Page 20 - 366091 LP246228 NE Volume Magazine (170mm x 245mm 52pp) September 2022

31 AUGUST-30 SEPTEMBER 2022
EVENTS AT THE WORD, SOUTH SHIELDS & SOUTH TYNESIDE LIBRARIES
AUTHOR TALKS WRITING WORKSHOPS PERFORMANCES AND MORE!
www.theworduk.org/write
STEVEN BERKOFF
AT THE PRINCESS ALEXANDRA
AUDITORIUM, YARM
The Princess Alexandra Auditorium in Yarm hosts ‘An Evening With Steven Berkoff – They Shall Not Pass: The Battle of Cable Street’ on Tuesday 20th September as the legendary actor, playwright and director Steven Berkoff performs his titular one-man play followed by a Q&A session hosted by actor and director, Rob Clilverd. Berkoff’s verse work focuses on the October 1936 incident which would become known as The Battle of Cable Street, a momentous episode in the 20th-century story of the UK and especially prior to the Second World War. Oswald Mosley led the march by his Blackshirt followers in the British Union of Fascists (BUF) towards the East End of London, with its large Jewish population, ultimately being violently countered by a steadfast alliance of anti-fascist protestors comprised of trade unionists, immigrants, socialists, anarchists and communists; a critical defeat for fascism on British shores. Berkoff’s work ought to have even deeper resonance locally here in the North East and on Teesside in particular; reminiscent as its central strands and incident are of the earlier Battle of Stockton in September 1933. In the same vein, the BUF were driven from Stockton High Street by anti-fascist demonstrators drawn largely from the local Communist Party, in a proud and seemingly poorly-known piece of regional history. Unfortunately, these segments in Britain’s recent past are increasingly relevant both home and abroad, as authoritarianism, in general, takes root across the West, and beyond, and fascism specifically creeps through the body politic of numerous democracies, with pluralism and human rights in disturbing retreat. Berkoff, born the year after the event of his play, bears indisputable and inimitable form and pedigree for his work as an actor and writer over the decades, and especially in the theatrical
Season Standouts
2022/2023
Thu 15 - Sun 18 Sep
Seven short visionary plays from new voices
Thu 10 – Sat 26 Nov
Rich with emotion but sizzling with high energy and black humour, Ric Renton’s true story of time in HMP Durham and finding an unexpected way through the darkness
Thu 8 – Sun 18 Dec
A new play celebrating Northumbrian identity, folk music and family tradition
www.live.org.uk (0191) 232 1232
Live Theatre, Broad Chare,
Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 3DQ
20 \\ NE VOLUME MAGAZINE \\ CULTURE
Thu 27 – Sun 30 Oct
FESTIVAL
22
Spread the word!
THIS IS SOUTH TYNESIDE
A live reading of David Almond’s spine-chilling and deeply personal tale for Halloween
Sun 4 – Fri 23 Dec
A dazzling and delightful new show for kids combining the words of a playwright with the wild minds of children
Thu 2 - Sat 25 March 2023
A brand-new musical odyssey through that very deepest of human feelings
Supported by:
TALK