The Rachel Divide | Mother Clucker | (B)old | Elmet | The Boring Talks...
Every week we round up our top picks of the week from the latest food haunts and must-watch releases to our favourite podcasts, unmissable art exhibitions, and page-turning books. Our weekly previews are loaded with bright ideas for the week ahead.
VISIT: (B)old is a new festival for the Southbank Centre, opened by Zandra Rhodes, as she flies the flag for art and creativity for the over 65s. A Bold and diverse line up that has all the right ingredients to change perceptions of old age, it features a dance rendition of Shakespeare’s Lear by New York veteran dancer Valda Setterfield, the dazzling show Up Yours! from Drag Queen Lavinia Co-op, and a true life powerful monologue, Moving the Goalposts from BAFTA award winning actress Cheryl Campbell. A chance to learn the secrets of the wise, the festival also includes in-depth talks with internationally acclaimed reggae poet Linto Kwesi Johnson and author and illustrator Judith Kerr OBE. Supported by The Baring Foundation, the event also invites expert speakers to a variety of panel discussions including Sex after dawn, Prime and Fashion Fades only Style Remains. Age ain’t nothing but a number…or is it? Check it out for yourself.
(Bold) is on from 14-20 May. Admission/ ticket prices vary. Visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk for the full programme and follow @baring_found for updates.
WATCH: The Rachel Divide, a powerful, fascinating and thought-provoking documentary providing an insight into the life of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who identifies herself as black and believes race is a social construct. Slammed by the public for appropriating blackness, called out for lying about her identity, and accused of fashioning fake hate crimes, Rachel’s story will make you question her motives and wonder what compelled her to cause so much uproar. It will fire up a whole host of heated debates from whether she should have ever been given a platform on Netflix to wider questions about race and identity - can you choose your race if you can choose your sex? Is her blackness a performance? When does identity trump reality? And how could she be the former leader of the NAACP's Spokane branch? If you haven’t already, watch it until the end even if it makes you mad.
The Rachel Divide is out now on Netflix. Follow her, or don’t @RachelADolezal
DINE: at Mother Clucker, South London’s much loved Southern Fried Chicken joint that’s finally upgraded from a cluck truck to a permanent restaurant in Exmouth Market. Serving up fried chicken that’s been ‘tea brined, buttermilk soaked, twice battered fried chicken’, the menu includes the Mother Clucker Signature strips, Cluckwich, Cajun fries, extra HOT sauce, super strong coffees and a host of New Orleans inspired cocktails. With 50% of food and drink from May 15-16, before the official opening on May 18, what the cluck are you waiting for?
Follow @motherclucker on twitter for updates
READ: Elmet by Fiona Mozley. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize last year, and now out in paperback this spring, this debut novel by 30-year-old writer Fiona Mozley explores contemporary British society with a brooding backdrop of history. Gathering stunning reviews, the novel draws inspiration from Ted Hughes, the author’s own resonance with the Yorkshire landscape, and from moving and original observations about family and social tensions. Described by the Telegraph as “a violent elegy for the loss of rural community” and by the Times Literary Supplement as “cleverly constructed rural Gothic fable”, Elmet has been one of the most talked-about books of recent years and Mozley has firmly established herself as the new ‘one to watch’ in British fiction.
Elmet by Fiona Mozley is published by John Murray and is now available in paperback from all good bookshops and online retailers. @FJMoz @Artellus
LISTEN: to The Boring Talks, BBC podcast presented by James Ward. Is there any better way to grab someone’s interest than by telling them a subject is boring? Well this highly original, quirky and tongue-in-cheek new podcast proves the boring can be, well, really rather interesting. Presented with the good-natured irony of James Ward, each week a different expert from a background such as natural science, design or retail is invited to deliver a 12-minute talk on their fascinatingly boring specialist passion. From the geological delights of basalt (the most uninspiring rock in the world), to the science of sneezing to the unremarkable phenomenon of British earthquakes, each episode delves into a new and seemingly unremarkable topic. With the tagline ‘behind every subject there is a layer of boringness you could have never imagined’, this simple podcast concept is a triumph of self-deprecating humour and a wonderful window into the hidden charms of the world’s geekiest subjects.
Download and subscribe to The Boring Talks at the BBC website:
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