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Winning back audience trust, the doctor turned novelist, musical collaboration in lockdown

The community theatre companies helping to restore audience confidence, the paediatric doctor turned novelist on his new sci-fi adventure, and musical collaboration in lockdown.

How will community theatre companies help restore audience confidence to go back into theatres after the lockdown? And how do we measure how important they are in bringing people to watch live theatre? Alan Lane is director of Slung Low and Holly Lombardo leads the National Rural Touring

Simon Stephenson gave up a career as a paediatric doctor to pursue a career in writing. His first novel Set My Heart to Five, a futurisitic story about an Android who wants to feel human emotion is set to be adapted as a film by the Oscar-winning producers of hits such as Notting Hill.

Opera North鈥檚 Resonance programme offers residencies to BAME music-makers to collaborate with other artists on new work. However most of this year's residencies have been postponed due to Coronavirus, so instead artists have been taking part in a special lockdown instalment of the programme, collaborating remotely to bring together African music with Indian raag, electro dub with traditional Chinese zither playing, poetry and hip hop. Singer-songwriter Tawiah and composer Matthew Kofi Waldren have been working on weaving African gospel sounds with the western choral tradition in a piece that explores themes of matriarchy, motherhood and liberation.

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28 minutes

Holly Lombardo - National Rural Touring Forum

Holly Lombardo - National Rural Touring Forum

Holly Lombardo is聽Director of the聽聽which聽networks, develops and supports the ecosystem that delivers high-quality creative experiences across communities and rural areas in the UK

Alan Lane - Slung Low

Alan Lane - Slung Low
Alan Lane is Artistic Director of 聽an award-winning theatre company specialising in making epic productions in non-theatre spaces, often with large community performance companies at their heart.

Simon Stephenson

Simon Stephenson gave up a career as a paediatric doctor to pursue a career in writing.聽 His first novel Set My Heart to Five, a futuristic story about an Android who wants to feel human emotion is set to be adapted as a film.聽Set My Heart to Five, by Simon Stephenson, is published by Fourth Estate

Matthew Kofi Waldren

Matthew Kofi Waldren
Conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren has worked with singer Tawiah as part of Opera North's special lockdown edition of its

Tawiah

Tawiah
Singer-Songwriter Tawiah has worked with conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren as part of Opera North's聽special lockdown edition of their programme

Broadcast

  • Wed 15 Jul 2020 19:15

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