BE FESTIVAL is a Birmingham-based arts organisation dedicated to bringing high quality European theatre to audiences all around the UK, and offering valuable and innovative development opportunities to artists and young people. The ethos of the festival is to cross borders between countries, languages, cultures and disciplines.

BE FESTIVAL 2013 will take place between 2 – 7 July @AE Harris (www.aeharrisvenue.co.uk), and they’re keen to involve the local community at the event more than ever. The festival is of growing significance nationally, and I think we’re really lucky that it takes place in the heart of the JQ.

Read on for further details, and also check out their website at: www.befestival.org

BE a host

Would you like to offer visiting performers a warm Birmingham welcome and share in their festival adventure? BE FESTIVAL are looking for generous people to provide their guests with somewhere to stay. Performers won’t need feeding or looking after, just a bed and a chat. You’ll get a free festival ticket and dinner pass for the night your guest is performing.

For more information please contact: mike@befestival.org

Volunteers

Would you like to help make BE FESTIVAL an event to remember? BE FESTIVAL are looking for passionate, dynamic people based in Birmingham who are interested in theatre and visual arts to help deliver the festival (2-7 July).

Volunteers will be a vital part of the BE FESTIVAL team, supporting visiting companies and festival employees in a range of responsibilities. Volunteering roles include, supporting the get-in and get-out of the festival (up to 10th July), office support, marketing, cleaning, visual artist installation, bar shifts, dinner service, Front of House and Box office, documentation and evaluation support, ushering and technical to name but a few.

In return for volunteering BE FESTIVAL aim to provide professional development via volunteer placement, for example; training with technicians, administrative skills, marketing and front of house duties via discussing shared aims with you. Volunteers will also have the opportunity to see the festival performances, the visual art programme, attend 1-2 workshops and will be provided with food whilst at the festival venue on shift.

Volunteers will need to be available to attend the volunteer briefing meetings and training days, and to begin some support work prior to the festival (between 6 June – 10 July) as well as the festival week (2 – 7 July 2013). If you would like to volunteer please send an email detailing your interest, any relevant skills (for example if you speak other languages or drive a car this is also useful to know) and experience (including a CV) to isla@befestival.org

Deadline for volunteer submissions: 9am, Monday 20 May 2013.

The schedule is as follows, and works begin this Sunday 28th April:

From April 28th:
- Great Charles Street from Summer Row to Newhall Street (Night Work)
- Fleet Street (Day Work)
- Summer Row (Part night/day work).

The schedule over the coming months is outlined below. As we get more specific dates, we’ll post them on the website.

May – Frederick Street, Newhall Hill, Graham Street

June – Ludgate Hill, St. Paul’s Square including Brook Street and Charlotte Street

July – Vyse Street, Hall Street, Warstone Lane – Clock to Hall Street, Newhall Street

November – Warstone Lane – West of Clock, Great Hampton Street, Lionel Street, Spencer Street, Augusta Street, Branston Street, Albion Street, Caroline Street and Vittoria Street.

The contractors – Ramora – carry out the deep cleaning of other BID areas, are thoroughly professional and whilst the street can look messy during the deep clean, but they will clean up afterwards leaving the area looking thoroughly refreshed.

For more information on the JQ Business Improvement District visit:www.jewelleryquarter.net/jqbid/

Theatre of the Disenfranchised 

Blue Orange Arts, the registered charity at the Blue Orange Theatre, are celebrating after receiving a Comic Relief Grant through Birmingham and Black Country Community Foundation, one of the many funds administered by the Foundation which receives its income from local benefactors, businesses and government agencies.

The funding will be used to deliver their upcoming social project ‘Theatre of the Disenfranchised’ The project seeks to provide women who experience social exclusion and isolation due to factors such as isolation, unemployment, mental health, language barriers, immigration and culture divides (amongst others) an opportunity to develop skills and increase self confidence. The project will consist of free drama based workshops which will provide wider positive choices to help the participants achieve their goals and reach their full potential as part of the wider community.

Holly Phillips from Blue Orange Arts said ‘We are thrilled to receive this grant from Comic Relief as it allows us to continue delivering our social projects, and make high quality theatre projects accessible to the local community.”

Vintage Hitchcock: A Live Radio Play

Majikal Theatre is proud to present the European Script Debut of Joe Landry’s “Vintage Hitchcock: A Live Radio Play” at the Blue Orange Theatre on Fri 3 & Sat 4 May.

Vintage Hitchcock: A Live Radio Play is an evening of adaptations of three early films directed by Alfred Hitchcock: “The Lodger,” “Sabotage” and “The 39 Steps”. Spies, murder, love, and other trademarks of Alfred Hitchcock come to life in the style of a 1940s radio broadcast of the master of suspense’s earlier films, with five actors playing dozens of characters, live sound effects and musical underscoring.

Alfred Hitchcock is perhaps the best known and most influential filmmaker in the world, but most people know his later work as the director of North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds, and the genially macabre host of television’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But there is also a formidable Hitchcock of a far older vintage: Hitchcock before he came to America; before he met Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Grace Kelly; and working at full power even before the days of talking pictures. Grabbing on to early Hitchcock, as the playwright Joe Landry does, opens up new realms of suspense, mysterious attractions, the dark roots of everyday behaviour, and the everyday roots of dark behaviour.

Doors open at 6:30pm and curtain is up at 7:30pm. Tickets are £10/£8.50 concessions

For more information on the Blue Orange Theatre visit: www.blueorangetheatre.co.uk

Monday 18^th March saw the unveiling of the latest step in the family housing project for the Jewellery Quarter.  A well-attended launch together with a JQNF open meeting at MADE had the MADEGrads take us through their work and present their conclusions on how reasonably-priced houses could be built on a council car park on Northwood St, near Sapphire Court.

Their excellent output can be viewed at http://made.stickyworld.com/ – just click on the ‘JQ family housing project’ and add your comments – what you like, dislike and care to add.  Do you like the architecture?  The space?  Would you buy or rent one?

Work is continuing to see how this can be developed and funding attracted and maybe, just maybe, the Jewellery Quarter could give birth to its own housing.

The actors will be wearing Special Forces uniforms and will have realistic firearms. We’re just passing the message on so you aren’t too concerned should you bump into – what appears to be – a Special Forces Operative on your way to get some coffee.

Filming will also take place on Sun 7 April, at various locations around the city centre.

Land in front of the Big Peg on the corner of Waterstone Lane and Vyse Street will become home to a new square, which the council expects to be a popular meeting place as well as a venue for concerts, markets and other events.

As part of the advance works for the Golden Square development, trees located in front of the Big Peg will be taken down this Sunday, 7 April. The work is happening on a Sunday to minimise disruption to the businesses in the vicinity, as the Big Peg car park will be clear and most of the shops along The Big Peg frontage closed.

The trees will be removed over the course of the day leaving approximately 750 mm of tree trunk above the ground, as there is no need to remove the roots and surrounding ground until the main contract for developing The Golden Square starts.

We’re not sure when the main works will start yet but as soon as we get information about this, we’ll post it here.

For more information on The Golden Square development visit: http://goldensquarebirmingham.com

This is a view at a key entry point to the Quarter.  Not exactly glamorous in itself but worsened by the rubbish drifting down the street.

Litter is a problem that isn’t restricted to the Jewellery Quarter but we seem to have some hotspots.  The approaches to some nightspots fill with bottles and cans on a Friday and Saturday night as revellers have a livener or two before arriving, and the area around Tesco Express near the clock is always bad, but why?

The obvious answer is people don’t care but it must also be convenience.  An unscientific survey of the Quarter reveals that apart from the main jewellery areas of Vyse St/Warstone Lane and St Paul’s Square there is a dearth of litter bins.  The main walking routes of Frederick St/Sandpits/Summer Row and Newhall St have few bins so it’s no great surprise that stuff gets dropped on the floor.  It doesn’t excuse it but it happens.

We have seen litter pickers in the JQ but how about more bins?  We will raise this with Birmingham City Council so let us know where the problem areas are.

Legge Lane Dereliction

Well, we do for a start.  But it appears that some of its owners don’t.

Empty buildings are the curse of the JQ and dilapidated ones are the boil on the witch’s nose.  The Legge Lane area is probably the most blighted part of the JQ and some its landowners don’t seem to be bothered.  Not only is this building photographed recently in Legge Lane slowly rotting, it is now unsecured.  This means that residents (and businesses and visitors) will feel even more wary of walking around this area.  How long before the building is vandalised more, is used as a drug den, cannabis farm or mysteriously burns to the ground?  It happened at the George & Dragon, it happened on Sloane St and Legge Lane and will continue to happen until owners secure their property and actively bring it back into use, and Birmingham City Council enforces the obligations upon owners of listed and conservation area buildings.

Are there any dereliction hotspots near you?  Do you know who the owners are?  Let us know and we can raise it with the JQDT and City Council.

‘The Inferno Kid was once professional wrestling’s brightest star – a risk-taking daredevil both inside the ring and out. Today he is disabled, destitute and all but forgotten by the wrestling world. He is only 36. Now the living room of his wife’s council flat provides a fitting venue for one final showdown – this time, with the demons of his past. But with his mind and his marriage on the line is this a match The Inferno Kid can win?

@ A E Harris are delighted to welcome Alex Brockie back to  on 9th March with this great show.’

Mon 18th March 2013, 17.30 – 19.30

The Jewellery Quarter family housing project is an attempt to introduce appropriate new build housing in the Jewellery Quarter. A design studio of MADEGrads has been looking at how this may work. (MADE is an organisation dedicated to improving the quality of our towns, cities and villages).

We blogged and tweeted about the proposed designs when they were exhibited back in January. Thank you to everyone who commented. Your feedback, with support from design professionals, has been incorporated into the proposals.

Join us at the launch to hear about the project from MADE, MADEGrads and the Jewellery Quarter Neighbourhood Forum. The launch event will take place on 18th March 2013, between 17.30 – 19.30. There will be a talk about the designs at 18.00, which will be repeated at 19.00. This is also a chance for you to find out more about the Jewellery Quarter Neighbourhood Forum.

The event is at MADE, 7 Newhall Square, Birmingham, B3 1RU. To help us gauge numbers, please RSVP jodie@made.org.uk or call 0121 348 7980

The exhibition itself will be on until 29th March 2013*. Typically it will be open 9.00 – 17:00 but please call 0121 3487980 to check first