC2; The Trick to Time was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction; her acclaimed biography Without Warning and Only Sometimes was Radio 4 Book of the Week, and shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. She has written extensively about the need for the publishing industry to be more inclusive, was editor of Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers. and presented the BBC Radio 4 programme Where Are All the Working Class Writers?
Dive into the raw, untamed heart of storytelling with ‘Wild Writing,’ a festival exploration of memoir, fiction, and the spaces in between. Join Jeff Young, navigating the hallucinatory landscapes of memory in Wild Twin; Jake Morris-Campbell, charting a poetic pilgrimage through Northumbria in Between the Salt and the Ash; and Tony Wailey, evoking the maritime rhythms of Liverpool’s past in his series The Diary of the Smyth-Wailey’s.
Discover how these writers push the boundaries of form, blending fact and feeling to forge new, powerful ways of telling our stories. From personal journeys to regional odysseys, experience the wild, transformative power of words.
Jeff Young is a Liverpool-based writer for screen, stage, and radio. A former Creative Writing lecturer, he is the author of Ghost Town (Costa Prize-shortlisted) and Wild Twin, a dreamlike memoir of travel, memory, and loss.
Tony Wailey is a Liverpool-born writer and former seaman. His work explores . His work, including his forthcoming book, Rhythms That Carry, maritime history and identity, with a focus on Liverpool’s seafaring past entwined with the personal stories of those who lived it.
Jake Morris-Campbell is a poet and BBC New Generation Thinker from South Shields. In Between the Salt and the Ash (March 2025), he embarks on a pilgrimage across Northumbria, exploring history, identity, and cultural change.
Brian Bilston and Henry Normal appear together for the first time in a show which one critic has described as “two people reading some poems.”
Along the way, they will be drawing on their vast catalogue of crowd favourites – and throwing in new poems to prevent becoming their own tribute bands.
Not ones to overpromise, Brian and Henry are prepared to commit to delivering the greatest poetry show in the history of the world, or their names aren’t Brian Bilston and Henry Normal. An evening of poems to be enjoyed, not endured.
Brian Bilston has been described as the Banksy of poetry and Twitter’s unofficial Poet Laureate; with over 400,000 followers on social media, Brian has become truly beloved by the online community. He has published several collections of poetry, including You Took the Last Bus Home and Alexa, What Is There to Know About Love?, described by one reviewer as ‘the funniest collection of humorous verse I have seen in a long time’. His novel Diary of a Somebody was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. He has also written poetry for children, including a collection of football poems, 50 Ways to Score a Goal, while his acclaimed poem Refugees was set to music by composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and turned into a picture book.
Henry is a writer, poet, TV and film producer, founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Literature Festival), and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival. In June 2017, he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to television. He co-wrote and script-edited the multi-award-winning Mrs Merton Show and the spin-off series Mrs Merton and Malcolm. Setting up Baby Cow Productions Ltd in 1990, Henry executive produced all and script-edited many of the shows during its 17-and-a-half-year output. Highlights of the Baby Cow output during his time include the Oscar-nominated film Philomena, I Believe in Miracles, Gavin and Stacey, Moone Boy, Uncle, Marion and Geof, Nighty Night, The Mighty Boosh, Red Dwarf, Hunderby, Camping, and Alan Partridge.
Presented with the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.
In the 21st century, the world is changing fast — and nowhere more so than in Ireland. Once a homogenous society, today, Ireland is a vibrant mix of ethnicities, religions, and cultures, giving the country a fresh, modern vibe. Yet, while this new Irish identity is something to celebrate, not everyone is at ease with the rapidly changing face of Ireland.
In Liverpool, where cultural fusion has long been part of our roots, we understand what it means to adapt and thrive in the face of change. But how does Ireland’s shift towards a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society shape its own unique version of ‘Irishness’? And what struggles do those at the forefront of this transformation face as they carve out a new space in Irish society?
Come and hear three women who are meeting those challenges through literature and the arts: Irish-Punjabi author and editor Gabrielle Fullan; writer, disabled activist and dancer Maryam Madani; and Black Studies lecturer and author Philomena Mullen.
Join their panel to reflect on your shared experiences and learn from the evolving story of Ireland. It’s more than just a conversation — it’s about connecting the dots between communities and cultures. This event is in partnership with Speaking Volumes through their Breaking Ground Ireland Arts Council England funded project.
Gabrielle Fullam is an Irish-Punjabi writer from Dublin. She was appointed Whitechapel Gallery’s Young Writer in Residence 2024. She is studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck University, and is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, where she also served as President of the Student Union. She is a former editor of Icarus magazine, Ireland’s oldest literary journal.
Maryam Madani is a writer, disabled activist, dancer and the Founder/Chair of the grassroots organisation Disability Power Ireland. She organised Ireland’s first Disability Pride Festival (July 2022 and 2023) and Ireland’s first and second Disability Pride Parade for Disability Power Ireland (July 2023 and 2024). She has been a wheelchair dancer/performer and member of Undercurrent Dance Company since June 2023. Maryam has performed with Disrupt Disability Arts Festival, St. Patrick’s Festival, Milk and Cookie Stories and more. She has a BA in English Studies from Trinity College Dublin, and an MA in Journalism from Technological University Dublin.
Philomena Mullen is A Black Studies lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, was born to an Irish mother and a Nigerian father, and spent her first sixteen years in an Irish industrial school. She has been supported by Skein Press to develop her stories further. Among others, Philomena has read at: Silence+Voice – A Festival of Feminisms; the Royal Irish Academy; Breaking the Silence – Creative Responses to the Legacy of Ireland’s Mother and Baby Home Institutions (National Concert Hall and International Literature Festival Dublin project, 2021); and Echoes: Maeve Binchy and Irish Writers Festival.
In Green Ink, Stephen May reimagines the disappearance of Victor Grayson – disgraced socialist firebrand, secret service informant, bisexual hedonist and a man who knew too much. His disappearance is one of British politics’ most beguiling mysteries. Stephen May presents his historical speculation with bite, wit and electrifying drama.
As Prime Minister David Lloyd George hides out with his mistress at Chequers, a scandal over the selling of public honours looms—and Grayson threatens to expose it all. But in 1920, secrets are dangerous, and the cost of truth might just be a life.
Join acclaimed novelist Stephen May for an evening of intrigue, humour, and revolutionary politics as he discusses Green Ink, praised as ‘funny, scurrilous, revealing and memorable’ (Historical Novel Society) and a vivid and wholly credible recreation of post-Great War London’ (Robert Edric).
Part political thriller, part literary mystery, Green Ink asks not only what happened to Victor Grayson—but what might still be happening today.
Stephen May is the author of six novels including Life! Death! Prizes! which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and The Guardian Not The Booker Prize. He has been shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year and is a winner of the Media Wales Reader’s Prize. He has written plays, as well as for television and film. He lives in West Yorkshire.
In 1984, John Stalker, Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, was appointed to investigate a series of killings in Northern Ireland by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, where it was alleged that a secret shoot-to-kill policy was in operation.
Shortly after making demands for intelligence files belonging to the RUC and MI5, he was removed from post. In his subsequent memoir published in 1987, Stalker went on to expose a conspiracy behind his sacking that would see additional mystery surround the events that he had set out to investigate.
Two years later, another killing raised further allegations of the British state’s involvement in murder. On 12 February 1989, the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association shot dead the Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane in front of his family, including his young son John. Subsequent inquiries by John Stevens, Chief Constable of Northumbria Police, got close to the truth, despite shadowy forces attempting to burn down his incident room. In 2012, Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to apologise to both Patrick Finucane’s family and Parliament for the ‘shocking levels of collusion’ where state agents played key roles in the solicitor’s murder. More recently, the Labour government has announced that they will, finally, set up a Public Inquiry into the case.
This event sees John Finucane MP, in conversation with Prof Paddy Hillyard of Queens University, Belfast to discuss the impact of MI5’s secret intelligence-led counter-insurgency strategy in the context of both the Stalker investigation and the killing of John’s father Patrick.
Paddy Hillyard is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Queens University, Belfast and author of Decades of Deceit: The Stalker Affair and its Legacy.
John Finucane is a solicitor, a former Lord Mayor and since 2017, the MP for Belfast North. John is a long-term campaigner for a public inquiry into the killing of his father.