This week’s Culture Radar guest is creative director of ArtsGroupie CIC, playwright, producer and socially engaged practitioner, John Maguire.
Loved: At the Unity – a powerful, potent, passionate, piece of necessary work, part of Liverpool Arab Arts Festival presented by Good Chance Theatre – A Grain of Sand. A narrative woven from the real experiences of children in Gaza collected in a small booklet, titled A Million Kites. And I loved seeing Lana Del Rey at Anfield as part of the Summer Gig offering.
Looking Forward To: Artsgroupie CIC is away in August for the Edinburgh Festival but then has two productions coming up at home – The Signalman at the Unity and Ghost Stories for Xmas, at the Hornby Library and Shakespeare North Playhouse in December.
The Unity’s Autumn/Winter programme is bumper packed too – loving the revival of this fantastic institution. I started my career there as a voluntary usher when I was 16.
Always love Liverpool Irish Festival. This year (16-26 October) the festival, considered the largest Irish arts and culture-led festival in the UK, brings the city of Liverpool and Ireland closer together through its diverse programming. My name is Maguire and an estimated 75% of people in Liverpool can trace their ancestry back to Ireland.
And delighted to have tickets to the stage version of Inside Number 9 at the Empire, direct from the sold-out West End run.
Trivia: I used to be a long-haul flight attendant for Monarch Airlines in my early twenties. I enjoyed visiting many places around the world. Once, I won a tango dancing competition in a nightclub in Havana, Cuba, but I cannot tango dance.