Latest news with #Alterations
Fashion Network
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Fashion Network
Flagship Westfield Good Festival Returns this May
Major sustainability event Good Festival is returning to Westfield London (16-18 May) and Westfield Stratford City (23-25 May) with a programme of free workshops, masterclasses, and eco-conscious experiences. In partnership with resale platform Depop, the events are created 'to inspire and empower visitors to embrace sustainable choices across fashion, beauty, and lifestyle'. The centrepiece to this year's festival is the 'Style to Sell Studio', an exclusive activation at Westfield London, designed to 'upskill' visitors to become experts in turning their pre-loved fashion into profit. It invites visitors to bring up to five items of clothing or accessories they no longer wear to learn how to restyle by a team of expert stylists led by fashion sustainability advocate and former fashion editor, Bay Garnett. A professional photographer will also be on hand to direct sellers on how to capture high-quality images against carefully curated backdrops. Photos will be optimised for resale platforms like Depop. Alongside the Studio, the Westfield Good Festival also offers a host of activities 'to educate and inspire', including Depop Marketplace; Creative Workshops & Masterclasses; repairs specialist SOJO Alterations & Repairs; and Refill & Reimagine with beauty retailer Kiehl's Katie Wyle, director of Shopping Centre Management, Northern Europe at malls operator Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, said: 'Our How We Shop Research reveals the Eco-Fluency trend with 57% of Gen Z and millennials planning to dedicate the majority of their clothing spend to pre-loved items in the near future and two in five consumers calling for high street brands to offer second-hand alongside new collections. 'This year, our partnership with Depop brings the vibrant energy of digital resale culture into the physical space, whilst our Style to Sell Studio offers opportunities for shared learning and a more conscious, empowered community.'
Fashion Network
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Fashion Network
Flagship Westfield Good Festival Returns this May
Major sustainability event Good Festival is returning to Westfield London (16-18 May) and Westfield Stratford City (23-25 May) with a programme of free workshops, masterclasses, and eco-conscious experiences. In partnership with resale platform Depop, the events are created 'to inspire and empower visitors to embrace sustainable choices across fashion, beauty, and lifestyle'. The centrepiece to this year's festival is the 'Style to Sell Studio', an exclusive activation at Westfield London, designed to 'upskill' visitors to become experts in turning their pre-loved fashion into profit. It invites visitors to bring up to five items of clothing or accessories they no longer wear to learn how to restyle by a team of expert stylists led by fashion sustainability advocate and former fashion editor, Bay Garnett. A professional photographer will also be on hand to direct sellers on how to capture high-quality images against carefully curated backdrops. Photos will be optimised for resale platforms like Depop. Alongside the Studio, the Westfield Good Festival also offers a host of activities 'to educate and inspire', including Depop Marketplace; Creative Workshops & Masterclasses; repairs specialist SOJO Alterations & Repairs; and Refill & Reimagine with beauty retailer Kiehl's Katie Wyle, director of Shopping Centre Management, Northern Europe at malls operator Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, said: 'Our How We Shop Research reveals the Eco-Fluency trend with 57% of Gen Z and millennials planning to dedicate the majority of their clothing spend to pre-loved items in the near future and two in five consumers calling for high street brands to offer second-hand alongside new collections. 'This year, our partnership with Depop brings the vibrant energy of digital resale culture into the physical space, whilst our Style to Sell Studio offers opportunities for shared learning and a more conscious, empowered community.'
The Guardian
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
New play about impact of dementia on Black Britons can start ‘conversation'
Part of the creative team behind a new play about the impact of dementia on a Black British family hope it can provoke a conversation about the disease, which disproportionately affects Black Britons. Miss Myrtle's Garden is part of Lynette Linton's final season at the Bush Theatre in London, and the artistic director said the 'beautiful and heart-wrenching' production was an important opportunity to discuss the havoc dementia causes. A report released in 2022 found that Black people had a 22% higher incidence of dementia recorded than white people in the UK. The play will be directed by Linton's successor Taio Lawson and is written by Danny James King. 'Dementia, particularly in the Black community and in the Caribbean community, is a conversation that we need to talk about more,' Linton said. 'It's affecting so many people … let's talk about it now and let's give people the support they need.' Linton's final season will also feature Superwoman Schema, which stars Golda Rosheuvel and Letitia Wright as two women struggling to come to terms with the death of their family's matriarch. It's about 'what that brings out for them and their relationship as they go on this journey to to work out what her death means,' Linton said. Several of the plays in Linton's final season focus on older characters and those in middle age. As well as Superwoman Schema and Miss Myrtle's Garden, Sweetmeats looks at forbidden love between two middle-aged South Asian characters. Linton recently directed Alterations at the National Theatre, which was a revival of a play by Michael Abbensetts, the ground-breaking British-Guyanese playwright who became established in the 1970s. She said there wasn't a conscious effort to include stories about older people in the season, but she did feel more stories that revolve around middle-aged Black and Asian leads need to be created. 'What's so beautiful about Sweetmeats is it's a love story between these two elders: how often do we see a love story between characters of a certain age? 'I think that's happened because there's something about us honouring our elders at this point as well. I feel very passionate about that. I've always felt passionate about that, but Alterations has really opened that up for me.' Other plays in Linton's final season including After Sunday, which is set in a cooking class that takes place in a prison psychiatric unit; Heart Wall, Kit Withington's play about the challenges of returning home as an adult, and House of Jenin, written and performed by Alaa Shehada. Linton is taking a break after she finishes at the Bush in two weeks before returning to direct Superwoman Schema. She has been a vocal advocate for creating a more diverse theatre landscape in the UK and for 'disrupting' the established canon with new work and rediscovered pieces that go beyond the likes of Ibsen, Pinter and Miller. She said: 'It was about really looking at the canon and making a decision to tell specifically British and Irish stories with a specific focus on Black and Asian voices, so that we could go: 'Look, we are here, and our stories are deserved to be in the West End.'' Her six-year run as artistic director alongside associate director Daniel Bailey who is also leaving, has seen more than 50 plays performed that were written by British and Irish playwrights, with a particular focus on writers of colour. During the pair's tenure they won four consecutive Olivier awards for productions and earned West End runs for original work, including Red Pitch and Shifters. They also founded the Bush Young Company during the Covid lockdown, and produced Lenny Henry's debut play, August in England. Did Linton have any advice for new boss Lawson? 'Follow your instincts … and remember the people that are around you are the heartbeat of that building,' she said.
The Guardian
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The week in theatre: Alterations; A Knock on the Roof review
Let's hear it for costume designers. The temptation for a reviewer has always been to regard their work as primarily decorative, not informative; seldom mentioned unless the stage is crammed with silken flounces. An old journalist friend told me that in the 50s, Queen magazine reviews had a formula: the cast was 'beautifully gowned'. Imagine getting away with a description of an actor which said only that she spoke very nicely. Yet costumes can tell the story of a play as surely as the dialogue. Never more so than in Alterations, the 1978 play by Michael Abbensetts, who came to Britain from Guyana in 1963, had his first play directed at the Royal Court by Stephen Frears, and was the first black British author commissioned to write a TV drama series in the UK: Empire Road ran on BBC Two from 1978 to 1979. There are numerous alterations in Abbensetts' drama, which has been retrieved from the Black Plays Archive. A tailor whose parents came to London from Guyana is trying to alter his prospects and buy a shop in Carnaby Street. To do so – the task has a fairytale dimension – he has to alter a huge batch of trousers overnight. Meanwhile, British society is creakingly, grudgingly altering: kids are called 'darkie' at school. Frankie Bradshaw designs set and costumes for Lynette Linton's production: the two worked together to glorious effect in Blues for an Alabama Sky three years ago. Bradshaw wires you into the heart of the action. The 70s are summoned in an orange onesie for a determined woman, a rose-tinted velvet suit with wide brown reveres for her raffish admirer, a trilby for the man who has commissioned the trouser tucking. Dreamlike, the past drifts on in the form of a stately, straw-hatted Windrush matriarch; the future in the shape of a young black man in tracksuit and earphones. Garments become scenery as clothes rails crowded with shirts swish down from on high, but this decor is never only naturalistic: amid the clutter of Singer sewing machines, tape measures and bolts of cloth, the shirts arrive like lovely promises, but also, being bodyless, like wraiths. Which goes to one of Abbensetts's central, simple points: financial success may come at the expense of human warmth. Arinzé Kene, the tailor who gets his shop but loses his marriage, is vivacious, hustling and bustling across the stage, but the strongest performance is from Cherrelle Skeete – soaked in sadness, growing into resolve – as the capable wife who, having been strung along and patronised, claims her independence. Her part is bolstered by additional script from Trish Cooke that points up the casual disregard of women's viewpoints: a man ringing the hospital to ask if his wife has given birth is bemused by her inability to get a move on. Genial, larky, with small touches of melancholy, Alterations is more atmospheric than incisive. In June, Linton will direct another drama about a person of colour whose profession is clothes. Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel, about a black seamstress who makes knickers in 1905, is delicate and far-reaching. It was a revelation to me 11 years ago and I am agog. The title of Khawla Ibraheem's one-person show is itself a piece of information. What sounds like a small incident – perhaps a spooky occurrence in an attic – is a blood-freezing indicator of a large terror. Ibraheem's roof is in Gaza, and the knock is a minor explosion, the warning that the Israeli military give to residents that a bombing will take place in five to 15 minutes. A Knock on the Roof is in some ways very particular. How often do bombers exercise that terrible parodic courtesy of the tipoff? The setting is precise: the evening begins with the speaker's young son begging to go to the beach – not part of Trumpian real estate but a public playground, washed by a dirty ocean. The life of an individual city is evoked: one whose streets are suffused by the smell of baking a special pastry – one that is brilliant at producing constipation. Yet the psychological study that drives Oliver Butler's production – a study of what happens to humans if they are always afraid – could be the product of any war, of anyone under siege. Ibraheem rehearses what she will do when she hears that knock, going through the procedure much as people did years ago when told they might receive a four-minute warning of nuclear attack. She practises what she will pack and what she can carry. She turns to her audience for advice: someone suggests taking a cardigan, another a passport, a third perfume. She makes up a bundle the weight of her son to see how much she can hold as well as him. She cleans the house obsessively; she worries what will happen if her elderly mother is on the toilet when the knock comes. And she runs: into the evening through the city, seeing how far she can get in 10 minutes. A desolate, haunting backdrop designed by Frank J Oliva shows a skeleton apartment block with dislocated beams swinging from various ceilings. Ibraheem talks of the sensation of being looted. It goes beyond the physical. This is the portrait of a ransacked mind. Star ratings (out of five) Alterations ★★★ A Knock on the Roof ★★★ Alterations is at the Lyttelton, National Theatre, London, until 5 April
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'We need to see queer creatives making decisions to show we're here'
Cherrelle Skeete speaks to Yahoo UK for Queer Voices, sharing her story, representation, and reflecting on her new play Alterations. She is an actor, writer and co-founder of Blacktress UK known for Hanna, Black Cake, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and for voicing Orisa in Overwatch. Alterations is in production now at the National Theatre, and it is running until 5 April. I think we're seeing more representation in front of the camera but I think we need to see queer creatives in the room, with commissioners and the people who are getting to decide how things are being made so we can get platforms to be able to make more work. The more we can see reflections of a variety of people, of different parts of society, the better it is. What we're here to do is to tell stories about people, and we need all people involved to be able to effectively do that. People seeing some of my plays or some of the characters that I'm playing that are both visibly queer and out and proud or questioning, I think, is really important. It's important to add to that canon of work of previous people who have represented queer roles, or who are queer themselves, because otherwise we can look back on this time and we can believe that we weren't here, and that we didn't make a contribution, and we have impacted the huge positive parts of our culture and society. In terms of art, culture, food, music, we are everywhere. How we take care of children, how we take care of ourselves, we are everywhere. And as it becomes more hostile we have to remember that and affirm ourselves, and I think through characters, through story, it can be affirming. To be part of this production of Alterations, it feels really ancestral. I've been using the words past, present, and future, every existence is happening all at once with this production because it feels like we're getting to honour Michael [Abbensetts], the writer, this Guyanese writer who's a really important part of Black British playwriting in this country. But also to be Darlene, the one female character in the play, we've been able to have a fresh look at her with the additional material that we've created with Trish [Cooke, writer] and Lynette [Linton, director] and I feel really honoured. So it feels like I'm working with and conjuring and channelling the spirits of my grandma, my grandmothers actually, my aunties, women that I've probably felt in my waters but never met. And I hope that they, specifically the older generation, feel represented and seen through Darlene. The theatre is a safe space for queer people because it's about community. I feel like theatre is a space where we can imagine, it's a vision-building space. I suppose the big difference as a performer that you have within screen and theatre is you have time, so over that period of time you are cultivating a village, your theatre family. There is no hiding in theatre and I think that's the beauty of it, the hope is that people can be themselves and that's what I love about about theatre — the hope is that we're creating more spaces where people can be themselves and feel safe. In the musical Fun Home I played Joan. There's this song [in it] Ring of Keys and in that song the main character sees this butch lesbian walk in with a ring of keys. They're just walking in with their dungarees but this little girl sees, somehow, a version of herself in this person, and it's so beautifully encapsulated. Jeanine Tesori, who wrote this song came and explained the song to us and we all broke down and cried because there is something so powerful about a child seeing themselves, affirming themselves in the world and saying 'I exist, I am here and I am important and I contribute'. When there is so much signalling in the world that says the opposite that is what story can do, that is what all mediums of storytelling —whether through video games, film, TV, theatre, music— can do, it is affirming us. I run Blacktress UK with my lovely partner Shiloh Coke, and in terms of it being a space — it was inspired by Audre Lorde, and she speaks a lot about community being a force of liberation and I feel like whenever you bring people together intentionally, specifically those that have been on the fringes like Black women or AFAB [assigned female at birth] people, you give the resources and and space and time and it always moves to a place of healing. That was the first point of call to people who felt isolated, to bring them together, and to have dialogues and specifically intergenerational dialogues, people who are coming into the industry for the first time and those that have been in the industry for many years but maybe haven't been seen or recognised. In terms of queer people, we've got intergenerational dialogues happening amongst AFAB women who been in our sphere for many years. And there's the younger generation teaching the older generation and the older generation teaching the younger generation, and being able to have those dialogues and conversations, especially through acting as well, is really important. Some of my queer models, I have to shout out Lady Phyll, who is one of the founders of UK Black Pride. That is a national holiday in our home, we are there every year and just seeing the work that she does with her charity Kaleidoscope globally, going to visit so many different countries advocating on behalf of queer people, being able to just be visible, is incredible. And even just learning about how UK Black Pride started, literally a group of Black lesbians going to the beach and having a party and now it is one of the biggest Black Prides in the world so I have to shout out Lady Phyll who is a queen. I'm going to say Munroe Bergdorf, who is an incredible model, activist and just how they use their platform and their voice is just so inspiring. Ted Brown, one of our elders who was there from the beginning in terms of Pride in the UK, he organised the first Gay Pride Rally in 1972 where there was a mass kiss-in which showed just incredible bravery and deep compassion for oneself to just be who you are. Another queer icon that we should all know about is Pearl Alcock, she was part of the Windrush generation who created spaces for LGBTQ+ people and had parties in a shop that she owned. I think that's really important part of the Windrush generation that we don't get to hear about because they were queer and here too. She used to host queer parties in Brixton out of a shop that she bought for herself, but it was like 'we're here'. I'm telling the story of the Windrush generation in Alterations, but the queer ones as well they were there. The ones that came over from the Caribbean and for them to have spaces for them to be. themselves and powerful spaces for queer people, especially gay men, in the 1960s, 1970s, I just think that is so radical. In terms of music there were people who didn't necessarily say they were queer but it was the signalling for me, so I have to shout out Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes from TLC because I was a big TLC fan, I grew up on them. Seeing these women in these baggy clothes who say 'ain't too proud to beg', talking about sexual politics, about love and friendship, was just beautiful and they were just so in your face fun — you wanted to be friends with them. And I'm a massive Janet Jackson fan, I am an original honorary fan, Missy Elliott as well. These were incredible artists, because I grew up on MTV and I was a music video kid so I watched their music videos and watched what they wore, how they moved, how they did their makeup, how they did their hair, how they were just cool — I was very inspired by these incredible people. A big film for me was The Colour Purple, that was amazing. Seeing two Black women loving on each other in that way that was just really empowering. Also seeing themselves as being beautiful and seeing beauty in each other, I think that's really important too — especially when we look at what the beauty standard have been. To see beauty in blackness it was delicious. And also Set It Off, Ursula and Cleo were a hot couple. Who doesn't love an all female heist? That was like the film, and seeing how she spent her money on lingerie for her girlfriend come on. Those are the two big representations, and then of course The L Word as well. That was big, and then obviously from that Generation Q and Orange is the New Black. I loved Master of None, which had Lena Waithe and Naomi Ackie who were just incredible. That whole storyline between the two of them was beautiful. Also, the Keema Greg storyline in The Wire and her being this incredible detective who is building a life with her wife — I think that storyline is really, really important, seeing this really incredible working Black lesbian, who is also trying to manage married life, and she's kind of failing at it, I think that that's really important because we're messy and complex. Pose, I'll go back to Pose because it's foundational, I know these are very American centric shows but what I would love to see more is a British representation. Seeing more of those carried over and more investment into Black British, and brown, storylines within the UK. I would love to see more of that. I think for those struggling with negativity towards the LGBTQ+ community I'd say: you have to go to where love flows. My hope is that, if you struggle to find that love within yourself, you can be in spaces where you can be reminded that you're loved, and that's all different types of love — platonic love with your friendships, community, love with people that don't necessarily know you on a personal level but you can be in a space and just feel that high vibration. There are spaces for you, even more so now it's important to be in those spaces and to have dialogues with people. I'm from Birmingham, we talk to people on the street, we keep it moving. It has to be love in action, not just a noun, it's a doing word. It's love in action because of the challenges that we're up against. Being intentional with where we're going, with the words that we speak, because the thing is you can't change someone else's behaviour, you can only change your behaviour. So when there are those things outside that are negative. it's like you have to double down on the love even more. If there's one negative thing that's out there you best find five loving things, whether that's a poem, listening to a song, contacting someone that you love — be in a space where you can experience love. That's work, but the hope is that it's this nourishing thing, and we can nourish each other. The biggest lie they have us believe in is that we don't need each other, we do. Community is everything, it's how we nourish ourselves, especially when we feel drained we have to be able to feed each other. The future of queer storytelling is broad, it's expansive. It's continuous. It is the foundation of our society, we ain't going nowhere, period. We're not going anywhere. I think for those of us that are storytellers, whatever it is that you're doing, continue doing it and share your work. If you're a bedroom poet, share your poetry. A spoken word artist? Go to open mic, go and just be yourself in spaces. Share your work, especially within the world of art.
