It tells a tragic story of two close friends, one with a gift of intellect, the other with a handsome body. Falling in love with the same woman, they take their lives. The attempt to reverse the tragedy by the elephant-headed deity, Ganesha, complicates the matters even more.

Written by Girish Karnad, the play is inspired by Thomas Mann’s The Transposed Heads as well as Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but presented in a form of a traditional Indian folk tale, complete with bright colours, incense, music and dancing.

The acting is superb, and as usual with East 15 students’ pinch of humour.

Watch the IDEA13 TV interview with director Michael Walling and a short teaser for the play:

You can see Hayavadana until this Saturday.

Clifftown Theatre, Nelson St, Southend-on-Sea, Essex SS1 1EF, website

The three teachers that tutor them have very differing views:

Hector – a teacher of general studies who indulges his love of 40’s romantic movies and poetry in his every class

Irwin – who encourages the boys to see history in a fresh light.

Mrs Lintott – who sells them the cold hard historical facts.

Lindisfarne Players bring this Tony award-winning play by one of Britain’s best loved playwright to the Dixon Studio for its Palace premiere.

Performances Tues 21 – Saturday 25 May at 7.30pm
With Saturday performances at 2.30 pm and 7.30pm

Tickets £12 Adults / £11 Concesssions /£10 Students and Under 18’s

Book here.

CAST

Hector – Peter Nawrat
Mr Irwin – Simon Jones
Headmaster – Ian Morton
Mrs Lintott – Lynda Belt
Dakin – Billy Harris
Posner – Maz Clements
Scripps -Haydn Cox
Timms – Jake Castle
Rudge – Alex Pecanac
Akthar – Damian Syzmanski
Lockwood – Adam Mayhew
Crowther – Jack Noman
TV Director – Nathan Spencer

Directed by Steve McCartney
assisted by Malcolm Toll.

Held at Leigh Community Centre, it included poetry from Sundown Poets: Cherry Scott, Ray Morgan and Jo Overfield, music from Kevin Pearce and a performance piece by Caroline Smith.

Here is a short video from the event:

Find out more about Sundown Arts on their website.

Tue 21 May - Argo (2012)

Synopsis: Based on real events, this powerful, dramatic thriller chronicles the life-or-death covert operation which unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis, focusing on the little-known role that the CIA and Hollywood played – information that was not declassified until many years later. On 4th November 1979, as the Iranian revolution reached boiling point, militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. In the midst of the chaos, six Americans managed to slip away and find refuge in the home of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor. Knowing it was only a matter of time before they would be found, and most likely killed, the Canadian and American governments asked the CIA to intervene. The security agency turned to their top “exfiltration” specialist, Tony Mendez, to come up with a plan to get the Americans safely out of the country. He devised a plan that was so incredible, it could only happen in the movies…  ’15′ certificate.

Film starts 7.30pm. All tickets £6.
Leigh Community Centre, 71-73 Elm Road, Leigh on Sea, SS9 1SP.
Tickets available in advance from Leigh Community Centre (tel: 01702 477248) or on the door.

Sun 26 May - Gambit (2012)

Synopsis: Media tycoon, and art fanatic, Lord Lionel Shahbandar is desperate to acquire Monet’s long lost ‘Haystacks, Dusk’. His art curator, Harry Deane, fed up with his abusive boss, and aching for revenge, hatches a plan to provide a forgery and pocket the hefty proceeds. But the con proves harder to pull off that he expects, and, as it unravels, Harry finds himself in increasingly awkward and hilarious situations in order to keep Shahbandar’s suspicions at bay and see the job through to the end. The superb cast is led by Alan Rickman as the arrogant, overbearing ‘richest man in England’ and Colin Firth as his put-upon, downtrodden art curator. They are wonderfully supported by Tom Courtney as the art forger, Stanley Tucci as an art expert – and the lovely Cameron Diaz as a ditzy Texas rodeo queen who (trust us!) is essential to Harry’s plot!

’12′ certificate. 7.30pm. All tickets £6. Palace Theatre.

Thursday

9pm – Shangri-La with Micky Denny and Darren Jones.

+ a set from Reuben Glassy Glass McGlass…

Hosted by Cusack/Burgess

Friday

J.D Smith

‘J.D. Smith is a one man, Essex raised, London based Blues slide player that over the past four years has played more than 800 shows nationwide and in central Europe which includes support slots with Jarvis Cocker, Richard Hawley, Duane Eddy, Wanda Jackson, C.W. Stoneking, Boz Boorer, Vic Ruggiero and William Elliot Whitmore.’

Saturday

Downstairs, Free entry, 10pm - Mika Bomb

‘Formed in 1999, MIKA BOMB quickly rose to fame as Japan’s most shambolic export. Far from the pristine, punctual ponderings of her homeland, Mika Handa formed the band in London, England, finding drunken ex-pat punkas to fill out the ranks… ”

Sunday

4-9pm Out Loud – a fiundraisers with lots of bands

Southend’s finest music acts play to raise a bit of money for local theatre company OUTLOUD Productions.

Acts confirmed so far include….
THE TAKERS
MIKE DARRAH
THE INVISIBLE BAND
CALEB
SHATTERLING
BROWNFIST
HERBIE
Conor and Joe from NOTHING BUT THIEVES
SUPERFRUIT

£3

The Railway Hotel / Clifftown Rd, Southend SS1 1AJ

On Saturday, Eddie Johnson will be signing his book Tales from the Two Puddings.

Books will be available to purchase on the day as well as a selection of ceramics by miss annabel dee* inspired by Eddie and Kenny Johnson’s narratives.

Synopsis:

‘As the dust settles upon the London Olympics, and the costly site is locked up and mothballed for a year, the debate about Stratford’s future and the true legacy of the Games is now beginning to rage.

Eddie Johnson, octogenarian first time author, and one of East London’s most famous landlords, finally tells his tales from the Two Puddings, the notorious Stratford pub he was licensee of for nearly four decades.

It was back in 1962, exactly fifty years before the Olympics rolled into East London, that the Johnson family took over the Two Puddings. Due to a combination of its cream tiled walls and the volume of blood spilt, it was also known locally as the ‘Butcher’s Shop’.

Within a few short years it had become one of London’s busiest and most fashionable pubs, its hugely popular music nights acting as a magnet for a large and colourful cast of disparate characters who would regularly descend upon the premises, including renowned actors, writers, singers, musicians, champion boxers, infamous gangsters, television personalities and World Cup winning footballers.

By the time the ‘Puddings’ closed its doors for the last time, nearly four decades later, landlord Eddie Johnson was the longest serving licensee in London. Tales from the Two Puddings is a poignant, at times hilarious, look back upon a lost world of East End eccentrics, local villainy, vindictive policemen, punch ups and practical jokes, all now lying buried beneath the concrete blocks and sterile shopping centers of the ‘new’ Stratford.’

Miss Annabel Dee*, 153 Leigh Road, Leigh on Sea, Essex SS9 1JF

The talks will be held on Monday 20 May and Friday 31 May in the Lecture Theatre at Southend Central Library next door to the Central Museum

Tickets are available from Central Museum on Victoria Avenue at £5 each.

The hour long talk starting at 7.30pm will be presented by Liz Barham, Senior Conservator MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology), revealing the processes used in investigative conservation, the stories they can reveal and the techniques used on the finds in the Prince’s tomb. Tickets are £5.00

The second talk on Friday 31 May will be given by Professor Chris Scull, he will be exploring the relationship between the Prince’s site to the warrior burials and the main Saxon cemetery in Prittlewell. Talk starts at 7.30pm and tickets are £5.00 available from Central Museum.

Demand is expected to be high so securing your tickets ahead of the evenings is highly recommended any spare tickets will be sold on the door.

See more details at http://www.southendmuseums.co.uk/home/

Watch IDEA13 video with some of the newly exhibited artists – Ann Robson, Trevor Bell, Joanne Andrews, Philip Douglas, Stephanie Hadley, Sue Barnfield, and Elizabeth Ireland, a Creative Therapist at Havens Hospices, introducing their work:

Opening hours:
Tuesday-9:30-2:30
Wednesday-10-16:30
Thursday-10-16:30
Friday-10-17:00
Saturday-10-17:00

WOA!, 28 Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff on Sea, Essex, SS0 7LX
Website

Dotty Sparkle Vintage and Modern Fair will include over 40 stalls selling:

- vintage clothing

- bags & scarves

- jewellery

- homeware

+ strange and fabulous items of curiosity, along with some cracking handmade and modern stalls selling vintage-style children’s clothes, dollies, brooches, bunting.

Home Front – serving snacks and afternoon teas

Saturday 18 May – 10.30-4pm

The Christ Church Centre, 56 Colbert Avenue, Thorpe Bay, SS1 3BP

Contact: dottysparkle AT gmail.com / 07973 787 655

Venue: the Appliance Hall, Hadleigh Old Fire Station.

The Screenings are FREE but booking is essential: Ben Eastop, Estates & Regeneration Manager, ACAVA M: 07811 824 165 T: 020 8960 5015, beastop@acava.org

Thursday 9 May 20137.30 pm

Home on the Range
ITV documentary about Foulness.
1982. 26 mins

352 Birds
a film by Ross Jardine
2013. Digital slide show. 6 mins.12 secs
Part of an ongoing series of works that are located on the beach. The slideshow considers the relationship between varying factors of the landscape (geological, tidal, diurnal, ornithological). It is a progression of 352 photos taken during the transition from early afternoon to evening as the tide is withdrawing. The action of taking a photo was triggered by a bird flying into view.

Suspicions of a Peninsular Town
a film by Glen Jamieson.
colour slideshow. 15 mins
This Norfolk born artist Glen Jamieson’s account of returning to his hometown is built around topographical photographs of the town of Great Yarmouth, paired with prose that reflects on the town’s condition both past and present. What is created is an arresting synergy between ethereal images and an increasingly surreal narration

Untitled – 2011
a film by Ross Jardine
2011. Digital video. 2 mins 49 secs
A stop-animation film using imagery of work and repetition to narrate the frustration of occupying a system with limited possibilities. A sequence of photographs of a performance at the site where King Cnut notoriously attempted to stop the tide is photocopied again and again to the point where the wash of the sea erases the protagonist.

The screenings will be followed by a Q&Answer session with Mat Do.

Friday 24 May 20137.30 pm

Last chance to see…
LEAD/LIGHT
a film by Mat Do
2013. HD video. 19 mins
Specially commissioned for the Hadleigh in Place programme, Mat Do’s film explores the symbolism of the Thames Estuary and South Essex landscape, and the major influence that aspirational migration has had and continues to have within sculpting the region’s collective consciousness.

Cold Season
CB6
music video for LEAD/LIGHT score
2013. HD video. 3 mins 7 secs
Director – Chris Belcher. DOP – Paul Bates. Lighting – Ryan Monteith
Production – Chris Belcher / Ryan Monteith
The Band – Ryan Monteith / Michael Kirkby / Jake Willis / Joey Drake
Developed through the Hadleigh in Place artist’s residency associate workshop programme. The band CB6 features Ryan Monteith and Mike Kirkby as members, both of whom contributed towards Mat Do’s LEAD/LIGHT film production and produced this short film piece of their own.

Oil City Confidential
Julien Temple’s ‘punk noir’ documentary following Doctor Feelgood’s rise from Canvey Island
2010. Video. 60 mins. Cadiz Music.

The screenings will be followed by a Q&Answer session with Mat Do.

Citadel Screenings is part of the Hadleigh in Place programme of artists’ residencies and commissions.
Artist presentations and activities continue over weekend 25 & 26 May 2013:

Friday 24th, Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th May 2013
Opening times to be confirmed.

A weekend of artist presentations and planned activities.
Hadleigh in Place is the culmination of a year-long, multi-disciplinary arts programme which aims to reveal and re-imagine the unusual, personal and special characteristics of Hadleigh and its environs. The project seeks to capture and express the unique nature of place through a programme of artists’ residencies and commissions.
The programme is supported by Arts Council England and Essex County Council.

Events & activities:
Saturday 25th – timings to be confirmed:
Soft Geology – Geologists from the Essex Rock & Mineral Society will lead two walks with artist Simon Callery.
Estuary: working lives – a voice and image performance by writer Rachel Lichtenstein.

See HOFS website for more information.