Call the Midwife star backs fight to save theatre
A star of the BBC hit drama Call the Midwife has made an impassioned appeal for funding to protect the future of a Scottish theatre which inspired her to become an actress.Laura Main is backing a campaign to save Aberdeen Arts Centre, which is facing the threat of closure after a recent bid for £170,000 funding was rejected by the city council.Those running the theatre say they're determined the curtain won't fall for a final time and have launched a public appeal for help.Aberdeen City Council said the funding application submitted by the centre wasn't accepted as it didn't meet its guidance for grant-giving.
The centre, which is operated by Castlegate Arts, has been staging productions since the 1960s, hosting a number of well-known amateur dramatic groups and community projects.It has now launched a £660,000 fundraising appeal over three years, with an initial target of raising £180,000 by 1 July this year.Main, who is from the city, and plays nurse Shelagh Turner in the popular series, featured in many performances at the arts centre as a teenager.She told BBC Scotland News the experiences inspired her to pursue a career in acting."When I first stepped foot in this place at the end of the 80s, that was the moment that made my life go in a certain direction," she said."It's about the community, it's about coming together as a team and putting on shows."It's just a really incredibly special place, that means an awful lot to a huge amount of people."The thought of Aberdeen losing this place is quite frightening really. It would be tragic."
The Centre's Interim Executive Director, Sharon Catchpole, said the centre filled a gap in the city that other venues couldn't match."We've got this fantastic building but the maintenance and the cost of and heating and lighting it is significant - and rising all the time," she said."We have, 35 different community amateur groups that use us, 35,000 people come and see our shows, and some of those groups have 2,000 plus children who need backstage space."We have found ourselves in a situation more recently where funding that we were used to getting, we didn't succeed in obtaining, so that's put us in an even more precarious position."
Ms Catchpole said they still had bookings until 2027, were "very much still open", and were continuing to operate in a normal way – but they needed the public's help."We are looking for people to dip their hands in their pocket and please just give us a small amount. It all counts," she added."Just please help us to save our Aberdeen Arts Centre."An Aberdeen City Council spokesman said: "The Castlegate Arts application to the council's culture investment programme, which was considered at the budget on 5 March, did not comply with the 'following the public pound' guidance for grant giving."Unfortunately, the council is not able to provide any financial assistance to organisations which do not meet these national legislative requirements."Castlegate Arts continue to receive support from the Common Good fund to cover the costs of renting the art centre from Aberdeen City Council."He added that council finance officers had scheduled a meeting with the centre's accountants at the end of the month.
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Daily Mail
15 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Couple discover nursery picture of them sitting next to each other seven years after falling in love
When electrical engineer Micheal Moore dropped his crush Ashleigh a message on Instagram in 2018, he was hoping for a chance to meet-up. Luckily for him, Ashleigh instantly replied, and the pair, both from Runcorn in Cheshire, hit it off. Within a few years they were married with a son. But incredibly the couple's love story started decades before, unbeknownst to them. The couple, now both 26, actually attended the same nursery and even sat next to one another in a class photo - something they didn't discover until seven years after they got together. In a nursery school picture that had been gathering dust in a box at Ashleigh's parents' home, the couple spotted two familiar faces staring back at them. 'It wasn't until we were moving out and sorting through pictures at our parents' house that we found the picture and realised we were sitting next to each other. 'We couldn't believe it. It was a lovely feeling to know that we've been a part of each other's lives for so long.' Ashleigh, a stay at home mother to the couple's three-year-old son, Alfie, shared the image on TikTok where it has been viewed almost 800,000 times and received more than 400 comments. She is expecting baby number two this July and their families could not be happier that they ended up together. 'Our family and friends absolutely love that we ended up together and call us childhood sweethearts. 'We had a brief relationship in secondary school at the age of 13 for a few months but remained close friends as we were in the same lessons. 'We left secondary school at the age of 16 in 2015. 'Michael went to Chester to do an apprenticeship and I went to sixth form so we lost contact. 'It wasn't until 2018 that we got back in contact through Instagram.' The cute photo that Ashleigh shared online received adoring comments from viewers - and even led to others sharing their own stories. One person said: 'Love how you both have the same expression on your face. So cute. Congratulations.' A second viewer said: 'Oh I love a happy ending. I married my childhood sweetheart who lived six doors from me. Boyfriend and girlfriend since age nine and still together both age 62 now. 'This is me with my husband too. Our nursery photo together was handed round our wedding during my dads speech,' added Shannon. Another person said: 'Currently looking at who's sat next to my children in their pictures and wondering if any will be their future spouse.' 'Wow. That is the cutest thing I've seen today, fair play,' added a fifth viewer. It comes after another couple lucky enough to rekindle a decade-old relationship - albeit one with a very different beginning - were UK-based Zoe and Michael. Club promoter Zoe, who fell in love on holiday, restarted her relationship and ultimately got married to her fling – 10 years after they first met each other. The 33-year-old was working in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, giving out shots, when she met Michael, also 33, who was on a lads holiday in 2012. The pair enjoyed a sparky holiday romance, meeting several times during Michael's trip. Zoe even made a passing comment to a friend about Michael – claiming she had met the man she'll 'marry one day'. Michael returned to Leeds, Yorkshire, after a week, while Zoe flew back to the UK a few months later to start a course at the University in Bournemouth, Dorset. Five years later, Zoe sent a drunken message to Michael and, to her surprise, the connection was 'still there'. The pair resumed their romance and Zoe left her job as an Emirates air steward, moving to Leeds to be with Michael. They went on tie the knot in May 2022, 10 years after they first met on holiday, and recently welcomed their firstborn, son Leo, in February 2023. Zoe, a content creator, from Leeds, Yorkshire, said: 'When I met Michael, I remember saying to my friend, "I've met the man I'm going to marry." 'During that holiday, he said the same thing to his mates about me. 'I never in a million years imagined I'd actually marry him 10 years later. 'Despite losing contact, the connection was still there. 'It's not all been plain sailing, but I'm so glad I followed my heart.' Zoe was working as a promoter in Cyprus during the summer of 2012, while taking a gap year before starting university. Michael was on a lads holiday when he first crossed paths with Zoe. She said: 'We met when I was encouraging them to come in for shots. 'I don't remember what we spoke about, but I remember how he made me feel. 'There was an immediate connection, and I had this gut feeling about us.' During Michael's week-long trip, they met up several times for dates on the Island. They exchanged numbers and continued messaging when Michael returned home a week later. Zoe flew back to the UK in September 2012, ready to start university. She said: 'We were both in very different places in life. 'He was focused on his career, and I was about to start my course. 'We ended up drifting apart, but we kept liking each other's photos on Facebook.' Five years later, in 2019, Zoe had just gone through a break-up when she met with a friend. They started discussing past relationship, and her friend reminded her of 'Michael from holiday'. 'We had a few bottles of wine, and I looked him up online,' she said. 'He had two children but was also single. 'I genuinely wasn't expecting anything to come from it, but I sent a drunk message to see how he was doing. 'It was like no time had passed. 'We immediately hit it off again.' Zoe, who was working as an air steward at the time, ended up leaving her job and moving to Yorkshire to live with Michael in 2020. The pair were hit with lockdown but despite the difficult circumstances, they made it work. She said: 'It was definitely tough at times - I moved my entire life there. 'I never expected to become a stepmum. 'But we took it all slowly, and the kids were so welcoming. 'Through all of it, Michael was so loving and supportive. I knew I had made the right decision.' During a trip to Greece in September 2020, Michael proposed to Zoe and they started planning the wedding. They tied the knot two years later in Athens, Greece, in May 2022, with 55 close family and friends. 'We met near Greece, so it's always been very special to us,' she said. 'The proposal was perfect, and it really cemented my feelings that I'd made the right decision. 'It was such a magical wedding.' In 2023, the couple were overjoyed to welcome their son Leo, 20-months-old. Zoe said: 'We've got through difficult times, but throughout all of it I've had Michael by my side. 'Things might not always be the fairytale you envision, but if put in the work it could be so much better.'
The Guardian
20 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Saddle up for Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour
Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour, which kicked off in California in April, began its European leg in London last week. I went to the first show and considered the legacy-making significance of this latest evolution in the singer's long career – and the part that left me cold. As a native of Houston, Texas, Beyoncé grew up surrounded by cowboy culture. Between 2001 and 2007, she performed four times at the city's Livestock Show and Rodeo, which was launched in 1931 to promote agriculture through live entertainment and ended up as the largest rodeo in the world. When you consider the depth of southern tradition this generation-defining artist is steeped in, it seems all the more remarkable to be in north London and see people from all corners of the world assembling to become spectators of a rodeo that is all Beyoncé's own. Outside Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, there are people in cowboy hats, encrusted with rhinestones or with veils attached; cow-print vests; embroidered boots with spurs; double denim, bandanas, alligator skins and shirts with fringes. Though revellers are greeted with grey skies and a forecast of rain, spirits are high, and their presence summons the sweltering climate of Texas. I speak to a woman named Marieles, wearing a white and denim cowgirl costume, who has come to London from Panama. It is her second long-haul trip to see Beyoncé – she attended the Renaissance tour in Amsterdam in 2023. Is she as excited by the Cowboy Carter album, Beyoncé's dive into country music? 'I love the impact and the message that it brings,' Marieles tells me. 'I feel very empowered as a Black girl with that album. I'd never heard country music before and it taught me a lot about the history.' The same is true for Cornelius from Germany, who is at his fourth Beyoncé concert. He tells me that on Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé sings with 'a lot of love and passion' and that he has become 'more open' to country music after listening to it. A Beyoncé country album had long been predicted. Daddy Lessons (one of my favourites from her 2016 album, Lemonade) was the singer's first explicit foray into the genre. The track sparked controversy when Beyoncé performed it with the Chicks (then the Dixie Chicks) at the 50th Annual Country Music Association awards (CMAs). Naysayers from the Nashville country music establishment asked why Beyoncé had been invited to perform – her musical background supposedly too R&B and hip-hop, her activism through music the antithesis of the Republican-dominated mainstream country scene. The Chicks, of course, had experienced a formidable backlash in 2003 for expressing shame that George Bush came from their state of Texas. The lead single from Cowboy Carter, Texas Hold 'Em, was a runaway success, hitting the top spot in 19 countries (including the US and the UK). Significantly, it also reached No 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart in the US, the first record by a Black woman to do so. Unveiling the album's artwork, Beyoncé suggested that her experience at the CMAs had inspired Cowboy Carter, saying it was 'born out of an experience that I had years ago, where I did not feel welcomed … because of that experience I did a deeper dive into the history of country music and studied our rich musical archive'. This resulted in Beyoncé inviting Linda Martell, the first Black female singer to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, on to Cowboy Carter as well as including excerpts from Roy Hamilton and Son House on its radio station interludes. This attempt to assert the presence of Black Americans within the history of country music is framed even more vividly on this tour. Its visual storytelling provides an all-singing, all-dancing archive of Black American music that is so alive and dynamic, and which contextualises the voices and instruments you hear. After all, the secondary title for the Cowboy Carter tour is The Rodeo Chitlin' Circuit, a reference to the performance venues that catered to African American patrons and commercially sustained Black performers in the era of Jim Crow segregation. And God, does this show live up to that entertainment tradition. From her fringed chaps and gloves to her custom Versace-print dresses, Beyoncé looks magnificent, while the stage design is grand and kitschy, with two neon bar signs that say 'salon' and 'saloon'. At various points, she flies across the stadium on a giant neon horseshoe and a Cadillac, and she rides a gold mechanical bull for a sultry performance of Tyrant. I first saw Beyoncé on the Formation World Tour when I was 19, and have caught every tour since. This is the most confident and carefree I have seen her – she is visibly having fun. The Cowboy Carter tracks translate so well to the stage, too, with Riiverdance, II Hands II Heaven and Flamenco being particular standouts – on Ya Ya she evokes the ferocious, theatrical rock'n'roll style of Prince and Tina Turner. All the ancestors are summoned for the Chitlin' Circuit. On large screens, during performances and interludes, images of Black America's musical iconography are projected at the audience. There's a clip of Chuck Berry playing Johnny B Goode at Hullabaloo A Go Go in 1965; a 1932 performance of Cab Calloway and his Cotton Club band's melancholy hit Minnie the Moocher; Nina Simone singing I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free at Montreux Jazz 1976; Little Richard blazing through Lucille in 1957; Sister Rosetta Tharpe singing The Lonesome Road in 1941 and Berry blasting You Can't Catch Me in the 1956 film Rock, Rock, Rock! Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion The references are neverending but they don't feel like a fleeting history tour. Instead they emphasise how a genre that has been co-opted and framed as 'not Black' has a long history of African American pioneers, many of whom forged careers in a segregated US and laid a path for so many others, including Beyoncé. It is interesting to me, though, that after the opening performance of Ameriican Requiem, which, live, has the soulful beauty of a cathedral choir, and her cover of the Beatles' Blackbird, Beyoncé then sings The Star-Spangled Banner, taking her cue from the incendiary rendition that Jimi Hendrix performed at Woodstock in 1967 in protest against the Vietnam war. The meaning of national symbols such as the anthem, and the American flag projected on the screens before the performance, have a new resonance in the era of Trump 2.0. Can the iconography of such regressive, destructive and supremacist political movements even be redeemed? Beyoncé clearly believes that it can. On the screen she wears a sash reading 'the reclamation of America' – and there is the view that these symbols, like American music, should be strongly reaffirmed as an intrinsic part of Black American identity, especially at a time when Trump is attempting to wash African American history from record. Certainly, I can see that it's important for Black Americans to express pride in traditions they had a fundamental role in creating. Yet this flag-waving still leaves me cold. Last year, at Kamala Harris's presidential campaign rally in Houston, Beyoncé appeared alongside her friend and former Destiny's Child bandmate Kelly Rowland, describing herself and Rowland as 'proud country Texas women'. Harris had been under fire during that campaign for her support of President Joe Biden's arming of the Israeli state in its onslaught against Gaza. Hendrix's protest, meanwhile, took place under the Democratic president Lyndon B Johnson, who sent Americans to fight in Vietnam, and drew chants from protesters such as: 'Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?' Americana imagery can't be neatly divorced from the imperial aspects of the state – and the musicians who Beyoncé admires knew this well. Even if there are debates still to be had about Beyoncé's political aesthetics (we have been here since at least her self-titled 2013 visual album), you walk away from Cowboy Carter with no doubt that she is the greatest performer and artist of our time. Some have taken the mood of the tour, the montage of images from Beyoncé's personal history, and the return of seemingly long-retired tracks including If I Were a Boy and Why Don't You Love Me as an indication that she is inching towards retirement – but I have never seen a clearer example of a performer who will not be slowed down by naysayers or knee injuries. The rodeo queen rides on. To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.
BBC News
21 minutes ago
- BBC News
'There was a real gutsiness about them': How the heiresses dubbed the 'dollar princesses' brought US flair to the UK
The rich, glamorous women of the gilded age who married into the English aristocracy faced some challenges – but they were resilient, formidable characters. As TV's The Buccaneers season two begins, and an exhibition in London is devoted to them, we explore the lives of the women who inspired writers and artists. Can the new Duchess of Tintagel steer clear of scandal? Will her fugitive sister, Jinny, keep her baby from the clutches of her husband, the monstrous Lord Seadown? Can Mabel and Honoria's forbidden love flourish? The Buccaneers, Apple TV+'s hit period drama, is back for a second season, and its legions of fans expect answers to all of the above. The show charts the romantic adventures of a group of young American women – two pairs of sisters and their friend – who, looked down upon as nouveau riche by older, grander New York families, come to England in the 1870s and cut a swathe through high society. Fast-moving, fun and visually sumptuous, it looks as though the costume budget alone could dwarf the entire expenditure of lesser shows. It is lavish, colourful escapism – yet the unfinished Edith Wharton novel of 1938 upon which it is based was inspired by a real phenomenon. Between 1870 and 1914, 102 American women – 50 of them from New York – married British peers or the younger sons of peers, and many more married into the upper classes. They were dubbed "dollar princesses" and the popular view was that these were purely transactional marriages – cash for class. The women gained a title and status; the often cash-strapped aristocrats got a welcome injection of money to help them fix the leaking roof of the crumbling family seat. "The decline in landed income during the Great Agricultural Depression, beginning in the 1870s, necessitated numerous male aristocrats to seek marital alliances outside the inner social network of the British aristocracy," explains Maureen Montgomery, a historian and Wharton scholar who is currently editing The Buccaneers for the Oxford University Press's The Complete Works of Edith Wharton. "Another factor was the openness of the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, to wealthy businessmen being part of his inner social circle and his penchant for the beautiful and entertaining daughters of the American bourgeois elite who were travelling in ever larger numbers, after the Civil War, to Europe." The first inklings of a novel to be called The Buccaneers appear in Wharton's notebook for 1924-1928. There she set out the plot, revolving around the "conquest of England by American adventurers & adventuresses/families". "In the summer of 1928, during one of her many annual trips to England in her later years, she visited Tintagel in Cornwall and stayed with her close friend Lady Wemyss at her Cotswold estate, Stanway," Montgomery tells the BBC. "Both of these places became significant settings for the novel." However, Montgomery doesn't believe that there is any one particular story or person that the writer drew upon. "Wharton had close friends among the British aristocracy, and went to weekend country house parties. She personally knew a number of titled Americans. She would have been familiar with various scenarios for these marriages, how they were received, the different motives for marrying," she says. Some historians have suggested Consuelo Vanderbilt as one of the possible models for The Buccaneers' Conchita Closson. Considered a great beauty, Consuelo was a "dollar princess" whose father made a fortune in railroads. Her dowry was worth tens of millions in today's money. She was more or less bullied by her mother into marrying Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, and was said to have wept behind her veil at the altar on her wedding day in 1895 (one of nine US heiresses to marry English aristocrats that year). More like this:• The true story of the first ever 'rock star' chef• Age of Innocence: How a US classic defined its era• How history's brutal witch trials resonate now The marriage was deeply unhappy. "Sunny", as the Duke was known, wasted little time in telling her he'd only married her for her money and in order to save Blenheim Palace, the ducal seat. In her memoir, The Glitter and the Gold, Conseulo wrote of a Blenheim Palace butler who had drowned himself: "As one gloomy day succeeded another I began to feel a deep sympathy for him." Her marriage produced two children but both Consuelo and her husband had lovers. Consuelo had been preceded into the aristocracy by the godmother after whom she was named. The Cuban-American heiress Consuelo Yznaga Montagu, another model for Conchita, married George Montagu, Viscount Mandeville, in 1876 and became the Duchess of Manchester when he inherited the title. The profligate duke burned through his wife's money and had numerous affairs. Consuelo, who is mentioned in Wharton's notebook, was reportedly very close to the Prince of Wales. 'Swashbuckling beauties' Both Consuelos feature in Heiress: Sargent's American Portraits, an exhibition of 18 works by John Singer Sargent at Kenwood House on London's Hampstead Heath. The show has been curated by Wendy Monkhouse, English Heritage Senior Curator (South), and is the result of two years' work. "There was a real gutsiness about these heiresses," Monkhouse tells the BBC. "They were brave. They had a hard time entering British society as foreigners, and foreigners of whom everybody was envious and resentful and wanted to take down a peg or two because of this 'buccaneer' trope." They were, supposedly, swashbuckling beauties who leapt aboard the good ship Britannia and, with piratical ruthlessness, bagged themselves a baron or an earl or maybe even a duke. The English newspaper editor WT Stead used the expression "gilded prostitution" when writing about these transatlantic marriages. There was opposition from the US too, at the highest level. President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his ambassador to the UK Whitelaw Reid in 1906, "I thoroly [sic]… dislike these international marriages… which are based upon the sale of the girl for her money and the purchase of the man for his title." And plenty of ordinary Americans hated the idea of all that wealth leaving the country and being squandered on wastrel British aristocrats. This wasn't what they'd fought a war of independence for. But Monkhouse argues that the moniker "dollar princesses" does the women a disservice. "I think it's a term that has been tossed around for a hundred years without very much thought, apart from in academic circles," she says. "The more that you delve into it, the more it falls apart. I think Consuelo Vanderbilt, though she doesn't call herself a dollar princess, sort of defined the genre in that she was a very rich American who was, not by her own choice, married for a title and then was unhappy." However, other women whose images are featured in the exhibition had very different stories. Daisy Leiter, glamorous and independent-minded daughter of a Chicago real estate magnate, was considered quite the catch and not just for her money, as Sargent's magnificent portrait shows. She was bombarded with proposals but married Henry Howard, the 19th Earl of Suffolk. It seems to have been a very happy love match and produced three sons. In later life, Daisy further exemplified the adventurous spirit of many of these women by becoming a helicopter pilot. Another of Sargent's subjects was Cora, Countess of Strafford. Her name is echoed by that of a famous fictional "dollar princess", Cora, Countess of Grantham, in Downton Abbey. Julian Fellowes has said that one of the inspirations for the series was a book about American heiresses called To Marry an English Lord. The real Cora was a Southern belle who married the 4th Earl of Strafford after the death of her first husband, toothpaste baron Samuel Colgate. The Earl died just five months after the wedding when he fell on to railway tracks at Potter's Bar. The incident prompted much gossip, as did the fact that Cora wore her coronet sideways at Edward VII's coronation. One of the best known of the women in the Heiress exhibition, represented in both an oil portrait and a charcoal drawing, is Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, the daughter of a Virginian railway tycoon and the first woman to take her seat as an MP in the House of Commons. She had regular clashes with Winston Churchill, whose own mother, Jennie Jerome, was the daughter of a wealthy New York speculator and financier. There's a splash of politics in the new season of The Buccaneers that sees Nan realising that her elevated social status gives her power and influence, and beginning to wield it. Buccaneers showrunner Katherine Jakeways read extensively on the "dollar princesses" before writing began on the series, and she draws on their stories, as well as the Wharton text. "You imagine that the girls who came over were interesting to the men because (a) they were beautiful, (b) they were American and (c) they were rich, but actually what's really interesting is that (d) they were much better educated and much more encouraged to be confidently involved in society [than their English counterparts]," she tells the BBC. "In New York their opinions were sought whereas girls in England, as we show with Honoria in Season one, were asked not to speak or have an opinion." Like their real-life counterparts, the women in the show don't conform to reductive stereotypes. "Our characters are complicated and have depth, and we try to make all the relationships have some kind of resonance for a contemporary audience," says Jakeways. "And hopefully it's just really good fun." Season two is another rollercoaster ride that remixes all the successful ingredients from the first series. Will there be a season three? I'd bet an heiress's dowry on it. The Buccaneers Season Two premieres on Apple TV+ on 18 June. Heiress: Sargent's American Portraits is at Kenwood House, London, until 5 October. -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
