Birmingham
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Carl Chinn – The Real Peaky Blinders
Last week I was lucky enough to attend a talk with a real Midlands Legend. Professor Carl Chinn is my favourite historian, I particularly love his knowledge of ‘The Real Peaky Blinders‘, the stories of the real people and families who inspired the now classic TV programme. Carl gave a free talk at Great Barr library as part of the Sandwell Literature festival, which is currently ongoing across Midlands libraries. Here are some of the highlights of his talk. The Myth of the Peaky Blinders The TV series Peaky Blinders shows a glamorously dressed gang, they are very well turned out, anti heroes. But reality was very different. I believe…
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A Waterstones Evening With Benjamin Stevenson – Pt 2
A little later than promised, but hey, life gets in the way. This is part 2 of the Waterstones Birmingham chat with award winning writer and comedian Ben Stevenson. (Part 1 is here.) His current book ‘ Everybody on this train is a suspect‘ is just out in paperback, and Ben was chatting about this, and all things cosy crime. What’s coming next? I have a Christmas themed book with the same detective out in October, and then a fourth novel currently in progress. But I do have a worry about how many murders an amateur detective can come across. The first book (Everyone in my family has killed someone)…
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La Fille Mal Gardee at the Birmingham Hippodrome
La Fille Mal Gardee by the Birmingham Royal Ballet started a four night run at the Birmingham Hippodrome last night, and delighted and charmed audiences with it’s story of true love almost thwarted by the power of money. The ballet was created by Frederick Ashton in 1960 and is the simple story of the beautiful Lise, in this instance played by the enchanting Beatrice Parma, who is deeply in love with a poor farm lad called Colas(Enrique Bejarano Vidal – just perfect). They are perfectly matched but Lise’s mother, the widow Simone wants a better (read richer) match for her beloved daughter. She finds this in the umbrella obsessed Alain,…
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A Waterstones Evening With Benjamin Stevenson PT 1
Benjamin Stevenson is one of the hottest writers around. An award winning stand up comedian as well as an author, his last book was the international bestseller ‘Everyone in my family has killed someone‘, and now he is back with a loving tribute to the golden age of crime, ‘Everyone on this train is a suspect’. Last Thursday Benjamin made an appearance at Waterstones Birmingham to talk all about his new book. Here are some snippets from that chat. What is ‘Everyone on this train is a suspect’ about? It’s about a writer’s festival, 6 writers on a luxury train (The Ghan) which is a bit like the Orient Express.…
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Birmingham Heritage Week Cathedral Tour
This week is officially Birmingham Heritage week, a week dedicated to the history, architecture and stories of this most vibrant of cities. The week encompasses a wide range of events across the city. This can be guided tours of landmark buildings, expert tours, walking tours, art classes, quite literally anything. With many of the events also being free, this is one of the most anticipated weeks on the Birmingham calendar. I always try to take part in at least one event during heritage week. In the past I took a guided tour around the Doug Ellis Woodcock swimming baths (amazing!), and attended a talk by Brutiful Birmingham about the magnificent,…
