n quentin woolf

instant calmer

Heidi and Hannah

This week’s show seemed a very quiet affair, in the best possible way. An air of benignity pervaded the studio originating I know not where. Before you could say ‘mustn’t grumble’ the day seemed to have become one of unflappable harmony. Mismis Tshaba (he was born in the Belgian Congo and grew up in Germany- you’ll only be able to confirm your suspicions of how that might sound by listening to the show) is a thoroughly agreeable fellow, whilst being larger than life too. It’s clear that he is frustrated by the marked lack of amiability amongst British folk (I wonder if he means Londoners. I recently spoke to some trans-Atlantic travellers who opined that even New Yorkers, famous for their abrasive manner are considerably warmer than

Mismis Tshaba

the average Londoner.) Something Mismis said off mic caught my imagination. ‘I’m in customer service’ he said, ‘I provide a service. If customers don’t like the service I provide than I have to provide a better one.’ This is a view I haven’t heard expressed before. In my mind’s ear (where’s that?) I can hear a chorus of horrified artists voicing everything from outrage to scorn that that could be a valid viewpoint. But why not? It’s quite easy, usually, to identify where, say, politics and art overlap, or to understand in very close detail the degree to which art and therapy cover similar ground; increasingly however, I find myself interested in that part of the Venn where art and entertainment become the same thing. My impression is that, perhaps because so much financing depends on being able to prove one’s worthiness along a set of social engineering guidelines, it’s somewhat distasteful and injudicious to represent what one is doing as being for the sake of mere pleasure. I think I’m going to develop this thesis and see whether it holds water. Any element of cynicism I might be feeling is washed away by remembering the conversation with Soheila Keyani, who is simply delightful. She facilitates art, looks at clouds and believes in encouragement,

Painting by Soheila Keyani

a word she used as a mantra. It’s clear it’s something she feels passionate about: when I asked her about the creative classes she runs (my question was how do you foster creativity in people who don’t normally do creative things?) her eyes lit up and she launched into a long and energetic assertion that everyone has creativity in them- they just need to be given the chance to access that part of themselves. My favourite comment from Soheila,

Soheila Keyani

regarding clouds, was that the sky is like one giant, free picture gallery. As I am writing this blog I am looking up at what I would normally perceive as a solid grey sky and seeing that there is actually much more texture and subtlety to it than that, pulsing areas of light. An exhibition indeed. Heidi Rustgaard and Hanna Gillgren are the directors of H2 Dance and their upcoming project is to get groups of people singing. The interview was, as I commented to them, one of the most efficient we’ve done on the show, nearly no editing required. Interesting guests, positive news, some great ideas and all without a script. Then blow me down, our multi-track recording system threw a grenade into the general calm and collapsed on us. So for all our easiness this week’s show eventually didn’t go out.

Soheila Keyani interview

H2 Dance interview

for the love of it

Russ Willey

of them had something of the air of the gentleman enthusiast. Having listened to the recording during the edit I can’t quite put my finger on where this impression stems from, but it was definitely there.

Russ Willey as a sound file

For his London Gazetteer and his new Dictionary of London Phrase and Fable, Russ Willey has clearly spent a lot of time toddling around town. Such peregrinations put me in mind of the lady who put together the first A to Z in – when was it?- 1936? Admittedly Russ has some rather higher technology at his

NQW

disposal, his Hidden London website for instance, but the impression that he was a man whose chief love was milling about with the throng and poking his nose round corners was rather charming.

Steven Guy’s style is effortless and unaffected. His attitude towards autometa is that of both artist and engineer, and also of cultural guardian. He identifies with the few remaining autometa makers as fellow examples of a dying breed. The interview between Steven, his colleague Polly Rodgers and I, which included much talk of elephants, was,

Stephen Guy

um, mammoth, so I’ll say no more about him here but it was one of those occasions that really validate the show for me (as if validation were necessary, with so much great art about): the opportunity to learn about an art form of which I had previously been completely in the dark.

And then there was Joe Shellard. One question into my conversation with this 17 year old magician (the question inevitably centred on his young age) I was thwacked about the back of the head with the recollection of Alan Partridge’s Child Genius interview and

Joe Shellard

even while Joe was speaking fancied I could hear a certain East Anglian flatness creeping into my thoughts. Why was age even an issue? I started writing novels at a similar age; I think at seventeen I was 450,000 (yes, 450,000) words into an interminable science fiction epic. Back in the present day, I hurried the conversation on. Incidentally, I’d never previously considered the life skills one must inadvertently develop as a magician but the urbanity and self-assurance of Joe’s banter gave me one clue. Something tells me Joe is the life and soul of any party he goes to.

The music this week was supplied by Bigo and Twiggeti, Mooncat, and alasVALS. Three very different, high-quality performances. But of course

Polly Rodgers

performances can be of the highest calibre without actually being a pleasure to listen to, whereas the tracks sent to me by all three of these acts have been on my mp3 player for the last fortnight.   The achingly beautiful vocals from Mooncat are a seductive late-night sound, to my mind, while Bigo and Tweggeti’s piano pieces both chill and exhilarate. alasVALS is a group I’d like to play more from; their fusion of musical is surprising and well-judged but above all very moving. Just like Joe, Russ and Steven, I do what I do because I love doing it, and music like this is the reason.

Listen to this edition of The Arts Show.

building conversations

Ken Worpole

What a glorious day and what a crime to be stuck inside a recording studio! Ordinarily we snap a few guest shots in the studio over the course of the recording but Rehan Qayoom mentioned that he has an interest in churches (all tied in, of course, with his travels in the footsteps of Betjeman) and the studio backs on to a beautiful church. The autumnal sun had that honeyish quality and, along with the easy freshness of the day, was truly invigorating.

Even with this wonderful weather, it could not really be called a coincidence that we had a guest on the show called Sunnie Dae. If that were a coincidence then even in the gloom of Britain Sunnie would spend about half of her life being coincidental; but never was a person so aptly named.

Sunnie Dae

I never cease to be bowled over by the enthusiasm and encyclopaedic knowledge of their form displayed by the majority of guests on the show, Sunnie was no exception, both off-air and on-we talked around plantation songs and blues music of all kinds. The twelve-minute slot felt very restrictive.

Ken Worpole was our headlining guest of the week. Anyone familiar with his work will know he’s one of the authorities on architectural writing and his formidable knowledge and no-nonsense demeanour are combined with a big physical presence: I see eye-to-eye with him, and I’m six-six. Ken mentioned that many moons ago he’d been involved with The Basement Writers, a literary circle which nurtured talents such as that of Alan Gilbey, with whom I’ve worked several times, the novelist Roger Mills, ditto and Tony Marchant, he of TV fame. It seems appropriate that keys to Ken’s past should be so neatly figured in the stories of a building.

Rehan Qayoom

Rehan’s poetry is tender, frank, considered and beautiful. None of thesequalities unbalances the poetry by being greater than the others. I wasn’t at all surprised to hear Rohan has been very widely published in literary magazines but was astonished that he is yet to publish out a collection of his own. I hope that that time won’t be long in coming. After the show I was also delighted to discover that Rehan was a letter writer (of course he is). I wasn’t sure that species had survived. Definitely a repeat guest.

Jemma Skidmore

Jemma Skidmore’s fantastic museum, in which both the museum and the curators (four people sharing a single name and no reality) is an umbrella for her vast array of projects, in which the actual is combined with Pythonesque absurdisms. I think it’s a smart idea keeping it online; these pieces work so well as ideas that it would be a shame to see them realised. We talked for a while on the subject of a bus station in Gloucester and I realised that having talked for so long to Ken Worpole about architecture and Sunnie Dae about prisons, to say nothing of Rehan and his churches that the show had been dominated, unintentionally, by the built.

All of which provides no respectable link whatsoever to the music of Mooncat and Biggo and Twiggeti whose respective sounds I enjoyed so much that I am hoping to get them in again for next week’s show.

Listen to this edition of The Arts Show.