Maisha Maene’s short film Mulika follows an ‘afronaut’ as he emerges from the wreckage of his spaceship. Descending into the city below the volcanic crater of Mount Nyiragongo he begins to understand what he must do to change the future for his people.
In director Miguel Llanso’s Crumbs, a figurine sized superhero embarks on an epic journey that will take him across a post-apocalyptic, Ethiopian landscape. In search of a way to reach a hovering spacecraft, that for years has become a landmark in the skies, our hero must traverse barren and sulphurous wastelands, plains and marshes.
Doors: 19:00. Screening: 19:30.
Journey through sci-fi and post-apocalyptic worlds in FACT’s Afrofuturist Film Season. Screening every Tuesday in February. Discover the full programme here: fact.co.uk/afrofuturist
Afrofuturist fantasia Neptune Frost is a wondrous, thrilling sci-fi punk musical from multidisciplinary artists Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman.
Set between states of being – past and present, dream and waking life, colonised and free, male and female, memory and prescience – Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends.
Doors: 19:00. Screening: 19:30.
Journey through sci-fi and post-apocalyptic worlds in FACT’s Afrofuturist Film Season. Screening every Tuesday in February. Discover the full programme here: fact.co.uk/afrofuturist
Based on Nalo Hopkinson’s award winning Afrofuturist novel ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’, this post-apocalyptic tale follows a young Black woman trapped in a world forced upon her.
Directed and written by Sharon Lewis, the film follows a young Ti-Jeanne as she sets out to resurrect Caribbean spirits, become a priestess, and embrace her other-worldly powers in the hopes of saving her people.
Doors: 19:00. Screening: 19:30.
Journey through sci-fi and post-apocalyptic worlds in FACT’s Afrofuturist Film Season. Screening every Tuesday in February. Discover the full programme here: fact.co.uk/afrofuturist
Avant-jazz mystic, Sun Ra, brought his pioneering Afrofuturist vision to the screen within this 1974, John Coney directed film.
Derived from Ra’s concept album, the film is a wild, kaleidoscopic whirl of science fiction and sharp social commentary, in which the pharaonic Ra and his Arkestra lead an intergalactic movement to resettle the Black race on their utopian space colony.
Doors: 19:00. Screening: 19:30.
Journey through sci-fi and post-apocalyptic worlds in FACT’s Afrofuturist Film Season. Screening every Tuesday in February.
Discover the full programme here: fact.co.uk/afrofuturist
What happens when a person who has been punched down upon all their life, finally punches back?
Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh shifts the lens on Shakespeare’s most iconic villain Richard III, questioning what we think we know of him, in this blistering new production.
With an original score inspired by traditional folk music from Yeofi Andoh, this rejuvenated staging sets kingdoms and castles amongst May Day parades and Morris dancing (from Bridgerton choreographer Jack Murphy) in a rural Cotswold setting.
Following her acclaimed production of Richard II at Shakespeare’s Globe, Adjoa Andoh now follows the rise of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as he deceives and murders anyone who stands in his path to becoming King.
See here for a video interview with Adjoa Andoh in rehearsal.
★★★★
‘Exciting, fresh-thinking theatre, performed from the gut and piercing straight to the heart.’
– The Times on Andoh’s Richard II
Metal are excited to host the upcoming Liverpool African Diasporic Film Network (LADFN) meetings from their Liverpool base at Edge Hill Station every 3rd week of the month!
LADFN is a collective of filmmakers from the African Diaspora that centre Black identity in their work. For LADFN, Liverpool, with a history of diversity, protests, slavery and artistic output, serves as a starting place for exploring the many elements of identity.
Through seminars, conversations, hands-on filming experience, opportunities to present work locally and nationally, feedback on work and collectivity that provides support for ideas and imaginings, LADFN aims to provide Black Liverpool filmmakers with educational support. Save the dates for the upcoming meetings and come along!
Further dates:
20 February
20 March
Dancer. Front man in an almost famous band. Judge on The Great Pottery Throwdown. How did all that happen?
Join Keith Brymer Jones at the Playhouse, where he’ll be in conversation with his beloved wife, actor Marj Hogarth – their relationship and on-stage chemistry making for a live show like no other. Marj will guide Keith through tales from his fascinating life and career, from designing ceramic ranges for top retailers to throwing in his studio in Whitstable, and everything in between.
He’ll pay tribute to the people, happy coincidences and memorable moments that have made his life what it is – from the art teacher who changed his life to the nearly-famous band he fronted.
What’s more, Keith will take the audience on a journey through shapes, giving an exclusive on-stage demonstration at his much loved pottery wheel and sharing his advice and top tips about working with clay. He will also talk about how and why he decided to become a judge on The Great Pottery Throwdown on Channel 4.
Hilarious, at times heart-wrenching, but most definitely entertaining, this is a one-off live experience with the man himself exploring life, clay, and, well…everything!
Family Tree is a beautifully poetic drama about race, health, the environment, and the incredible legacy of one of the most influential Black women of modern times. Fearlessly honest, hilarious, and ultimately transformative, this award-winning play is both a remembrance and a celebration.
Henrietta Lacks is one of most remarkable people in medical history. Her cells form the basis of the most important medical research and breakthroughs happening today, from cancer to HIV to COVID.
But Henrietta never knew any of this. Her cells were taken without her or her family’s knowledge or permission.
Henrietta was a Black woman: she is not the only one whose body has been exploited by the medical establishment.
Denied her place in history, now is the time for Henrietta’s incredible legacy to undergo a transformation … to blossom and grow into something new and wonderful.
This brand-new nationwide touring production is brought to you by playwright Mojisola Adebayo (Alfred Fagon Award winner for FAMILY TREE) and director Matthew Xia (The Wiz, Shebeen).
Marlene is at the top of her game. As the new Managing Director of Top Girls Employment Agency in the glitz and glamour of 1980s London, she hosts an extraordinary dinner party to celebrate her achievements. But what is the true cost of success for a woman of colour making it in a man’s world?
Returning home to Toxteth, a showdown with sister Joyce lays bare some hidden truths. As the sisters struggle to reconcile their differing realities, what does it mean for the next generation?
Set in a divisive decade of strikes and uprisings; as well as music and fashion that transformed Britain, Top Girls is now reimagined for Liverpool with a cast including Tala Gouveia (McDonald & Dodds) and Alicya Eyo (Bad Girls) as the sisters.
Fantastical and fiercely funny, Top Girls is acclaimed as one of British theatre’s crowning glories. As Caryl Churchill’s ground-breaking play turns 40, it is now more urgent and necessary than ever.
Selected as one of The Stage’s must-see shows to see across the UK in 2023 and What’s on Stage Critic’s pick: Top shows to see in 2023.
An in-person walking and place writing workshop across the Georgian Quarter of Liverpool. This meeting will cover various ways of writing “place” from how we think about a place to how we feel it.
We will take in the tomb of William Mackenzie on Rodney Street, Falkner Square, some places of interest on Hope Street, and curious graves in St James Gardens at the Anglican Cathedral. To think about what makes the soul of a place? Liverpool is a city well-known for its diversity and vibrancy, which is reflected in its architecture, statues and hidden symbols and stories woven into the tapestry of its streets.
Learn to write about a place on the go and gain knowledge of place-writing basics from psychogeography to emotional geography to Flâneurism.
You’ll need to bring a notepad and pen along.
Full fee £31
