Tikhtak

World Theatre Day

I am 3 days late on this, but I discovered from Lily my MA Applied drama colleague that on March 27th was World Theatre Day. So what you may say! Well take a look at the World Theatre Day blog and see how theatre people are using theatre to effect change in the world. Also you can see Augusto Boal's address on how human beings are Spectacular. There are two passionately contrasting comments following his speech that are worth a read. The official link to his speech is here but with no juicy comments.

Luck by Chance

I Saw a Bollywood film yesterday Luck by Chance that is an interesting critique of the Bollywood film world. In fact it was slightly more of an Indian art-movie than bollywood with only the occasional dance number thrown in. I watched it with quite cynical eyes especially as so many big names were appearing in it, Karina Kapoor, Amir Kham and Hrithik Roshan to name a few. However by the end of the film I was reasonably impressed.

Bollywood is a film industry which is made up a comparatively small group of families. It means that it is very hard for new talent to come through unless you are either a part of those families or have strong links to them. It is also still considered "not the done thing" to become an actor from the middle classes when becoming a Doctor or Lawyer is much more prestigious.

The film was not afraid to tackle these issues head on. It is also the case that the Bollywood leads are either "Male Adonis" or "absolute beauties" and with a fair complexion. Luck by chance chose a Bengali female lead who was neither, though I suppose to do so would have undermined the whole plot. The film trailed the fortunes of a female jobbing actor (Konkona sen Sharma) and male (Farhan Akhtar) who both had no family ties to the profession and struggled to get any work or recognition. Without giving away the ending too much it didn't finish with a typical happy Bollywood finish, although the Male actor did get a break in the film. (Ironically in real life his Dad Javed Akhtar is a Bollywood writer and wrote the script for the film) There was also an interesting scene with bollywood superstar Sharuhk Khan who himself came as an unknown with no family ties. He offers advice to the young actor who has just landed a major role to not forgot those who were his friends when he was unknown.  Perhaps knowing words from one who is not part of the bollywood feudal system and knows that blood is thicker than water. A long film (almost 3 hours) but one with an edge

Uses for a Church building, Any ideas?

At the moment I suspect this is a big question for many churches. We have a service on Sunday then for the rest of the week we have an empty building? Perhaps some churches rent out rooms and halls to other groups ( at no small cost.) but essentially the main church building is derelict for 6 days.

Well the Church of England, with the help of the government, have today published guidelines for churches to help them access funding to open their buildings for community use. It seems that even the secular world sees the potential of these historic buildings and the unique way they are run. It is a bit ironic that while Christians are desperately looking for ways to get out of the building to reach out to the community, It seems the community have had enough of waiting and have decided to come on in.

This has extra resonance at present as my church at holy Trinity Clapham, has been undergoing a long consultation process with the church congregation to see how the building might be used, in the light of a major building project. I am not sure of the outcome but I know that there has been a distinct shortage of ideas.

Check out Dave Walker's cartoon take on this and how the Telegraph and George pitcher consider bringing health surgeries and post offices into the church... It seems if the church doesn't have any ideas the local high street will. Then again  I am always in need of a stamp on Sunday!

Paul Canoville beats the racists.

I couldn't believe it when I saw that Paul Canoville had won the bestautobiography at the British sports book awards with his book Black and Blue. I spenta good few years of the 80's in the shed end at Chelsea following the likes of Nigel Spackman, Pat Nevin, Kerry Dixon and Paul Canoville. I remember his mazey runs down the left wing and his ability to take players on. He was always an automaticchoice for my sabbuteo first 11 and the fact he was Chelsea's first black player was to say the least a challenge, when monkey chants and bananas being thrown non the pitch was considered a bit of a laugh. He was one of the first footballers to face this kind of abuse in England and he has paved the way for many other black footballers into first class English football. It is only fitting that now he fronts events to Show racism the red card and is involved in Chelsea's own education programmes. I remember some of the chants that were directed at him especially when Chelsea lost or he had a bad game!  His book of course touches on his battle with racism in football, as well as a career finishing injury, cancer and his slide into drug abuse. I haven't read it yet but its now on my list.

'Some impressive reviews:

one of the most powerful sports books ever written...an exceptional account of an extraordinary man' -- Pat Nevin, Chelseafc.com 'unputdownable' -- Observer 'a compelling read skilfully put together' -- Mirror 'compelling' -- Henry Winter, Daily Telegraph

Liverpool Cathedral - A safe place to take risks

In the shadow of Tracey Emim’s Neon art installation “For You” in Liverpool Cathedral we ran our World to Rightsday with 150 school children from local schools. To see how we got on check out our blog. But I wanted to comment on the impact the Cathedral has had on me. Last week I blogged about how impressed I had been by Aston Villa FC’s work within the local community, well Liverpool Cathedral has restored my hope in the mission of a cathedral!

As you enter a big sign tells you that the cathedral is “The Great Space.” One thing the cathedral is aware of is that space is a valuable commodity and it is happy to share it with anyone who comes in and to be flexible in the way it does it.  The next thing you see is their mission Statement which ends with "The Cathedral is a centre for hospitality, welcoming all its visitors and affirming their common humanity" - The Neon light’s of Tracey Emim’s installation is then proof of this. Talk about taking a risk allowing her to put a pink strobe of writing under a stain glass window!  But what this also says is that the Cathedral is happy to allow its city to express itself in its so called sacred space on their own terms. Although her message may look tacky to some, it carries  a very personal  feel, “I felt you and I know you loved me.”  and it makes any onlooker aware the distinct lack of contemporary Christian symbols.

We certainly felt the love from Liverpool cathedral throughout the day. One of our team in conversation with the Deans wife Caroline asked about the use of space in the cathedral and she shared that a new strap line is being considered - A safe place to take risks! This is obviously happening already allowing 160 children to run free and perform a World to Rights play. May be all the risk taking stuff happens at that end of the cathedral! All I can suggest for the success or failure of Liverpool Cathedral in its mission is... to watch this space!

Check out our Manila DVD extract on Youtube

In the Autumn 2008 the CMS Youth and Children's team set off with Tim Dendy (Freelance film maker) to make a DVD about the lives of a group of street children in Manila. We worked with a CMS mission partners in a street children's outreach project called jigsaw and worked with children who regularly attend this program. The experience was an incredibly rich one as we hung out with these young people over a period of 10 days. Their lives, struggles and responsibilities left our team feeling  humbled and inadequate to offer any real help or solutions. This is why the work of Jigsaw is so important as well as the aim of our World to Rights project to raise money for similar children's projects around the world. The DVD is due for official release in April but as a little foretaste you can see a preview on youtube.

The wonder of Wellworths

Claire Robertson, Mother of two and former Woolworth's employee has reopened the Dorchester store, reemploying all her 20 former Woolies staff to mass hysteria. The store Wellworths is almost identical to Woolies with pick n mix sweets but has axed CD's, DVD's and children's clothing in favour of a gardening and pets section. It seems that Claire has real entrepreneurial blood and sensing the public grief to the loss of woolies she has met a real need. She has also learnt some lessons from the past and has axed those things which may actually had a sell by date (CD's and DVD's). She is also keen to give the store more of a local and personal feel, which is no small thing for a so called high street chain, but I guess that is the wonder of Wellies! Other Woolies stores have also approached her about re opening and Wellworths could well become the blue print for other vacant stores across Britain.

I am sure there are a lot of needs in British life which the church once met but now has retreated from. I wonder if there might be spiritual/social entrepreneurs out their willing to act in the same way as Claire Robertson. ( Check out Mark Berry's safe space Sanktuary) I guess the high street is a good place to start!

Aston Villa's Mission to the communtiy

The day before yesterday I had the opportunity to interview Duncan Riddle the head of community at Aston Villa FC for trax16. My main interest was to explore further the link between Aston Villa and their deal with Acorns children's hospice in the light of our World To Rights project and to explore any possibilities for future projects. I was both amazed and impressed how much the club, from staff through players and fans, are involved in supporting, visiting and raising money for acorns and how involved the club is in reaching out to their local community . 

When I asked Duncan,Why invest in acorns? Why not another charity somewhere else? his response was that Villa are committed to the local community, especially as most of their support comes from the local area around the ground. Among other things they are also running a project with the NHS to educate young people about obesity and provide a full time school for disabled young people to get qualifications to get into work.

  I find it impressive that a group of footballers and their supporters can impact and share their skills beyond just football with their local community. If football is the religion of people in the UK then have football clubs become the churches? I think Aston Villa's example is a challenge for every congregation up and down the country. And what drives them to do it? It seems they must have instilled in them a moral obligation from some time in the past!

In the winter of 1873/4, the cricketers of Villa Cross Wesleyan Chapel, Aston, Birmingham, formed a football club to provide recreation during the winter period. The irony is that Aston Villa a child of the church has now grown up to show her what she should be doing. For the whole interview listen to next month's trax16.

CMS Members act out Child Rights

Cheeky, playful, graceful and focused are four words that well described the work of 80 or so senior members of the Church Mission Society as they took part in our World to Rights drama project the High Leigh CMS conference over the weekend. The aim of our session was to give the conference delegates a flavour of what children are getting up to up and down the country engaging themselves in drama about child rights both in history and today. The best way to do this was to let them have a go. As always it was a pleasure to work with this special generation and see how they transformed themselves from passively sitting on seats to become an energised group enacting scenes from a Manchester Cotton Mill, The Streets of London and a  Victorian Circus. As one Member exclaimed:  

"I am 7 years short of a century and can remember a time when life for many children was actually like this".

World to Rights continues this week in Doncaster and then we're off to Liverpool next week. Follow our progress on the World to Rights blog

Custard Pie on Mandy's face

I thought I would link to this little video clip of a Miss Leila Deen putting a custard pie into Peter Mendelson's face  as a protest against his stance on climate change and especially being in favour of the third runway at heathrow. It is interesteing that there seems to be absolutely no security around him and the women then simply just walks off to be interviewed by ITV, hummmm! You can find out a bit more about the incident here