During the week, Bluecoat’s Director of Cultural Legacies Bryan Biggs leads tours of the building, offering insight into its life as a charity school.
Wed 14 Sep, 12:30pm-1.30pm
Thu 15 Sep, 12:30pm-1.30pm
On Sun 18 Sep, Bryan will be joined by Michelle Girvan, whose current PhD research includes a focus on the lives of the children at the school in the eighteenth century.
Sun 18 Sep, 12.30pm-1.30pm and 3pm-4pm
A half-day conference exploring levelling up in the North.
The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) is all about uniting people and ideas to resolve the challenges of our time. As part of its Northern Forum, the RSA is collaborating with the Bluecoat for a half-day conference at the arts centre.
Leading local figures from the worlds of business, academia, politics and charity are being brought together to deliver lightning talks on different aspects of ‘Levelling Up’. A full list of speakers will be announced shortly, but those already approached promise a breadth of ideas that they think can inform this agenda – with perspectives on issues such as employment, skills, regional inequalities, culture-led regeneration and devolution.
With each talk restricted to ten-fifteen minutes, the series is guaranteed to make for a lively, informative and stimulating occasion. Head along and be inspired, meet like-minded people, and spark some ideas that will help shape the future!
Speakers include
Michelle Charters, Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre
Lorna Rogers, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority
Lynsey Hanley, author and freelance journalist
Paul Cherpeau, Liverpool Chamber of Commerce
Join author Lucy Bland and Philomena Harrison as they discuss Bland’s book Britain’s Brown Babies.
They’re hosting a panel discussion around the theme of looked after children past and present, with a specific focus on how black children experience the care system.
The panel will include Lucy Bland, whose book Britain’s Brown Babies: The Stories of Children Born to Black GIs and White Women in the Second World War won the 2021 Social History Society book prize, senior lecturer in social work at Hope University Philomena Harrison, and two former residents of the Fazakerly cottage homes, Jim Howard and Brian Lawrenson.
Join them for what promises to be an insightful and compelling evening, in which these contemporary stories connect to those of the looked-after children from the Bluecoat’s history.
The science storylines and character creation within Doctor Who have always taken inspiration from the natural world.
Join Dr John James Wilson, Curator of vertebrate Zoology at World Museum as he introduces us to Alfred Russel Wallace, natural history collector, his expedition to South East Asia in 1854 and his ideas about evolution. This 8-year stay was to be a turning point for Wallace personally, but also humankind’s collective understanding of the natural world.
Supported by teams of local people Wallace amassed the largest natural history collection ever assembled, which he sold on to British museums, including World Museum, to fund his travels. Wallace’s observations in South East Asia led him to independently originate the theory of evolution by natural selection, which he later published conjointly with Charles Darwin.
Wallace’s famous account of his travels in “The Malay Archipelago” had a profound influence on contemporary fiction but to Victorian society, the unfamiliarity of the “Far East”, and the wonderful animals Wallace encountered could easily have passed for science fiction. This next generation’s own travelogues reveal how their ‘scientific collecting’ intersected with the myths and legends of the local people.
Event takes place in our Treasure House Theatre.
William Lever was an enthusiastic collector of Chinese porcelain and other Chinese art works. He selected objects mainly for their beauty and craftsmanship.
This talk will look at the key developments of ceramic production in China throughout its various dynasties.
They will consider what these objects tell us about the lifestyles and beliefs of Chinese people in the past, and how English people’s demand for Chinese ceramics and other art works was satisfied by an extensive trade from the East, resulting in cultural exchange and fusion.
Refractive Pool Meet the Artists – Join Refractive Pool exhibiting artists on the gallery from 1pm to hear more about their practice.
Artist Richard Meaghan lives and works in Liverpool and in 2009 was short-listed for the prestigious Liverpool Art Prize.
Free to attend, no booking required
Come ‘round to ours’ for tea with bestselling author Kit de Waal.
Experience a personal and friendly conversation between Kit and Jane Davis – talking about the difficulties and joys of growing up poor and mixed race, and her powerful belief in love and books.
Kit’s debut novel My Name Is Leon became an international bestseller, winner of the Irish Novel prize and was recently adapted for the BBC starring Sir Lenny Henry, Malachi Kirby, Monica Dolan, Olivia Williams and Christopher Eccleston.
They want to create a unique space for foster carers, and those involved in looking after care experienced children, to have tea with Kit, and listen to readings from My Name is Leon and Without Warning and Only Sometimes. There will be the opportunity to ask questions as you tuck into some home-made Scouse and crusty bread, the ultimate comfort food!
Want to attend this event, but have childcare issues? Bring children to the ‘Food for Thought’ event running alongside Tea with Kit de Waal so everyone can enjoy the evening and a bite to eat.
As a young woman growing up in the North West of England, Melanie Chisholm dreamed of a life performing on stage.
Little did she anticipate becoming part of one of the defining forces of British pop of any era: as one of the five member of the Spice Girls.
Defined in the public imagination as Sporty Spice, Melanie now tells her story: of the peaks and also the struggles that lie behind her public persona. Join them to hear her in conversation at the Everyman to celebrate the release of Who I Am.
A conversation centred in Katherine May’s wonderful meditation Wintering, a Reader bookshelf book for 2022, considering the question of how humans get through harder times.
“Wintering brings about some of the most profound and insightful moments of our human experience, and wisdom resides in those who have wintered.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The power of rest and retreat in difficult times
Professor Philip Davis introduces the New York Times bestselling author and one of her biggest fans, Melissa Chapple, a post-graduate researcher into autism, reading and empathy at University of Liverpool. The conversation will include discussion of Katherine’s memoir The Electricity of Every Living Thing, her account of learning she was autistic as an adult.
If you have enjoyed Katherine’s work, or like the sound of it, or are part of the autistic community, you’ll find this a deeply engaging event. Katherine May will join via Zoom, Melissa and Philip will be live on stage.
If you have any extra requirements, please let them know by emailing tickets@thereader.org.uk. Free essential companion tickets are available upon request.
Join this Gitanjali shared reading class at The Reader.
The publication of Gitanjali (1912) in English led Rabindranath Tagore to become the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.
Whether it is new to you or an old friend, open the book in the company of other readers, and see how different reading is when we share it.