arts
having toured with Billy Bragg, Frank Turner and Will Varley across Europe. His new album, Son of the Smith, flits between tackling social and small ‘p’ political issues and the personal. The album has been described as “soundtracking our social conscience well into next year”.
www.musicglue.com/seanmcgowan/
Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival Edinburgh 13-22 July This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, welcoming musicians from across the world and featuring a panoply of promising newcomers, music legends and a host of famous names making their Edinburgh debut. Among the many highlights are
Kurt Elling, Davina & The Vagabonds, Mud Morganfield, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Jools Holland, The Average White Band, Jerron ‘Blind Boy’ Paxton and Curtis Stigers. Chair Jason Rust says: “We’re celebrating with a bang.”
www.edinburghjazzfestival.com
Book
Game Changer by Steve Howell Has Jeremy Corbyn being elected leader of the Labour Party hastened the downfall of the print media? Journalist and NUJ member Steve Howell, who last year worked on Corbyn’s general election campaign, didn’t ask this question – but he might have answered it. This account of Howell’s time as Labour’s deputy executive director of
Book review Thriller with an old-school hack
The appearance of an NUJ press card in a novel is a new experience for me. Even if I take issue with reporter Jan Mason’s view of the union – ‘impotent since Rupert Murdoch’ – I’m sure we can agree when she says there is a longstanding respect for our work. Mason is an old-fashioned hack
struggling to cope in a modern, hit-driven, web-obsessed newsroom, who uses old-fashioned techniques (ie going out of the office and talking to people) to report on a terror attack on a mosque following the London Olympics. As she continuously scoops her
deskbound colleagues, it raises the question: if newspaper owners
strategy & communications details how the mainstream media’s ‘groupthink’ mentality negatively shaped people’s perception of Corbyn and, as a result, lost many people’s trust.
“The Tories fed smears to their friends in the national press and most newspapers happily played along,” he says. Howell gives the inside line
on Team Corbyn’s battles with the media, including accusing the Andrew Marr Show of breaching BBC guidelines by ambushing Diane Abbott, the verdict on radio station’s LBC notorious ‘car crash’ interview with Abbott (‘they could have given listeners the facts, but giving Labour a bashing was much more fun’), attacks on Corbyn after the
Spotlight: play recalls singer-songwriter Joe Wilson Real-life Victorian tales in song
North east playwright and longstanding NUJ member Ed Waugh has written a drama about Tyneside-born singer- songwriter Joe Wilson. Wilson was able to encapsulate an
epic story in a song. His subject matter ranged from love, death and moving house to supporting
workers on strike. He wasn’t afraid to tackle the horrors of domestic violence or drunkenness. His prose is a vibrant record of working class life on Victorian Tyneside. “Incredibly,” Waugh tells Arts With
Attitudes, “Joe’s work is still very popular in the north east, nearly 150 years after his death.”
A teetotaller after he managed a
pub throughout 1872, Joe died of TB in February 1875 aged 33. The play is based on a new book
Gallowgate Lad: Joe Wilson’s Life & Songs by Dave Harker, and will feature Wilson’s words put to music by singer/songwriter Pete Scott. Touring in September.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/ TheGreatJoeWilson/events/
invested in proper reporting and news, not clickbait, would we see a reverse of the industry’s declining sales? But that’s not the point of London
freelance member Ridley’s first novel. The former BPA Sports Journalist of the Year has written an entertaining thriller of murder, revenge and loyalty that tiptoes around reporters’ post-Leveson tensions with the police and captures well the ego-driven rivalries of a newsroom. Even though we know right from
the start whodunnit, we don’t find out until near the end whyhedidit. Even without the interest of a journalist subplot, this easy-to-read tale is a page-turner.
Manchester bombing and ‘unrecognisable’ reports leaked to the Mail on Sunday. He details how Labour learned to
bypass the mainstream media as much as possible –’a progressive leader facing a hostile media is never going to be allowed to side-step attacks’ – how, by tackling tough issues proactively, Corbyn was able to reframe debates and how social media played a key role in Labour reversing a decline in votes that started under Tony Blair. I found Game Changer a fascinating analysis of how the media shapes a general election, but you might prefer the politicking or the personalities. It’s a compelling insight into the heart of the campaign. If Jeremy Corbyn has hastened the downfall of the print media, wouldn’t
The Outer Circle by Ian Ridley is published on Unbound.
https://unbound.com/books/ the-outer-circle/
it be ironic given his longstanding support of the NUJ and our campaigns?
www.accentpress.co.uk/ game-changer
Comedy
Felicity Ward: Busting a Nut Touring Fresh off the back of her new BBC Radio 4 series (Appisodes) and a Netflix special (Live from the BBC), multi-award-winning comedian and regular co-host of The Guilty Feminist Podcast Felicity Ward embarks on her second nationwide tour with a brand new show.
www.felicityward.com
Tim Vine: Sunset Milk Idiot Edinburgh Festival, then touring
The king of one-liners – “I went to buy a watch,
and the man in the shop said ‘Analogue?’ I said ‘No, just a watch’ “ – returns to the Edinburgh Festival, telling lots of silly new jokes, showing off homemade props and singing some new daft ditties. He promises to address pixie football, jet-propelled Y-fronts and the modern postal system.
www.timvine.com
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