Join David Walshe (Secret Sand Land) for a local history talk about his latest book, focusing on a forgotten suburb of Southport that was called Ecclesfield.
The story begins back in South Hawes & Early Southport and pays special attention to one particular branch of the Eccles family. He also looks at life in Ecclesfield during the mid/late C19th, a selection of former residents and also when & why he believes the name of Ecclesfield to have fallen out of use.
The talk will be accompanied by images from within the book.
Amy Johnson was a pioneering English pilot who was the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia.
She set many long distance records during the 1930s and flew in the Second World War as a part of the Air Transport Auxiliary, losing her life during a ferry flight.
Amy was born on 1st July 1903 in Kingston upon Hull, the eldest of four daughters. She was introduced to flying in 1929 and gained her pilot’s “A” Licence at the London Aeroplane Club. Later that year, she became the first British woman to obtain a ground engineer’s “C” licence. She achieved worldwide recognition when she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. Flying G-AAAH Jason, she left Croydon on 5th May 1930 and landed at Darwin on 24th May, a total of 11,000 miles.
In 1940, during World War 2, Johnson joined the newly formed Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), which transported Royal Air Force aircraft around the country. V3540 was the last plane that Amy Johnson flew, a Mk.II Airspeed Oxford. As a member of the ATA she was delivering the Oxford from Prestwick to RAF Kidlington, but she stopped overnight with her sister Molly in Blackpool. On 5th January 1941, setting off from Blackpool, the weather conditions were very poor. The flight should have taken about 90 minutes, but four and a half hours later, lost and running out of fuel, she bailed out over the Thames Estuary.
Despite being sighted by some ships in a convoy and a gallant rescue attempt her body was never recovered. Tragically, the Captain of a Royal Navy escort ship Lt Walter Fletcher, who dived into the freezing water to try and rescue her also later died later from exposure.
Eric Watkiss is the project manager of the Saving Amy Project which aims to restore an original WW2 Airspeed Oxford Trainer aircraft in memorial to Amy Johnson.
Join Eric to hear the amazing story of Amy and learn about the restoration project that he is currently working on.
Join Dr Anna Maddison for an introduction to the history of Art using examples from The Atkinson’s collection.
The Atkinson’s collection has works of art dating from the 17th to the 21st centuries and is currently concentrating on collecting more contemporary art.
Highlights of the 20th century collection include several paintings by Walter Sickert and fellow members of the Camden Town School such as Charles Ginner as well as paintings by Scottish Colourists, namely Arthur Melville, JD Fergusson and Samuel Peploe.
Key works from World War I include a painting of a mounted trooper by Alfred Munnings and a battle scarred landscape by Paul Nash. The collection of 20th century British sculpture is small but very high quality and includes good examples by Henry Moore, Elisabeth Frink and Jacob Epstein.
This talk with Dr Mark Adams will look at the map documentary evidence for coastal and inland salt production in and around Southport in the 17th century and earlier.
It will also look at how south Lancashire came close to having spa’s to rival Bath, Buxton and Harrogate and why they failed to take off.
Port Cities is a new international visual arts project from Liverpool Arab Arts Festival in partnership with the British Council.
Artists Mohamed Abdelkarim, Laila Hida, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, and Siska are currently on a research residency in Liverpool for the project. These residencies will inform the development of new artwork exploring the social, historical and cultural complexities of port cities in Liverpool, as well as those within the Middle East and North Africa region.
The exhibition will premiere at Liverpool Arab Arts Festival in July 2024 before travelling to Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.
This talk will introduce their artistic practices and interests ahead of the exhibition later in the year.
Three of the country’s favourite television personalities from the world of antiques entertain you with tales from the saleroom, television and beyond. The enormous variety of their experiences range from selling chickens and cattle to priceless Chinese artefacts and to multi-million-pound cars.
Hear how Philip Serrell started out on his auctioneering career and how Charlie Ross ended up flying across the world to sell ‘old bangers’. The two of them will (we hope) be kept in check by the delightful and effervescent Christina Trevanion.
In this no-holds-barred stage show, the auctioneers plan to share secrets of the antiques world – and themselves. Plus, they will answer questions put to them by the audience.
Topics will include the weird and wonderful things they have sold at auction, the dream lot they would love to sell and their guilty pleasures. They will also reveal how their TV work blossomed and which celebrities they’ve enjoyed working with the most.
Following our show High Times and Dirty Monsters, Graeae returns to Liverpool Everyman to share approaches to creative access in theatre-making and performance, and opportunities to embed it into classroom settings.
Creative Access: From Classroom to Stage
Suitable for: Teaching staff, support workers, theatre practitioners and creative workshop facilitators
Graeae’s Creative Learning Director Jodi-Alissa Bickerton will lead a session that will:
– Embrace the wider social and political context of disability in terms of Graeae’s driving need and ambitions on and off stage, setting the foundations for change
– Share Graeae’s aesthetics of access and inclusive approaches through acting exercises and a practical insight into our productions
– Spark creative solutions from planning to delivery, making classes, processes and performances excitingly accessible to a wide range of Deaf and disabled young people
– Offer collaborative space for you to share good practice and celebrate in the creative ambitions we hold together
– Gift each other with tangible ideas and support for our creative next steps
Practicality level (1-4): 3 – This session includes a mix of practical creative activity, some group discussion and a short presentation.
Join us: Places are limited, so we ask for you to sign up here Learning@everymanplayhouse.com. Do let us know if you have any access or wellbeing requirements or questions.
This session is supported by Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse and 20 Stories High. Alongside Graeae, we are really keen to get to know you more and to keep the conversations open around access and inclusion and how we can learn from each other on an ongoing basis. We hope you can join us.
For more information about the session or any logistics please contact learning@everymanplayhouse.com.
Spend an evening in the extraordinary company of Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE, ‘the world’s greatest living explorer’, as he goes beyond his record-breaking achievements to explore the man behind the myth.
Sir Ranulph has circumnavigated the surface of the globe from pole to pole, became the first person to cross the Arctic and Antarctica on foot, broken countless world records of endurance, and discovered the Lost City of Ubar in Arabia. Despite his infamous fear of heights, he is the oldest Briton to summit Everest, achieved on his third attempt. But these extraordinary accomplishments have come at a cost: he has lost half his fingers to frostbite, almost died countless times, and suffered a heart attack and double bypass only three months before he completed seven consecutive marathons in seven days on seven continents.
Now, he has a new challenge. Live on stage, Sir Ranulph will share stories from his legendary exploits and adventures, telling untold tales of the world’s most extraordinary feats of daring and exploration. Taking us from his magical and mischievous childhood, through school misdemeanours, to his time in the military and beyond, Ran will also reveal for the first time his own personal heroes and the incredible lessons he learnt from them which have informed his hazardous profession.
Delivered in his own inimitable fashion and accompanied by stunning, never-before-seen images and home videos, this show guarantees to leave you entertained and inspired to seek out your own life adventures.
Join Open Eye Gallery for an engaging discussion on expanded photography and the (hauntological) potential of AI, centering around the project #end_of_empire by artist Eva Sajovic in collaboration with musician Nicola Privato, commissioned for the British Textile Biennial 2023.
#end_of_empire was a large scale, site-specific installation featuring knitted photographs embedded with touch sensors and AI generated sound.
The evening will commence by exploring questions posed by the artists in this work, including the concept of knitting as ethical photography, the role of the body in mediating with the more-than-human, the potential and the risks of AI and the role of technology in facing the challenges of the Anthropocene. This will be followed by a response by Dr Lucy Soutter before it is opened to Q&A from the participants.
#end_of_empire is a co-commission with In-Situ and the British Textile Biennial with This Is Nelson Town Deal funding.
JP Maxwell has a background ranging from studying Russian at University College London to working for a Californian Software company and running a newspaper kiosk, JP Maxwell settled back in Liverpool in 2001 and now teaches Screenwriting and Digital Writing at Liverpool John Moores University.
Although fictional, his writing directly links to an Irish and African family history in the port city and specifically Toxteth since the early 1800s. In addition to Water Street, based upon Liverpool’s clandestine involvement in the American Civil War/
Liverpool 1863. The American Civil War comes to the British Empire’s second city and the world’s richest port.
Confederate Commander Banastre X. Dunwoody has a plan to turn the conflict by securing advanced warships, but the U.S. Government is one step ahead of him. It seeks to sabotage his efforts through its covert agent – Harriet Dunwoody – Banastre’s pregnant wife.
