7^th February.
The Crucible.

Reviewer – Phill James.

William Congreve’s Restoration Comedy performs at the Crucible this month and is directed with style and panache by Lyndsey Turner. Modern reimaginings of old plays don’t always work and it is to this production’s credit that it manages to strike a fine balance between staying true to the original style and feel, whilst bringing something wholly new to proceedings. The plot of the play revolves around Lady Wishfort, a frail, feeble middle-aged lady unmarried and sitting on a rather large fortune. The other players are all snakes in the grass, with very different ideas as to how to con her out of it for their own gain. This is a play full of wit and humour, deliberately confusing to the audience in places as we try and work out who is playing who and what lines are lies and what are truths. The wordplay is often fantastic and everything comes together for a rousing final act where true intentions are finally revealed.

Turner and her production team are ably assisted by a fine ensemble cast. There are no weak links in the line-up and each actor plays their part to a tee. Ben Lloyd-Hughes’ Mirabell is pitched perfectly between charming and deceptive without ever tipping over to smarmy, and Deborah Findlay’s Lady Wishfort is animated and sympathetic in her stupidity. The play is funny throughout, but mostly when either Samuel Barnett’s Witwould or Richard Goulding’s Sir Wilfull are on stage. True to their names, Barnett’s delivery and put-downs are perfectly timed and his facial expressions alone often mean it’s impossible to look elsewhere. Goulding on the other hand is loud, brash and energetic, stealing the second half of the show with a fantastic drunk scene and a series of wonderful one-liners revolving around his own willfulness.

Productions from Sheffield’s own theatre company rarely disappoint and The Way of the World is no exception. We have one of the most talented and creative companies in the UK working in the city and the Crucible remains one of the country’s finest stages to perform on. Showing throughout February, this is as fine a reworking of Congreve’s classic as you could hope to find. From the musical opening and set design all the way through to the cast and wry costumes, this is a production that treads well wherever it moves its feet. It still feels fresh and relevant today, despite the obvious cynicism of Congreve’s message. In The Way of the World, you either play, or get played. The audience, meanwhile, can just sit back and enjoy the show.

The Way of the World runs until 25th February at the Crucible.

Sick of lovesick poets? Dreading the Valentine’s drivel? Too sarcastic for sickly sweet sentiments competitive poetry night Slam Bam Thank You Ma’am is back for a night of anti-Valentine vitriol, verve and vivacity as 10 local poets compete for the title of Sheffield’s Funny Valentine 2012.

Headlining the night will be Grande Dame of Slam 2011, Steph Pike. Steph is a witty and passionate poet and committed UKuncut activist who is very active on the poetry scene in Manchester and throughout the northwest. It’s been said that a good performance poet can make you laugh, cry and gasp with their words. Steph has proven herself more than capable of all three.

This time, the competition for the top spot will be stiff, with some of the sheffield scene’s top quality poets going head to head. Who, you ask? Well, there’s only one way to find out!

The Slam last year was a rip roaring success raising over £200 for LaDIYfest and featuring the awesome Paula Varjack as part of her British tour. This year proceeds will be going to UK Uncut, whose campaigning excellence around income inequality needs no introduction, but specifically it will be going to their legal action fund. Why? Well because Steph will be coming to perform fresh from her day in court for aggravated trespass following protest action at Barclays for UK Uncut. What can we at Now Then say other than… bravo!

Come and show your support with some bugger-Valentine’s-Day fun at the Riverside Bar, 7:30pm on Monday 13th for a mere £5 (£3 conc)

We’ve got another strong issue for you this month. David Berry introduces some worthwhile local cooperatives, Andrea Burns discusses the age-old battle between analogue and digital photography in her piece on the Impossible Project, and Robin Lovelace cycles up and down the steepest hills in Sheffield. Our music interview is with German composer Nils Frahm and this month’s Filmreel section focuses on the best and worst of big screen remakes.

I’m always going on about getting involved in Now Then, but if you are interested in contributing to the mag please don’t hesitate to get in touch. While space in print can be limited, we have plenty of room on the web for publishing pieces by aspiring writers and if your article isn’t time-sensitive we can always save it for a rainy day.

Give me a shout on sam[at]nowthenmagazine[dot]com.

The National Occupy Conference is set to take place in Sheffield this weekend, with various talks, debates, workshops and performances at the Occupy Camp (Cathedral) and the Citadel of Hope (Cross Burgess Street), bringing supporters of the movement from across the UK to discuss issues that are affecting all of us.

All information about the weekend’s goings on can be found on the Occupy Sheffield Wiki, but here are a few choice highlights you might be interested in:

Friday begins with a general assembly at the Cathedral at 6.30pm, followed by dinner and live entertainment courtesy of Tony Guest, Madame Zucchini and other acts TBC.

Saturday will see talks on a wide range of subjects, including co-operatives, perma culture, UK tax, banking, equality and chaos theory, followed by an Occupy Benefit Gig at the Dove & Rainbow, with performances from The Velcro Teddy Bears, Carl Newton and Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly. Entry is free but all donations will be split between Occupy, The Archer Project and the night’s performers.

Sunday’s schedule will mostly focus on the aims and objectives of the movement on a national and international scale. The group is open to suggestions for topics discussed, but non-violent direct action and consensus decision making will definitely be touched on.

Whether you have been involved with Occupy from the start or just want a taster of the movement and its founding principles, come down and get involved.

It’s no secret that we are extremely fond of the Harley. It’s combination of stellar bookings and unpretentious atmosphere have had us hooked for many a year, with 2011 seeing Harley Live seriously take flight. The year’s successes are set to culminate on the Sunday the 11th, with the swansong provided by Danish punks, Iceage.

To add a little festive cheer to the proceedings, the lovely Harley Live team are providing daily offers in the run up to the show.

The show will form the official Christmas party for Harley Live’s co-promoted shows with acclaimed music website Drowned in Sound and – never ones to let an opportunity for a bad pun go to waste – the team decided to create a music-lovers’ offer to tie in with it.

For the next four days – from Tuesday the 6th until the show date – Harley Live are going to be offering a daily Iceage-themed treat for gig-goers to enjoy.

The offers will include ticket giveaways, artist merchandise, free drinks at the show and a selection of daily ticket discounts.

From then on, the ticket price will increase by 50p per day, reaching the full ticket price of £6.00 (or £5.50 for Harley Live members) on Saturday 10th December.

Tickets will be available at the discounted rates from 9am each day.

The team will be announcing each day’s offer via their Twitter account (@theHarleyLive) and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/HarleyLive) as well as through Drowned in Sound Events’ Tumblr and social media.

We’ll be there to see out another great year with the Harley, hope to see you too.

We caught up with Pandemic a situationist art event happening right now in our Steel City and with a residency at Bank Street Arts…

So Pandemic is happening right now across the city – can you sum up the big idea for us?
Create a perpetually moving and mutating programme of events over an indeterminate area of space and time

How did the residency at Bank Street Arts come about?
Through the need of space and the possibility of indeterminate time

How did the first events on 5th November go?
One of the returning themes of that particular day was expectation; in terms of ‘what is this event?’ the performances, events and the simple act of hanging and taking down of visual works, sought to act as a present tense critique of our motivations, and of the event as we moved through it.
Many of those who arrived at Garden Street were unknown to us and had come down simply to see if there would be space for them to show something.

If you don’t feel that’s answered your questions, best thing is probably to head on down to some of the myriad of events they have on this weekend or catch up with them on facebook and twitter.

Although the first Ladyfests can be traced back to the 90s this weekend sees the movement come to Sheffield for the first time. Organised entirely by volunteers and all to raise money for Sheffield Rape and Sexual Abuse Counselling Service (SRASACS) you don’t want to miss this weekend.

It’s a packed line up starting with a range of workshops and stalls at Croft House from 1pm-7pm on Saturday, then moving to the good old Red House for bands and DJs – check out the full line up here.

Follow all that with a full Sunday at a Now Then favourite, the Rutland Arms featuring acoustic music, spoken word performances (from the likes of last years Now Then poetry slam winner, Sarah Thomasin), a film screening and a quiz. It’s a packed day and full details of the schedule can be found here.

Get yourselves down.

Is it Great? Is it even British?
Leon Ballin.

A fair proportion of what is served in Britain today barely even qualifies as food. Yet the queues for Greggs sausage rolls around Sheffield (breakfast, lunch and dinner) suggest that not very great is great enough.

And British? A trip down London Road is a trip around the British Empire, through Europe and back via North Africa. It’s definitely better than Greggs. In fact the authenticity and honesty in the South Indian restaurants, Turkish grills and Middle Eastern falafel bars put the food in many posher restaurants to shame. The British relationship with the rest of the world is written down that street, from the violence of the empire to our hospitality for the oppressed.

Still, that’s not what we mean when we say Great British Food. It’s something else. It’s fish and chips, meat and potato pie, Sunday roast, kippers, the full English, cream teas and lots of nostalgia. But nostalgia isn’t what it it used to be and most versions of the above can be pretty dire in our cafes and pubs. It was recently reported that Germans are getting a taste for British food instead of their own dishes. I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.

There’s something else happening though – restaurants are serving up ‘modern British cuisine’, notably chefs such as Mark Hix and Fergus Henderson down in the smoke. Restaurants such as Kitchen and the Milestone up here. Their menus are impressive re-imaginings of British traditional dishes using the best ingredients from independent producers. Much of it is deceptively simple, such as brown crabmeat on toast. This movement follows the Italian ‘tipico’ or French ‘terror’ idea – get the best produce you can, treat it with respect and let the ingredients speak for themselves.

It’s back to the way it used to be done. British Cuisine in a modern style. Classic, simple, honest food. Except, like the Italian and French versions of this style, it’s all a myth.

The compelling story of how this relates to Italian food is told in Delizia by John Dickie. Before the 1950s the vast majority of poor Italians ate polenta and nothing but polenta. Look at spag bol; tomatoes from South America, pasta from Arabia and garlic from Asia. In the same vein look at the Sunday roast; chicken from the Indian jungle, potatoes from America and wheat for Yorkshire puddings from the Middle East. Like London Road, the Sunday roast is a history lesson, albeit an older one.

The myth continues with the idea of a romanticised past where we all ate traditional, wholesome foods and didn’t argue round the dinner table. Really we are thinking about the post-war years and anyone who remembers those times remembers rationing (until 1954), grey food and a jealous eye westward to hot dogs and sundaes.

There is no great British food revival because there is very little to revive. Medieval food would have been spiced like North African tagines, Victorian food was unmentionable things in aspic and if you were poor it was turnips and adulterated bread. Modern British cuisine is fantastic, but it’s the start of a new food movement, not a revival. There are of course regional specialities and superb traditional foods, many of which are brilliantly recorded in From Eccles Cake to Hawkshead Wig by Laura Mason and Catherine Brown.

However, Britain was the first place to industrialise – the North was the first in Britain – and with that revolution came the industrialisation of food, a distancing of the urban masses from the rural producers. Greggs was conceived in the back-to-back houses and furnaces of Yorkshire and Lancashire. It just took a century or so to be born.

The farmers’ markets, British regional food cookbooks, the naming of the producer on menus and scotch eggs made from happy pigs are all new and only possible because of the visionary chefs, farmers and campaigners who know that Britain has the best produce in the world – beef, lamb, salmon, cheese, apples and on and on. You’re probably five minutes from an apple tree that has just dropped its season’s fruit on the ground. Why aren’t we eating it? We used to export it all but now we are cooking and eating it.

It makes our cuisine truly ours to create and eat. Look back at Great British Food with irony perhaps, but look forward with relish.

slowfood.org.uk
growsheffield.com/pages/groShefAbund.html

From Eccles Cake to Hawkshead Wig: A Celebration of Northern Food: by Laura Mason, Catherine Brown

British Regional Food by Mark Hix

Delizia! The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food by John Dickie

As part of the Rotherham Open Arts Festival the 1st of November saw the Old Market Gallery swing it’s doors open on the new ‘Rotherham Roots’ exhibition featuring some ruddy awesome local talent in the form of Michael Latimer and Pete McKee.

The collection includes work from many local artists in the form of installations and sculptures as well as prints and paintings. Alongside illustrious work will be a ‘Schools Gallery’ as the festival has been working with local schools to place artists with them and produce works on the concept of ‘Rotherham Roots’.

Don’t worry if you’re not in a school in Rotherham though! The exhibition is open for the whole of November and is free to attend – well worth the trip to we reckon.

Over the course of the past three years and across many of the city’s exhibition spaces and galleries, the team behind Prism have been curating, running and featuring in shows that have caught our attention at Now Then. So, we thought that their tenth show a perfect occasion to tell those yet to experience their work a bit more about what they do, as well as why we love them so.

Since their inception at the Showroom Cinema back in 2008, Prism have put on bi-monthly contemporary art events events citywide, with the structure and flow of each event constantly evolving to fit the work being shown.

That said, there is a strong, consistent feel to the Prism shows, as they all have in common both the fact that they feature live music and are all in some way interactive experiences, which again lends itself to the evolution of the events whilst allowing accessibility without the often necessary compromise on quality.

Gathering momentum with every show and having showcased the work of 130 new and established artists, we strongly recommend you pop along to this milestone event. It promises to be the best yet and, for all those reading this that find more traditional art exhibitions stuffy, or consider yourselves to be outside the usual demographic of attendees of ‘arts events’, this could be the one to open that door and get you appreciating art the way it it should be; over a drink, a chat and with a live soundtrack.

Hope to see you all there.

Words: Ben Jackson.
Images: Prism.