Arts Articles
Leighton Park arts - The Crucible by Arthur Miller
In February Leighton Park staged its senior production, The Crucible. The language is challenging; the narrative gripping; the location atmospheric; the characters beautifully drawn. At Leighton Park, we wanted to concentrate on the emotional content of the play. Student actors often find it difficult to come to terms with the...
Ackworth drama - Hairspray
‘Last term we performed the musical comedy Hairspray. The story explores prejudice against size and race in 1960s America. I played the role of Penny Pingleton, the main character’s best friend. Penny, a quirky, geeky, ‘in-her-own-little-world’ girl, brings with her the majority of the comedy in this play. Her...
Celebrating the liberal tradition
In the world of charitable trusts and foundations the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust is known nationally and internationally as a funder of radical causes that challenge injustice and inequality and aim to create a better, fairer world. Within the Society of Friends in Britain and Europe it is seen primarily...
Dancing with the Spirit
‘Now, let’s have a barn dance!’ Not, you might think, the most obvious opening for outreach, but this was the line which Philip Gross credits with starting him on the road to Friends. It was his first time in a Meeting house, sometime in the early 1970s, at the...
Venice: a city marked by genius
Legend has it that saint Mark was once shipwrecked upon an island in the Venetian lagoon. An angel came to him saying: ‘Peace be with thee, O Mark, my evangelist’, whereupon the angel predicted that on this very spot would arise the most beautiful city the world would see. Cynics...
Deborah Warner: an interview
Hard Rain
We learn a lot about big environmental disasters but we may overlook the pollution we ourselves cause. Lights left on in empty rooms, car journeys that could have been cycle rides, heat pouring out of badly insulated homes, shopping taken home in single-use plastic bags. Our small acts of pollution...
Festivals in poetry: Menorah
Of truth, teacups and wineglasses
The first programme of his BBC television series on the history of Christianity (5 and 8 November) showed professor Diarmuid McCulloch pouring oil into a glass of water and a few minutes later adding red wine to water in another glass. He was presenting the difference between two fifth century Christian theologians’...
Child of Light
Anyone who was in Bull Street Meeting House, Birmingham on Saturday 24 October – and around forty of us were – had another musical treat from The Leaveners. A choir of some twenty-four people, all ages and backgrounds, had gathered at 10am that morning and worked hard with John Sheldon, accompanist, learning the...