Wildlife

COMEDY REVIEW: RUSSELL KANE BY  SUSIE WILD   ⋅  MAY 27, 2010  ⋅   POST A COMMENT FILED UNDER    COMEDY ,  RUSSELL KANE ,  SWANSEA ,  THE GARAGE COMEDY CLUB Russell Kane Tues 25 May 2010 The Garage Comedy Club, Uplands, Swansea **** Hyperactive multi-accented metrosexual Russell Kane prances about the stage like a natural jester playing up to the student element of the audience (drunker, easier to please). He is no beginner at this laughs malarkey; as he writes on his About Me section of his website: ‘I’ve had three of those Perrier nomination thingies, I do national tours – I’ve even written a play which is going to the Soho theatre… and I’m writing a novel.’ Get him. In 2010, in Swansea land, the gifted comic wittily fills stereotypes of Guardian and Daily Mail readers, Welsh vs English, Australians and Americans with absurd observations and personal anecdotes. The Enfield stand-up has plenty in common with his namesakes Brand and Howa...

This is my rockstar moment. I’m on tour, on the road and off to the ‘Woodstock of the mind.’ Hay-on-Wye, town of books and dreams. I’m making three onstage appearances during my 10-day stay, one as a journalist, one as a writer of fiction, and one as a poet. I can’t wait. Last year’s  Hay Festival  was an absolute blast, especially reading to 200 beautiful people who got up for 9am on a Sunday morning to see me chatting about writing on Radio 5 Live with festival organiser Peter Florence. I’ve even dyed my hair Mandarin bright to look the  Parthian Bright Young Thing  part. My wardrobe has been raided of dresses and pretty things ready to pack; I expect I’ll end up taking ALL OF IT. My Buzz and WM festival previews have been written. The sun has been informed attendance is compulsory. Nothing can go wrong, can it? I share the bill with some fabulous women writers: Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson, Nadine Gordimer, Lynn Barber, Maggie O’Farrell, Gillian Clarke, Stev...

MAY 2010:  Putting the Bright into Bright Young Thing There’s a wasp in my bathroom. Outside the sound of competing radio shows, pipes clanging, the bang bang bang of workmen’s tools. This is how summers used to be. Waking up too hot, the duvet kicked off, the windows open. Heading to the beach to walk through ball games to sit and read a book surrounded by the smell of cooking flesh and coconut suntan lotion. Families race into the sea in a state of half dress, some even brave bikinis. Ice creams are dropped, shells collected.  The Cork ferry honks its horn three times and about turns, heads out with the tide beneath a moon out too early to steal the show, patiently awaiting her spotlight moment in profile against sky blue. I apply more high factor lotion, finish off  Graham Mort ’s wonderful short story collection  Touch , which I am reviewing for  New Welsh Review . Head back home for homemade hummus and tabbouleh, down some lemonade. Appetite suitably sated,...

May 2010 First up, I am using  mobbing in the British sense of the word . Second, I always find it unusual to return to old work places or to pass houses that I used to reside in, the buildings seem to reach out and give me a little shake or a lightening bolt jolt of memory and emotion. One place this happens a little less is Waterstone’s on Oxford Street in Swansea. Mainly because it is full of books and I happen to love being surrounded by books. I used to work there, as a Grade 2 Bookseller, no less, with pink hair and responsibility for the Poetry section (result) and also all those GCSE revision booklets that make up Education (nightmare).  Just call me Clementine ( Eternal Sunshine ). Actually, don’t. As jobs go I’ve had many worse, and several of the familiar faces remain, having now worked their way up the ranks. I usually have a natter with one or two of them after my usual browse of favourite sections, new fiction tables, the Fiction ‘W’ section, specifically the spa...

BY  SUSIE WILD   ⋅  MAY 9, 2010  ⋅   POST A COMMENT FILED UNDER    ART ,  ELYSIUM GALLERY ,  EXHIBITION ,  GALLERY OPENING ,  PERFORMANCE ,  SWANSEA After The End Elysium Gallery, 96 – 97 Mansel Street, Swansea. 14 May – 11 June 2010 (preview 7-late on Fri 14 May. Gallery open Wed – Sat 12-5 or by appointment) Elysium Gallery has moved and will be  opening the doors for the first exhibition in their massive new three-storey home this coming Friday . The epic show After The End will feature 60 national and international artists working across all mediums from painting, photography, performance and sculpture to written word, film, installation and anything in between. It will be the only time the directors will be using all three floors in this vast maze of a building before the top two floors are carved up into artist’s studios available for rent. The spectrum of work is diverse and encompasses both up-and-coming young ta...

BY  SUSIE WILD   ⋅  MAY 9, 2010  ⋅   POST A COMMENT FILED UNDER    ART ,  CARDIFF ,  DRAWING ,  EXHIBITION ,  PAINTING ,  PRINT ,  TACTILEBOSCH Citizen, curated by Sam Aldridge, Andrew Cooper, Kim Fielding and Neil Jeffries tactileBOSCH Studios, Llandaff North, Cardiff. Until 25 May ( open Wed – Sat 12 to 5pm or by appointment – 07860 558169) **  overall /  ****  for blog-featured artists (see below) tactileBOSCH (tB) rolled out the red carpet for the 1 May preview night of their drawing, painting and print show Citizen on the first bank holiday weekend of this month. The sprawling, artist-led space in Llandaff has become renowned for openings full of provocative performance art and installations where literally anything could happen. Once a year they decide to drop a dimension and put a call out for artists working in two dimensions to submit work for a show. Citizen is their annual painting, print and dr...