ROTUNDA MAGAZINE
DECEMBER 2011
OTUNDAMAGAZINE
EDITORS NOTE
ISSUE
ONE
Finally after months of work we can now announce that the first issue of the magazine has arrived! Which is so exciting for us.
In this first issue we explore Birmingham’s broad and diverse cultural environment. We have had such fun exploring Birmingham and visiting new areas and interviewing such interesting people about the diverse city we live in. We start the magazine gaining backstage access and insights to Birmingham’s Royal Ballet for the run up to Christmas and explore their seasonal production, The Nutcracker, and a look behind the scenes at the amazing costumes and props that feature in the Ballet. Also in this Decembers issue we took a couple of days where we explore Digbeth and the well known Custard Factory which is home to galleries, fine artist’s independent shops and restaurants. It has one of Birmingham’s largest nightclubs and live music venues. While we were in the area we got an insider’s perspective on Digbeth’s current situation and find out whether it has a sustainable future or not? Linking to the music scene we have an interview with local rock vocalist, Steve Gibbons and we talk to him about his career and future plans with an exclusive insight into an album release for next year. We all want to know where good places are to eat in the city so we got a taste of oriental cuisine as we did our very own food review at one of Birmingham’s Vietnamese restaurants, Cafe Soya, which had great fresh food with fabulous flavours and is situated in the heart of Birmingham, The Arcadian Centre. We end this issue with a touching story about alcoholism about who it affects and how it changes other people’s lives. Enjoy, Rotunda Team.
CONTENTS
FUTURE OF DIGBETH
STEVE GIBBONS
DRESSING THE ROYAL BALLET
CAFE SOYA
LAST ORDERS
ROYAL BALLET
DRESSING THE
This is a very busy time for the skilled wardrobe staff as they mend costumes some as old as twenty years such as the silk trousers worn by the male dancers in the Arabian dance scene. All the sugar plum fairies’ tiaras need repairing, rat heads, dresses, heavily decorated and fragile costumes all need cleaning. Finally the costumes must be fitted on to the frame of a dancer whose individual sizes can very. The costumes are painstakingly fitted and organized ready for their opening performance. Huge warehouses are crammed with rails that are home to hundreds of outfits, there is an atmosphere and a familiar, comforting smell...leather, dust I guess. Rolls and rolls of material are stacked on shelves with the name of the production they dress hanging quite proud on old labels. It really is a feast of texture and colour for a photographer. The staff in the work shops are very helpful, one lady, a milliner from Kent, drags out a huge travel basket, big enough to get into, and pulls out The Rat King heads and tails which are very life like and disturbing close up. I didn’t try one on. Boxes of precious and delicate tiaras are opened for me to photograph and I have a cup of tea whilst learning about the company from the girls working in this room. I am told the costumes have been designed by John MacFarlane, who also designed the costumes for the Cinderella Production. In the warehouse fittings take place, the fitter is preparing tutus and dresses and shows me the many different hooks and clasps attached to one costume in order to fit the frames of many dancers.
CULTURE
I have seen the nutcracker, I found Sir Peter Wright’s production beautiful but dark, with a definite, eerie fairy tale feel. This certainly transcends to the wardrobe department as I discovered when I took my camera there in November during the run up to the Nutcracker.
My favourite room was the shoe room, the ballet pumps lend themselves so well to photography as the light catches the silk. They are all stacked tidily in their own dancers pigeon holes and I capture some great shots. The most gruesome things I come across are the wigs and the head moulds with pins sticking out of them, I joke that it’s like hell raiser but I think it was slightly lost on the girl lacquering wigs in the small room. The paint room where the shoes are dyed is very interesting, a mannequin bust leans eerily against a wall. Paints, dyes and coat hangers fill this place. I noticed the cupboard where all the dyes are kept, splodges of paint dribble down the door as they’ve been tested, it all fits into the palpable slightly dark atmosphere, which I hope I have captured. Maybe its because its November, dark and cold outside. However I think it is a genuinely quirky environment filled with quirky people doing quirky things. The company regularly travel abroad to perform from Great Britain to Japan and Canada. It’s hard work I am told, but it does sound glamorous. The Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker runs from Friday 25th November to Sunday 11th December. To book tickets to see the Ballet or make a reseervation in the Hippodrome’s Circle or Stageside Restaurants you can phone the Birmingham Hippodrome on 0844 338 5000. Tickets start from £15 and discounts for full time students, disabled patrons, over 60’s, under 18’s, school groups of ten or more and public groups of ten or more are available. For more informaton regarding production running times, ticket prices, seating arrangements and cuisine at the Hippodrome surrounding this production, visit:
www.birminghamhippodrome.com.
FUTURE OF THE CUSTARD FACTORY
The Custard Factory has always been a place I like the idea of visiting when in the city centre, somewhere cool to hang out when I was younger for a coffee and some shopping and somewhere to go for a good night out dancing and bumping into most of Moseley. Occasionally I venture there nowadays and soon feel at a loss. There is no exhibition on the main site, only one fashion outlet and a very friendly, neutral café which does not straddle from day to night as previous Custard Factory refectories have managed. (Café des Artistes, Rooty Frooty, the Medicine bar). It’s very quiet and the newly refurbished Zellig building is a cold place, home to, as far as I can see, a bridal and corsetry shop and a retro clothing outlet. I am not painting the best picture but my point is to high light where the Custard Factory has been and where it’s headed. Things have changed very much since 1992 when the site was acquired by Bennie Gray. Communications and culture has changed and new generations have different needs and indeed bring new talents to the table. Having discussed the Custard Factory with a number of it’s first regulars it seems that the rose tinted spectacles may be partly to blame for their disapproving opinions. They remember when the Custard Factory was one of the only places in Birmingham where you could get a coffee and have a place to gather. Like- minded ‘creatives’, musicians and artists would meet up almost every night of the week and something would always be happening at The Medicine Bar a few yards away from where they sipped their cappuccinos at The Kitchen, now empty and divided into separate spaces. The hub of the Custard Factory is The Lake, which is surrounded by small shops, most of which are currently empty. This is what I personally could not understand, is it the recession? Is no one trying to rent out the space or is there a real lack of businesses and enterprises? I decide to talk to Dave Peebles, the site manager, to try to understand what is happening to The Custard Factory, how it regards itself and how it aims to move with times. Also top of my list was to find out where is the creative buzz?
Interestingly we meet at The Crown, an old traditional pub which has the potential to be very cool but is just an old traditional pub despite itself. It is warm and cosy and there are plenty of people, many of whom Dave knows from the Custard Factory. It strikes me as strange that The Custard Factory itself does not house somewhere for its clients and employees to unwind after 5pm. I talk to Dave about all of the above, although in a much more sympathetic tone. He believes that there is a strong sense of unpretentiousness about Birmingham and somehow this filters in to everything it does. It makes it different form other leading cities such as London and Manchester. Dave used more historical references to point out that Birmingham was an industrial city until recently and this communication and technologies age is something we are still grappling with here. We are not as commercial as other cities and are not quick to change attitudes, in fact we are not fans of change. I tend to agree with Dave loosely, after all he is from Glasgow, and he has an outsider’s perspective. So what has all this got to do with The Custard Factory? Well despite this Brummie unpretentiousness the Custard Factory is an innovating and forward thinking cultural centre. Not only does the custard factory boast over 400 businesses and enterprises within it’s offices it also houses a branch of Microsoft ‘Rare Games’ . Dave picks up on ‘the lack creative buzz’ I complained about. ‘Everybody’s upstairs working that’s why you don’t see so many people’. The cafes and bars were always good distractions for young post graduates renting offices here and invariably, those were the ones who would fail. The Zellig complex for instance now has it’s own ‘common room’ built into its office spaces where people can play pool, have meetings and make use of the free wi-fi. The Custard Factory’s diverse tenants include fine artist Stephen Earl Rogers, winner of the BP portrait prize 2009 and exhibiting in Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery, Jacob Kimmie, a fashion designer who recently showed at London Fashion Week, Capsule and North One television, makers of the Gadget Show.
LOOKING INTO THE
One of the things that stood out the most in what Dave had to say about the Custard Factory is this ‘If you could create the space where John Lennon met Paul McCartney you’d have the perfect formula for success but its not about places, it’s about people’. They have come to realise this more and more adds Dave. They have recently employed a young talented person (karen. patel@custardfactory.co.uk) to join the team to promote the custard factory and bring in more creativity and more diversity. It would seem that I was rather short sighted as Bennie Gray and family have their eyes on the future. He now owns acres and acres of land in Digbeth and hopes to create accommodation for thousands of ‘creatives‘. The Zellig building is in its early stages but if we take his son Lucan’s project in to account it would be hard to imagine Zellig not taking off in the same way. Fazeley studios is home to a number of design companies including Clusta, Fluid Tak and Substrakt. The idea behind the Digbeth project is to promote entrepreneurialism and creativity and the site is likely to be the largest in Europe.
FUTURE
Dave throws in some more good points… students who may have hung out here before had government grants for their studies and could afford to doss around for a while. These days they have huge loans to pay off and quickly go into work or simply can’t afford to drink all day. Also Birmingham does have a habit of losing its young beautiful things to other cities at the helm of the creative industries. And yes the economy has affected small business. However Dave adds that they are still inundated with requests for space but the Custard Factory does not want a steam of unsuccessful businesses, this is equally bad for the appearance of the site as having ongoing empty shops.
There is another 20 years of Digbeth development to go so we’re sure Lucan will follow in Benies footsteps and perhaps his grand children and their children…the buzz it would seem is thriving, but it’s thriving in the offices of the busy people working, it’s thriving in the Custard Factory head quarters where plans are getting underway for bigger and better things for Birmingham.
THE GREEN HOUSE, GIBB ST.
SITE OF CAFE DES ARTISTES
THE LAKESIDE
STEVE GIBBONS
Gibbons wasted no time returning to the music scene. Building on the fan base he gained over the last decade, a number of short lived projects followed, such as Gibbons’ band “The Balls” in which he teamed up with The Move guitarist Trevor Burton. It was not until 1971 that Gibbons slowly became a well known name in the music industry. 1971 was the birth of Gibbon’s new band “Idle Race” which quickly became the Steve Gibbons Band. Gibbons again toured around the clock with his new band, playing many local gigs in Birmingham until he was finally spotted by The Who’s former manager Peter Headen. Headen secured The Steve Gibbons Band a deal with label Polydor, and it was at this point in his career that Gibbons finally reached stardom. Touring alongside the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Electric Light Orchestra and The Who, Gibbons’ name finally broke through to the mainstream. His surroundings where not too stable at this point however, and in 1981 his band line-up changed and switched labels RCA Records. He and his band produced five albums between 1971 and 1986, one of which being the critically acclaimed “Down in the Bunker”, a testament to his career. Gibbons continues to tour and produce material with an array of other projects, most notable “The Dylan Project” formed by Gibbons at the end of the 1990’s but still going strong today. It is fair to say that Gibbons has had one of the most interesting careers in the music world, starting out small and slowly becoming a nationally renowned name in the Rock Scene. He has had his fair share of trials and tribulations, and to mark his survival and success over the years Gibbons is releasing a compilation album of his life’s works.
BIRMINGHAM ARTIST
Despite the ongoing evolution of The Uglys, it was during this time Gibbons got his first taste of success and recognition. 1963 saw Gibbons and his other band mates signed to Pye Records and two years later he gained chart success, with the song “Wake Up My Mind” composed partly by Gibbons himself. Gibbons enjoyed a growing fan base and more achievements in the charts up until 1968, when he became the last original member of The Uglys left in the band. Trouble with The Uglys’ Manager in the same year led to Gibbons finally leaving the band for good.
Steve Gibbons’ Compilation of his life’s works will be available in two volumes: ‘There and Now’ set for release in January 2012, ‘And Some Otherwheres’ set for release in Spring 2012 Both albums are available on Road Goes On Forever Records.
Over the years, blue collar Birmingham Musician Steve Gibbons has had a rather turbulent career. Starting out at the end of the 1950’s, Gibbons began his life in the world of Rock & Roll as the lead singer of “The Dominettes”. Much like Gibbon’s future, The Dominettes faced several changes in their three year lifespan, before being renamed “The Uglys”. The name change did not stop the constant evolution of the band however. Gibbon’s stayed with The Uglys for eight years, facing various line-up changes, relentless touring and a change in musical style from The Dominettes’ signature Rock & Roll sound to a more current, psychedelic theme in the late 60’s.
CAFE SOYA
Situated among other restaurants that specialise in food from around the world, Cafe Soya is one of the smallest there. First impressions, well it wasn’t the most modern decoration that I had ever seen however it was authentic with traditional Oriental music and a calm pleasant peacefully atmosphere. We were seated and given menus by polite well attentive staff and the menu had a great range of dishes from the starter’s t the mains, which made it hard to decide what to have. Situated on the table there was a specials menu which offered a very good deal with a selection of the cuisine which was from the main menu. From the special you were able to pick a drink, main dish and then a desert. As we looked at it we decided to try the special and add a starter each to it which worked out very good value for money. Once we had ordered we didn’t have to wait long at all for our first starters. The first plate consisted of fruity spare ribs which looked more of a main dish offering good portions, then came over the steamed Vietnamese pancake wraps which texture was different but tasted so good with strong flavours that worked well together. Then the final starter we had ordered was spring rolls which were a very manageable size and not greasy to eat at all, which I was surprised at. While we were enjoying the stared we noticed the condiments on the table consisted of a pot of chilli oil to help yourself to however that was it. We had to ask for the use of chopsticks as they were not offered to us but happily obliged after we asked which added an authentic touch to the meal. The main dishes were pretty quick after we had eaten which didn’t allow much rest between meals. However, saying that it was delicious and packed full of flavour. I had the Vietnamese chicken salad and the portion was very large again so ended up taking a doggy bag home. While we were waiting for our desert we were interrupted by a lady who had been allowed to go around and ask for charity money, which I felt interrupted, the meal while people in the restaurant were eating and the staff should not have really let her in. Although that is the only real negative I have about the lunch. The end of the meal was finished off by having soya bean deserts, I did wondered what it would taste like but once it came out it looked very different to anything I had tried before but surprisingly enjoyed it and felt it clean my palette after a lot of string flavours through the started and main dishes. Overall Cafe Soya offers a wide selection of dishes which are very good and unique and would defiantly return and advise other people to go. We all enjoyed the meal especially me as had never had this type of cuisine before and felt it was good value for money as for three of us to have three courses it only cost £31.65.
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FOOD REVIEW
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LAST ORDERS
Were you aware that November was alcohol awareness month? I certainly wasn’t until I did a search on alcoholism for this article. I had been at my doctor’s surgery and not seen anything there, nothing on television or radio and nothing in the papers to my knowledge. We call alcoholism a disease but do we treat it like a disease? I don’t believe so. There is still very much stigma attached to drinking as it has many unsociable consequences and we as a society focus on the damage that drinking does and demonise the drinker. If it is a disease though shouldn’t the focus be on finding out more about this illness and stopping it from ruining many lives? Having spoken to an alcoholic for this piece the, un-named man (currently sober) believes that the attitudes toward someone who has developed lung cancer from smoking is different to the attitude toward someone with liver disease from drinking; that it is more frowned upon to be a drinker. I did not set out to make a comparison between smoking and drinking but it has been a useful approach to highlight prejudice toward alcoholism. Media tends to tackle drink problems in a very narrow way, i.e. focusing on hooliganism and young people out binge drinking being disorderly. Yes this is a problem for our society, but these issues could be controlled through government measures and controls on bars, pubs, clubs and licensing. The man I interviewed told me of a disturbing incident in his life, which occurred in hospital after a spell of drinking, which became uncontrollable. He was coughing up a lot of blood but was left waiting for hours having been told it was probably a burst capillary, it turned out to be a pulmonary embolism and he was lucky to have survived. “If you appear soporiphic in a hospital you are definitely treated with less regard“.
There is the general understanding in society that drinking damages the liver. This is true but drinking can have other unexpected health implications such as Embolisms, Type Two Diabetes, Gangrene, ephalactic shock and sudden death. There is so much to discuss about alcohol I’m surprised we aren’t discussing it more in our culture especially as it goes hand in hand with much of our history and culture. However, with Christmas approaching faster than ever, it would be appropriate to put a thought out to the overwhelming burden of alcoholics who will find it especially difficult at this time of year to remain sober amongst all the merry making. Alcohol hospital admissions rise by 40% over the Christmas period so on that note take care and drink responsibly.
PEOPLE
Although organisations do exist for alcoholics such as AA and Aquarius, it is so hard to reach out to people in trouble. AA is not for everyone and Aquarius can offer education and counselling.
ROTUNDA