AUGUST 2017 THEBEDFORDCLANGER.COM THE BEDFORD YOUR CULTURAL GUIDE TO CLANGERTHE BEST OF BEDFORD Inside: PAUL CATHERALL LINOCUTS EXHIBITION AND LECTURE PARIS HOUSE REVIEW GET OUT AND ABOUT WITH CANOE TRAILS Cover: Paul Catherall THE CLANGER Letter from Team Clanger NEWS IN BRIEF As ever, we’re taking a Summer break, so this issue is your bumper Aug/Sept guide to get you through til we’re back in October. This issue we highlight a host of incredible exhibitions plus the Consica Jazz Festival and some award-winning theatre to indulge in. It’s enough to make you consider binning the budget airline bunfight and staying put for a staycation. If that’s the case, we highly recommend you read our reviews of the Embankment and Paris House – a little bit of luxury right on our doorstep! Have a wonderful summer and we’ll be back in October. Team Clanger Team BP Portrait Awards If you’re a fan of our Facebook page, then you may have already seen the picture we shared of Martyn Clanger Burdon’s painting of comedian and actor, Matt Berry, currently gracing the walls of the National Portrait Editor: Erica Roffe Gallery in London. Here, Bedford-based artist, Martyn tells us about the inspiration for the piece, which can @bedfordclanger be seen as part of the BP Portrait Awards at the National Portrait Gallery until 24th September. Entry is free. [email protected] “Matt Berry grew up in my hometown of Bedford, and I felt he would make an excellent subject for Commercial Manager: a portrait. He is a painter himself, and he was keen to help with this project. Bedford has produced Julia Crofts @clangerads a small but illustrious list of comic actors and I’m glad that Matt is continuing that line. There is [email protected] something quite wintery, and pastoral in the finished painting. I was keen to get past Matt’s widely Design: Adam Boreham seen brash comic persona and try and capture something of his true character. Matt is a very gentle @reactionvm reactionvisual.media and self-effacing person and I think the final portrait has a touch of something thoughtful and Website: Alec East vulnerable about it. Trying to show a side of the person’s character, and gain a gentle insight into @ Narrative Industries their personality is by far the most important thing.”www.martynburdon.com New Exhibition - A Walk in the Woods A Celebration of Trees in British Art, Wixamtree Gallery, Higgins Bedford from 30th September This new exhibition from the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery collection opens on 30th September and will celebrate the role of trees and woodland in British landscape painting. Works will include those by artists such as John Constable, John Sell Cotman, Francis Towne and Paul Nash. The exhibition will be produced in partnership with Professor Christiana Payne from Oxford Brookes University The exhibition coincides with the anniversary of the 800th anniversary of the Tree Charter. The original tree charter was signed by Henry III to protect the rights of people to access and use the Royal Forests. On the 6th November 2017 a new Tree Charter will be launched led by the Woodland Trust which will establish a set of values that promotes and protects trees. thehigginsbedford.org.uk the puddin club Puddings • Cakes • Breakfast • Cheeseboard Great Coffee • Prosecco • Wine • Beer • Cider Ice Cream • Milkshakes ’ You can either have private hire in We re about to start the evening (not Fridays) or for smaller a new chapter, will gatherings we can reserve you a table. you help us write it ww? w.rogansbooks.co.uk get your just desserts follow the story: 07773 943586 facebook.com/rogansbooks/ www.thepuddinclub.co.uk 120a Castle Road, Bedford, MK40 3RG www.rogansbooks.co.uk 2 The Bedford Clanger • August 2017 THE CLANGER UNIQUE BEDFORD 500th anniversary of the Reformation is marked at Bedford’s Garden of Eden On 31 of October, 1517 Martin Luther famously sent his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences to the Archbishop of Mainz. This action began a seismic shift that challenged the establishment, set off a chain of events and profoundly altered the course of history. This included the founding of the Protestant church and the Church of England. Reformers made use of inexpensive pamphlets using the relatively new printing press to provide movement of radical new ideas--without the printing press the Reformation could not have 1517, what led to them, their immediate and later aftermath, taken place. 400 years later in England it was another group who and how they still resonate today. existed outside the (this time Protestant) male dominated church It is the final conference in the 2017 season for CenSAMM and used the same technology to produce thousands of leaflets (Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian imploring the Bishops of England to gather in Bedford to open Movements). Project Director, Simon Robinson, explained, “It is Joanna Southcott’s box of prophecies. fitting that our final conference of the year marks the anniversary They were almost exclusively women who called themselves of the Reformation, an apocalyptic event that changed history, the Panacea Society and they were led by Mabel Barltrop and especially so for it to be held in gardens so steeped in whom they believed to be the eighth prophet of the very English English millenarian and apocalyptic history.” phenomenon known as “the visitation”. They also believed that Attendance to the conference on September 15th is free to the their gardens (between Albany Road and Newnham Road) were general public and will include presentations by scholars from the original site of the Garden of Eden. across Britain and including Germany and Nigeria. These same gardens, now part of the Panacea Museum, will To find out more about this conference and to play host to “500 years: The Reformation and its Resonations” an reserve free seats visit www.censamm.org or email international conference which seeks to investigate the events of [email protected] JOHN HEGLEY: PEACE, LOVE & POTATOES Thursday 14 sept, 8.00pm Keats, Daleks, soot, belief, osmosis Ticket price and ‘compassionate autobiographical £14.00 poems and correspondence between (£12.00 concessions) family members’. (Poetry London) Age suitability Verses spoken and sung. Hearts 14+ broken and repaired. Running time 60 mins Box office 01234 362337 “Marvellous, joyful fun" THE TELEGRAPH quarrytheatre.org.uk “Scandalously talented” THE SUNDAY TIMES The Quarry Theatre at St Luke’s is part of Bedford School, which is part of The Harpur Trust The Bedford Clanger • August 2017 3 THE CLANGER HOMETOWN TOURIST Paul Catherall: An Exhibition of Linocuts Exhibition: Friday 15th September – 11th October 2017 Gilbert Lloyd Lecture: Thursday 21st September at 7.30pm This September, Bedford School hosts an exhibition of one of the country’s most iconic printmakers, Paul Catherall. Paul is best known for his posters in association with Transport for London and the Southbank Centre, but he has also produced work for the Higgins as part of a commission in 2010 to celebrate the Cardington sheds and the town’s airship heritage. “I produced a print for the Higgins’ exhibition and two further black and white prints,” Paul told us. “The airships in the print are from the 1930s and my work is heavily influenced by the railway posters of that era.” Born in Coventry, Paul trained as an illustrator at Leicester Poly and graduated in 1989. “We took our degree show to London to try and get a job and I never came back! For 8 years I was a jobbing figurative illustrator, but it was a struggle. I became influenced by the American artist Michael Schwab while in San Francisco and got myself a lino press. I started making prints at home in the late 90s. At the time, lots of iconic new buildings were springing up around London including the Millennium Dome, the London Eye and the British Library. I decided to leave drawing people and bodies behind and record these new buildings.” Paul describes lino printing as a sophisticated version of potato printing, and will talking through his artistic process in more depth at the Gilbert Lloyd lecture he’s giving at Bedford school on Thursday 21st September. The lecture and exhibition are free to attend and all are welcome. Bedford School, d’Parys Avenue, Bedford, MK40 2TU tel: 01234 362200 www.bedfordschool.org.uk 4 The Bedford Clanger • August 2017 THE CLANGER LATEST NEWS Palestine: Reflections and Thoughts Bunyan Basement Gallery 19th-30th September 2017 Free entrance Prompted by the Balfour Centenary, a group of local artists are curating this exciting, thought provoking and informative exhibition at the Basement at Bunyan. The exhibition will include national and local artists, plus work by two high-profile Palestinian artists on loan from p21 Gallery, London: Manal Deeb and Arab & Tarzan. Other highlights of the exhibition will be a unique range of cushions and bags designed by Central St Martins College London textiles students in collaboration with the Women of Hebron embroiderers from Palestine. Four images from photojournalist William Parry’s book, “Against the Wall” will be exhibited and at a date to be announced he will also be showing a short film “Beyond Generations” and talking about his experiences in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestine. To mark the centenary there will be other events and film screenings celebrating Palestinian culture through food, music and dance. 6 The Bedford Clanger • August 2017 The Smallprint – it’s not for grown ups… If you’re looking for some Summer holiday inspiration, then we can highly recommend picking up a copy of our little sister publication, The Smallprint.