His startling abilities as a ventriloquist, combined with a wickedly daft sense of humour, have helped him become a sought after act on the stand-up comedy circuit.

Performing without a dummy, Mark throws his voice to create side splitting routines on school life, freaking out drunks and pallbearers and the vagaries of censorship.  His performances include a slew of silly voices, noises and vocal acrobatics. Mark has appeared many times at the Edinburgh Festival, culminating in him performing his first solo show,” Freelance fool” in 2003.  He is also an international performer being booked for shows in Germany, France, Holland, Cyprus and Croatia.

Mark is also an accomplished actor and presenter.  He has appeared in numerous short films, including the award-winning, “Arthur’s amazing things,” directed by Martin Gooch and starring Emily Booth, Linsey Dawn McKenzie and Leslie Phillips.

He has also starred in and wrote, “lipsmackin’ “(a pilot for BBC three), was the winning comedian on gagging for it (Channel 5) and taught and Ant and Dec on the screen how to do ventriloquism for their “Saturday Night Take-Away”(ITV).  He has applied his comic talents to an advertising campaign for “Stimerol” in the Netherlands, which meant he had to endure filming in Cuba, with 10 glamorous models, and also a campaign including General voice-overs for the Royal bank of Scotland, which was far less glamorous!  Mark has also lent his voice to the radio, playing the character Dewey in two series of the BBC radio 4 sitcom “Elephants to Catch Eels” from the writers of “Dead Ringers”.

Currently you can catch Mark presenting on Nickelodeon, where he has fronted the shows, “The Crunch”, “MeTV”, “Nick Heads” and “Slime across the UK”. Mark is also appearing in Nickelodeon’s new flagship Saturday show “Ross Lee’s Ghoulies” playing Tarquin the zombie butler and Mr Budgie, Ross’s pet head in a birdcage.

7.30pm Doors open
8.30pm Show starts
Over 18’s
£15.00 General Admission
£12.00 Groups of 6+
£10.00 Groups of 10+
Mill Arts Centre, Rayleigh, 300 Bellingham Lane, Rayleigh, SS6 7ED

Book here.

When relaunching the M:E:E:T in December, Deborah said: ‘As with the original concept of M:E:E:T, peer critique of work is the heart of this endeavour, so bring work/ideas that you would like to discuss…. or just yourself!’

Come M:E:E:T With Me is an opportunity to participate and host the original M:E:E:T. The atendees can take turn in hosting the event in the venue available to them, including their home.

To get the address for this week’s venue, if you would like to host a future M:E:E:T, get in touch with Deborah D’Auria on Debora.dauria AT gmail.com 07949 194 809.

M:E:E:T is free – but you are welcome to bring drinks/snacks to facilitate the evening.

All meetings are 7-9pm

Future dates:

Friday 6th April 2012 (Good Friday)
Friday 8th June 2012
Friday 27th July 2012
Friday 24th August 2012

Rochford District Council

Rochford’s ‘glass bead’ will be presented at the annual Wild Woods Day event in Hockley on 2 June and feature in the finale of Sparks Will Fly in front of an audience of 15,000 people at Hylands Park.

Sparks will Fly in Essex is a cultural festival for everyone to celebrate the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games this summer.

Deadline 5pm, Monday 27 February

Download the full info sheet about Sparks will Fly here: Sparks Will Fly at Wild Woods Day Glass Bead Artist Brief.

Truax travels the world with his collection of self-made instruments, the instruments that look like they’ve come straight out of a Tim Burton movie.

Here are some of the titles of his instruments: the Hornicator, Sister Spinster, Mother Superior, the Backbeater, the Stringaling, Mary Poppins…

Your ears will be filled with a sound of garage, punk and avant-guard/experimental noises, noises that only a man and his hypnotic tools can create. Your eyes will witness his man-made inventions come to life, creating beats, rhythms and surreal echos.

The Guardian said about his performance: ‘When he performs, it is a spectacle – the originality and seeming impossibility of what he does is much of the appeal.’

£3 only on the door.
Starts at 8pm.

The Railway Hotel, Clifftown Road, SS1 1AJ Southend-on-Sea

Portrait above: photo by Andrew Werner

107mins / Certificate ‘15’

Tickets: £6.00
Bar opens 6pm / Film starts 7.30pm

Nina, a ballerina in New York City, lives with her obsessive former ballerina mother, who exerts a suffocating control over her, and is completely consumed with dance. When artistic director Thomas Leroy decides to replace a prima ballerina for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But she has competition from a new dancer, Lily, who has also impressed. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan with guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side – a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.

The dazzling Natalie Portman deservedly won an Oscar and a BAFTA for her mesmeric performance as Nina. She is ably supported in this multi-award winning film by Winona Ryder, as the prima ballerina, Vincent Cassel, as the ballet director, Barbara Hershey as Nina’s domineering mother and Mila Kunis as her sensuous rival.

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Plus full supporting programme

click here for the trailer

Buy tickets in advance online here or or call the box office on 01702 351135 or pay on the door on the night.

Palace Theatre / Station Road Southend-on-Sea SS0 7RA

MONKEY ISLAND will be promoting their new 10″ vinyl record release Defunctus Est- a double header with the Island’s mainman Pete Bennett’s The Dublo‘. It’s an 8-track album which is also downloadable.

Local band SON OF BUFF, also playing that night, said on their blog: ‘Monkey Island are fab – a heady mix of The Fall, The Clash, Sabbath – I always hear some Swell Maps in there too – very British, uncompromising and clever garage rock.’

Free admission.

Starts 9pm.

The Railway Hotel / 32 Clifftown Road  Town Centre, Southend-on-Sea SS1 1AJ

Cherry Ann Hall works under the pseudonym ‘EssexGirl’. Her paintings and prints will be shown in the gallery from Monday 6th February – Saturday 25th February.

There will be a drinks reception held Saturday 11th February 12-4.30pm for the opportunity to meet the artist and view the works on display.

Annabel invited the ‘EssexGirl’ to exhibit after seeing some of her work on a blog.  ’I love the figures portrayed in Cherry’s work.’ she says, ‘The titles are really quirky too, for example ‘EssexGirl does Red Carpet’.  I understand that a certain ‘Essex’ celebrity has bought one of these prints and has it displayed in her shop. I’m very excited to be showing another fellow Essex Girl’s work and look forward to seeing everyones reaction.  This is Cherry’s first solo exhibition, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted a gallery like this – to showcase emerging talent.’

Cherry was born in 1958 and is very much a self- taught artist – working in her small bedroom home studio. After studying for a BA (Hons) in Psycho/social Studies from East London University she decided to concentrate on her artwork, having been influenced by other artistic friends.

She creates her essexgirl artwork to express her personal journey through this life, having often felt emotionally and geographically displaced from her move to Essex at the age of 10.  As with most people. she is quite complex and contradictory – sometimes she quite likes to be called an ‘essexgirl’, other times she’s not so keen.  As mentioned before this will be her first solo ‘essexgirl’  exhibition, although other exhibitions include the Chelmsford Art Trail and being selected to exhibit her work  for the last 3 years in the Beecroft Summer Exhibition.

IDEA13 interviewed Annabel Dee when she opened her new space in December, see the video below:

The Gallery will be open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday 11 – 4.30pm

153 Leigh Road, Leigh on Sea, SS9 1JF WEBSITE

The year of the Dragon has started and there is a range of family-friendly events lined up in Southend town centre today, check out the programme below!

The celebration will culminate in a colourful lantern parade starting in Royal Square at 4pm followed by a fabulous firecracker finale in York Road at 4.30pm.

Dawn Jeakings, Manager of the Royals Shopping Centre and chair of the Town Centre Partnership, said: ‘Chinese New Year is a very popular event in Southend. This year for the Year of the Dragon we have a great variety of entertainment to watch as well as opportunities for  people of all ages to get involved in the fun.’

The programme for Saturday 28th January is as follows:

· 11am – 4pm: Lantern Making Workshop at The Royals Shopping Centre
· 11am – 11.45am: Lion Dance at Victoria Circus and Victoria Shopping Centre
· 1pm to 1.15pm: Chinese School Choir at the Victoria
· 1pm – 1.30pm: Lion Dance on the Central High Street, near the railway bridge
· 1.30pm – 1.45pm: Chinese School Choir at the Victoria
· 1.30pm – 3.30pm: Chinese Musical Instrument Workshop at the Victoria
· 1.30pm – 4pm: Chinese calligrapher at The Royals
· 1.45pm – 2pm: Tai Chi demonstration at the Victoria
· 2pm – 4pm; Origami workshop at The Royals
· 2pm – 4pm Chinese Opera Face Painting at The Royals
· 2.30pm – 2.45pm: Tai Chi demonstration at the Victoria
· 2.30pm – 3pm: Lion Dance at The Royals
· 3.15pm – 3.30pm: Tai Chi demonstration at the Victoria
· 4pm: Lion Dance and lantern parade starting from Royal Square
· 4.15pm – 4.45pm: Lion Dance and Firecracker Finale at York Road

Also the artwork by pupils from Lancaster School and Darlinghurst Primary School on show
at The Victoria and The Royals shopping centres.

The competition highlights the creative talent across Southend, Rochford and Castle Point.

Winning entrants will see their work presented at the Southend Film Festival which will take place over the first Bank Holiday Weekend in May 2012.

Guidelines:

Judging will take place in the spring of 2012 by a specially selected panel.
There will be a special screening of the winning films at the 2012 festival with an introduction by the panel along with expected media coverage. As many as possible of the submitted films will be screened during the festival.

Download the application form for the Southend Film Festival competition here.

More information about Southend Film Festival – see their website.