Back in Liverpool for Present : Tense / Everyword 2009

We're on the train up to Liverpool in readiness for the start of Present : Tense / Everyword tonight.

Yes, the toughest creative challenge in town returns to Liverpool for a second outing at The Everyman as part of the brilliant Everyword Festival.

Following last year's debut Present : Tense / Everyword, we're delighted to be back to once again challenge Merseyside's finest artistic talent to to respond to the most important news story of the moment in just seven days. Only now with an added twist. Inspired by last year's thrilling piece The Knife, we're asking cross-disciplinary artists to collaborate.

Taking up the gauntlet are: LAURENCE WILSON and JEFF YOUNG (playwrights); JAMES GRIEVE and GEORGE PERRIN (directors), THE SEAL CUB CLUBBING CLUB (band); MARIA MALONE (choreographer); CURTIS WATT (poet / musician) and EDDY MARSHALL (film-maker). 

The artists assemble tonight - Saturday 27 June 2009 - to decide what they think is the most important story on the news agenda. They then have one week to each create a response, before their work is performed live for the Liverpool public at The Everyman next Saturday 4 July.

Throughout the week you can follow their progress and post comments over on the present : tense blog where the artists will be posting daily updates.

Tickets for Present : Tense / Everyword are a mere £4 and if you happen to be round Liverpool way next Saturday night, you can book your place here. And keep 'em peeled on the blog for updates.

Present : Tense / Everyword
Saturday 4 July 2008 // 7:30pm
Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse // 13 Hope Street // Liverpool // L1 9BH
Tickets £4 // 0151 709 4776 or www.everymanplayhouse.com

Every Brilliant Thing Facebook group

Those of you who came to Arts Club 2 will remember the beautiful Every Brilliant Thing exhibition created by Paul Burgess and Simon Daw as a response to Duncan Macmillan's heartbreaking monologue Sleeve Notes.

We also featured the Tree Of Brilliant Things at The Innocent Village Fete last year, where Gugu Mbatha-Raw (currently Ophelia to Jude Law's Hamlet) read Sleeve Notes on stage while thousands of fete goers wrote brilliant things on luggage tags to add to the tree.

We've got lots of exciting plans for Every Brilliant Thing in the pipeline, so stay tuned for news of more outings for the exhibition, but meantime, we urge you to join the Every Brilliant Thing Facebook group and add your own brilliant things to the burgeoning list.

Duncan, Simon and Paul are aiming to collect 1 million brilliant things. They're a way off yet, but the group has already attracted more than 1,000 wall posts contributing almost 5,000 brilliant things. Your job is merely to add anything and everything you think is brilliant. Your brilliant things will then be added to the exhibition.

Here are a few examples from the first 100 brilliant things:

4. People falling over (but not hurting themselves)
13. Old people holding hands
23. People who can’t sing but either don’t know or don’t care
35. Waking up late with someone
64. Gorecki’s third symphony
74. Hugging
92. The smell of freshly cut grass
99. Igloos

Our new favourite toy - Wordle

Here's the nabokov newsblog Wordle word cloud:

Wordle is our new favourite toy. It generates “word clouds” from all the text on a blog or website, giving prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. So clearly we're preoccupied with 'tickets', 'blog', 'facebook' and (perfectly understandably) 'Saturday'.

Wordle has also kindly re-arranged our shimmering prose into far more amusing word groupings:

tomfoolery meantime bebo

ooh cool details now arts

chuffed heart stunning there find extravaganza

and, um...

sold lashings packs

Simple pleasures, we know, but make one of your own and then tell us it's not addictive.

Is Everyone OK? hits the road

Is Everyone OK? rolls into Ipswich tonight for its first tour date at The Pulse Festival.

Alex Beckett, Lachlan Chapman, Jenni Maitland and Rebecca Oldfield are this evening's cast at the sold out Sir John Mills Theatre.

The minibus departs at 3pm. Yes.

Arthur and Che's new musical Been So Long

Two of our favourite people - playwright Che Walker and actor/composer Arthur Darvill - have collaborated on a new musical which opens at The Young Vic tomorrow.

As an actor, Arthur starred in TERRE HAUTE in Edinburgh, on tour in the UK and in the West End. He also wrote the brilliant score for ARTEFACTS and songs for IS EVERYONE OK? and for Che's play CRAZY LOVE which we produced at Arts Club 1 and The Molten Festival 2008.

We saw Been So Long in a staged reading last year and it's truly amazing, so beat a path to the Young Vic to see it pronto. Here's the trailer:

And here's Arthur in Terre Haute:

You saw her at Arts Club first!

Those of you at Arts Club 2 last September will remember seeing Bridgette Amofah's sensational set. She's just recorded a new album with Oi Va Voi and there was a big feature on her and the band in The Sunday Times on Sunday.

Keep it tuned to The nabokov Arts Club to catch the hottest new acts before they're splashed all over the papers...

Loads more Arts Club photos on Flickr

Yep, they're all there now. Lots of them. Which means you can play 'spot yourself dancing like a loon' in the crowd pics. There you are!

Here's a couple of pics to whet your appetite. For the rest, head over to Flickr. Thanks again to Ludovic for taking them.

Is Everyone OK? The Movie

Well, a trailer at least, filmed by Ric at The Arts Club last Saturday with our new flip camera (ooh, get us!).

Sit back, open your popcorn and enjoy Is Everyone OK?

Arts Club - The Evidence

We're all misty eyed with reminiscence as we upload the first few photos from Saturday to our Flickr stream. They were shot by the brilliant Ludovic Des Cognets who you should hire if you ever need any photos taking, coz he's ace.

So, just to remind you, here's what happened...We kicked off with nabokov's new production IS EVERYONE OK? by Joel Horwood, starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge (below).

Poets CHRIS HICKS and ROSS SUTHERLAND regaled the revellers with rhyming tales and were joined on stage by special guest TIM CLARE with his ukelele.

Kate Tempest tore it up with her incredible band SOUND OF RUM.

Then the incomparable CORRESPONDENTS had everyone hopping up and down till the early hours.

And there was cider and baked potatoes and all sorts of palaver. More photos to follow, and if you've got any snaps please do send them to us so we can add them to the Flickr group.

Thank you Arts Clubbers!

Wow, what a night.

Huge thanks to everyone who came down to the Arts Club on Saturday night and made it the best ever. Rapturous applause too for all the amazing artists who performed, and to all our brilliant staff and crew who worked tirelessly to make it all happen.

We'll be posting photos and videos later today, and if you have any of your own please send them over.

And let us know what you thought by posting a comment. How was it for you? What did you love and what can we do better? Who do you want to see playing at the next one?

Thanks again everyone. We had the night of our lives.