As those who know me or have read about some of my visits to Champagne cellars across France and Cava cellars in Spain will know, I very much enjoy those grape bubbles in a flute glass.

Recently I was invited to the BBC Club’s big birthday. The BBC Club began 100 years ago in London and, like many current and former BBC staff and freelancers, I am pleased to be a member. While the Club might not have racked up 100 years in the North, for its many years in Manchester and now in Salford, Lizzie Dignam has ably managed it. Both Lizzie’s and her late husband’s names are synonymous with the BBC Club in the North, and I was pleased to attend the celebrations with my husband, Bob.

The event was to take place in a craft beer brewery around the corner from Media City, Salford. As I had never been inside a brewery, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to do so. I had read that the July moon is known as ‘The Malt Moon’, so I took this as a good omen.

I expected the brewery to be a cold, uninviting place, probably a bit dark. “Where will we sit?” I wondered.

I loved the name on the side of the building – The Hideaway Brewing Co – because who knew there was a brewery just minutes’ walk from Media City? This was my first learning curve because, on further research, I found a map of craft breweries that are based around Salford Quays and beyond.

On this occasion, however, it was the owners of Hideaway that I would ask to educate me on all things craft beer.

On entering the building, I soon became aware that a brewery can be an inviting place to visit. The craft beer making vessels (at that point I did not know their proper titles) stood bright, shiny and silver-coloured to my left. There were rows of metal barrels and, surprisingly, there was an on-brand colour scheme of black and orange in the seating area.

The look was completed with some cool artwork on the walls, a set of drums and the all-important bar with names of the craft beers over the top. The list included such names as American Pale, California Common, Rooster, Bullfrog and, even Pineapple Wheat. How exotic!

The owners, Dan Wright and his wife Nat, were busy serving customers, but Dan very kindly took the time to share their brewery’s story, and to explain to me just how some of various colours of craft beer being imbibed by customers came to be.

No doubt Dan will shudder at my grasp of brewing, but here goes. Craft beer is made through a process called brewing, which involves several key steps. First off is “malting”, where the barley grains are soaked in water and allowed to germinate. Once they start to sprout, they are dried in a kiln. This process develops the enzymes that will later convert the grain’s starches into sugars.

Next up is “Mashing”, where the malted barley is mixed with hot water to create a mash. This activates the enzymes, converting the starches in the grain into fermentable sugars. The result is a sweet liquid called wort.

The wort is boiled, and hops are added. Hops are flowers that give beer its bitterness, flavour, and aroma. Boiling also sterilises the wort to ensure a clean fermentation process.
Fermentation happens next, where the boiled wort is cooled and transferred to a fermentation vessel. Yeast is added, which eats the sugars in the wort and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide. This process can take from a few days to a few weeks.

After fermentation, the beer is often conditioned, which means it is left to mature. This can be done in the same vessel or in bottles or kegs. Conditioning helps develop the beer’s flavours, and can also carbonate it naturally.

Once the beer has matured, it is packaged into bottles, cans, or kegs for distribution and enjoyment.

So, craft beer is made by carefully turning grains into a delicious, bubbly drink through a series of steps that involve cooking, fermenting, and conditioning. Each step is crucial to making the beer taste exactly right!

I asked Dan just why he decided to turn grains into craft beer – how did his story begin? Like many of us, Dan has changed careers dramatically during his professional life, but the homebrewing was constant from early adulthood. Following years in hospitality, Dan faced redundancy and so retrained, adding to his degree by attending university at night, gaining CIPD accreditation and being offered a job in HR. Dan continued his education in order to take his Masters while working in the corporate sector and then, in 2020 Covid hit. Nat was pregnant and Dan decided it was time to take his hobby out of his garage and into the world.

After acquiring all the necessary licenses, Dan took his craft beer to produce markets, and his craft beer quickly attracted aficionados. At that time, he used a third-party brewery and produced his beer in cans. Feedback was good and, in 2022, Dan and Nat procured the lease on a warehouse on Salford Quays. Working day and night, they turned it into their own brewery, naming it the Hideaway Brewing Co. As Dan explained, “Craft brewing had been my hideaway in the garage for many years, so the name seemed appropriate. Our Salfordian family emblem has always been the fox, hence Rusty the Fox being on our branding.”

Hideaway has not stayed hidden for long, with their cans bearing the fox emblem being seen as far as Sheffield and the Lake District. The barrels are dispatched to catering customers nearer to home, as they must be returned and cleaned before reuse.
So, what next for Dan and Nat? They tell me a food offering begins this week, and they insist it will be “on brand”.

Having received my first lesson in craft brewing, I have realised there is so much to learn; I have only touched the surface of the magic that makes the foaming liquid.

Sadly, my education is complete as, for me, my bubbles will always be the ones in a flute glass. However, I left the brewery with a respect for craft beer and its brewers everywhere!

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The show premiered in Paris under social distancing conditions last summer and comes to Salford Quays and Central Manchester for a 6-week run in a production partnership between Aria Entertainment, WEF Productions and The Lowry.

C-o-n-t-a-c-t is an immersive, two-hander outdoor performance featuring a captivating 3D sound design for a unique sensory experience.

The story explores timely themes of mental health and anxiety through a moving and unexpected encounter between Sarah and a man, who she believes to be a stranger. The audience gets an insight into Sarah’s mind as she discovers the man can hear her thoughts. But who is he and how can he do this?

Audience members download the audio from a new app which synchronises the spectators and actors, allowing the show to play with theatrical concepts and a new form of dramaturgy. It is an audio experience which involves no direct speaking from the live actors.

To ensure strict social distancing between audience members, tickets are limited to 17 per show. The show runs for 50 minutes without an interval and ticket holders will receive a link to download the app and exact location details.

C-o-n-t-a-c-t Presented by Aria Entertainment and WEF Productions runs from 18 May – 29 June 2021. Visit the Lowry website for more details. The Lowry is also running a series of digital events during the lockdown including drama, comedy and heritage tours.

Tom Finkill – from quiz host to community champion

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And it is all down to Mary and Alan Gillatt, who’ve been running the pop-up store every Christmas for 13 years to raise money for Francis House children’s hospice.

The couple’s involvement with the charity goes back 30 years – even before the hospice was built.

At that time, Mary was chair of the charities commission for McVities and was approached by the person who later became administrator for Francis House asking if, as the biggest employer in the area, McVities would help to fund-raise.

“I remember coming to the Town Hall to see the plans for the hospice,” says Mary, “and we initially raised £10,000 which we thought would furnish and decorate a bedroom.”

Once the hospice was up and running, Mary’s fundraising at McVities helped to buy the hospice its first minibus and together with her work colleagues she ran all kinds of events to help support the charity’s work.

Now retired, Mary and her husband, Alan, who used to run a charity shop for Francis House, are still heavily involved in the work of the hospice. And have raised more than £280,000 through their annual Festival of Trees.

“The idea initially came from David Woodrow, who was the fundraising office manager and had seen a similar scheme on a visit home to Zimbabwe,” Mary explains. “He’d seen decorated Christmas trees around a shopping mall and each was auctioned off for a different charity.

“We didn’t think we could put trees around a mall, but thought about the idea of a shop of trees. We approached the Lowry Outlet, which at that time was owned by Emmerson, and they very generously offered us a unit.”

Since then the Lowry Outlet has offered the charity a unit every year without charge, Mary and Alan run the shop as volunteers, open the same shopping hours as the other Outlet stores, with all funds going directly to Francis House.

“It’s long hours, hard work and we have a domestic now and again,” Mary laughs, “but we love it. We meet loads of lovely people. It’s a great way of putting something back, and I always say whenever you volunteer for anything you will get back far, far more than you ever put in”.

This year there are 52 decorated trees up for auction, all sponsored by different organisations. People place bids on the trees and the highest bidder on the closing date of 8 December gets to take home the fully decorated tree and presents to go under it. And there are some amazing and unusual gifts, including £500 of Selfridges, vouchers, a family holiday to Tunisia, hampers, hand-made decorations, and gifts from the casts of Coronation Street and Cold Feet, as well as sporting stars from Manchester City, Manchester United and Lancashire County Cricket Club.

Sometimes there are heart-felt stories behind the trees, such as when a family sponsored a tree to celebrate what would’ve been their son’s 18th birthday. “Their little boy died when he was two-and-a-half and when he was alive the family had been supported by Francis House,” says Mary. “They didn’t want their son’s 18th birthday to go without doing something special, and 16 years on from losing their son they fund-raised to decorate a tree for us out of the goodness of their hearts. It makes you feel very humble”.

In addition to the tree auction, the shop fund-raises by selling a small number of gifts, toys, crackers and Christmas cards, as well as running a raffle and a festive Wishing Well. There is also a memory tree, where people can write a memory of a loved one on tags provided in the shop and hang it on the tree. When the shop closes on 8 December the tags are transferred to a tree in Francis House which is illuminated for the whole of the festive season.

“The messages make you think. It’s very humbling,” says Mary. “We had a note from a child who wrote: ‘Grandad died at Christmas and if he thought we didn’t celebrate because of him he’d come back and haunt us’. I just think for a child to think like that is amazing.”

The Festival of Trees at The Lowry Outlet, Salford Quays closes on 8 December 2019.

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Last year’s festival saw 19 installations, including interactive art works using voice and body movements to create light changes. Indoors the nearby Lowry Arts Centre hosted immersive virtual reality experiences as part of the festival.

This year, the 10 day annual light festival will run from 6-15 December 2019, and again includes a number of original art commissions.

Emerging artists are supported to join the festival by the Shine Programme in partnership with Light Up The North Network. Following an open call for submissions in June, three emerging artists won commissions to create new light art works for the festival.

Tom Lambert is creating a light installation to transport visitors into a world of kaleidoscopic wonder, where they’re invited to shift perspective from mundane to fantastic. Gemma Woods is developing participatory neon artwork exploring themes of happiness, while Joe Moran is using fresnel lenses to create a rotating sculpture that emits beautiful patterns of refracted light.

The launch of Lightwaves 2019 sees the premiere of a new film, Homage to the Rain. The film, by artists Antony Barkworth-Knight, Rebecca Rae-Evans and Rob Turner, is a celebration both of our rainy city and how rain impacts environments across the globe.

The artists are looking for people to send in their videos for use as part of the film. To be included your video needs to be shot on a mobile phone in landscape.

The project is co-commissioned by festival organisers, Quays Culture and the University of Salford’s Art Collection. For more details and to submit your video contact Homagetotherain@gmail.com or complete a form via the website.

For more details about Lightwaves 2019 visit the Quays Culture website or for volunteering opportunities email participate@quaysculture.com.

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Architects of Air’s luminariums are inhabited sculptures where public art and the viewing public become one. Here people are transported, via a labyrinthine of tunnels and cavernous domes into a sensory world of light and colour, accompanied by a gentle sensory soundscape. Once inside, you’re free to explore the dazzling maze of winding paths and soaring domes.

Founder, Alan Parkinson’s intention is to stimulate visitors to a sense of wonder to the beauty of light and colour, creating an environment where visitors’ experience is influenced by their own reaction to the space. He explains: “What motivates me to design is the fact that I continue to be struck by the beauty of light and colour found in the luminaria. These structures nurture an awareness of a pure phenomenon that gently cuts through everyday conditioned perceptions an awakens a sense of wonder in people.

The idea originally grew out of a theatre project for people with learning disabilities, and inclusivity remains a central part of its work. The experience is fully accessible and suitable for all ages. However, children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult, with a minimum requirement of one adult for four children.

Since 1992 the Architects of Air have built 21 luminaria. Arboria, dedicated to the theme of trees, is the epic structure visiting Salford Quays. On entering, visitors encounter a green dome, one of the three 8m high domes, each dominated by a colour – red, green or blue. Venturing further into the luminarium visitors arrive at several 3-dimensional trees – combined of cones and spheres assembled to form a brightly luminous tree trunk with branches that extend high above their heads. The accompanying soundscape from Alice Eldridge combines her own piano composition with recordings made or biodiversity monitoring in the Ecuadorian cloud forest.

The light comes simply from daylight shining through the luminarium’s fabric, which means that each experience differs depending on the weather and changing light outside.

As a finale to the festival, at 5.30pm on Sunday 2 June Funambulist Chris Bullzini will perform a jaw-dropping high wire walk across the Quays. And earlier in the day there will be opportunities to for all ages to have-a-go at various circus skills with the chance try a tight wire walk for yourself.

Festival activities are free, but pre-booking for the luminarium is recommended because access is limited.

Quays Festival 2019 takes place from 30 May to 2 June at Salford Quays, Media City UK. Opening times for the luminarium are: Thursday 30 – Friday 31 May 2pm – 7pm; Saturday 1 June 12pm – 6pm; and Sunday 2 June 10am – 4pm.

Visit Quaysculture.com for details.

Read about previous interactive free light festivals from Quays Culture.

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The bank holiday event takes place on Good Friday outside the Helly Hanson Water Sports Centre where you can choose a rubber duck for £2 to take part in the main race.

The event is sponsored by the Lowry Outlet, which means that all funds raised by the event will go to directly to support the charity’s work providing paediatric medical equipment and facilities for hospitals and community health teams.

Centre Manager for the Lowry Outlet, Kelly Hurst, says: ‘We are so pleased to be able to sponsor the Quays Duck Race, which is for a brilliant cause, that raises much needed funds for children in Salford and the surrounding areas. The event has a fantastic community spirit to it, which see families enjoying a great day out and raising money for charity’.

The charity is encouraging more businesses to get involved by sponsoring individually decorated Mega Ducks which will open the event with the first race of the day.

The charity is currently fundraising for a number of projects across the region including a hand-held blood analyser and other essential equipment for Salford Royal Hospital’s Paediatric Accident and Emergency Unit.

Currently staff process blood samples in other departments in the hospital, requiring a member of staff to leave the Unit during critical times. The hand-held device could be taken to a patient’s bedside and requires a much smaller amount of blood meaning a far more comfortable process for the patient.

Rachael Baird, the Unit Manager explains: ‘‘Having this device would quicken time critical decisions and improve emergency care, by enabling staff to stay by the patient’s side where they are needed the most’.

The event kicks off at 12.30pm on 19 April 2019 with refreshments, tombola stall and a chance to try out the Helly Hanson Centre climbing wall. The Business Challenge Mega Duck Race starts at 3pm followed by the Big Duckling Race at 3:30pm.

Ghazala Baig, Chief Executive at MedEquip4Kids says: ‘We are so thankful for the fantastic support received from Lowry Outlet and our Mega Duck sponsors. We know that this is going to be the best year yet for the Quays Duck Race which will enable us to support even more children.’

For more details about how your business can sponsor a creatively decorated Mega Duck contact the MedEquip4Kids office on 0161 798 1600 or email info@medequip4kids.org.uk.

Visit the website for more information about the event.

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John-Luke Roberts is on a journey to discover the 24 lost Spice Girls. Yes, as well as Mel B and Mel C, he introduces us to the forgotten Mel A right through Mels D-Z. He meets a few pirates along the way and comes across a little-known Alan Bennett tale, ‘A House With Too Loos.’

As you’ve probably guessed, Roberts revels in absurdity. Even the title of his most recent show, now on tour after a successful Edinburgh Festival Fringe run, is designed to cause chaos for headline writers.

As a writer, the Newcastle born comic has contributed to TV shows: ‘Have I Got News For You’, ‘Newzoids’ and ‘Nevermind the Buzzcocks’, as well as penning a sitcom ‘Bull’, co-written with Gareth Gwynn, starring Robert Lindsay and Maureen Lipman, in which he also takes an acting role as, Nigel Mainpart.

After 7 solo Edinburgh Fringe shows Roberts has steadily carved out a reputation as a master of mayhem. His new show ‘All I Wanna Do Is [FX: GUNSHOTS] With a [FX: GUN RELOADING] and a [FX: CASH REGISTER] and Perform Some Comedy!’ is touring the UK til May 2019, stopping at the Lowry on January 19. Here’s what to expect:

Tell us about your show?

My show is a manifesto for absurdism told through 24 fictional Spice Girls. It’s also got 10 too many jokes, 42 too many characters and exactly the right number of plinths.

What happens if you get an audience of millennials?

Everyone has a lovely time, while also thinking “I wish there were some Generation Xers, some Xennials, some Baby Boomers and some over-seventies here, because then we could use this shared experience of a comedy show to see that there is more that unites us than separates us, and start to heal the deep rifts in our society”.

Your act is described as ‘alternative comedy’. What does that mean to today’s comedy audience?

It’s not a very precise term, but it’s a good way of letting people know that this might be a little different to what they might otherwise expect to see. It’s a way of preparing people to watch it, maybe, with a slightly different attitude. And a way to let people who might not like it know that they might not like it.

Out of the comedy characters you’ve created, which is your favourite and why?

In my last show I played a version of the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer – but played him as an idiot who’d had his clothes stolen by a fairy, and who spoke a mangled version of English the audience could barely understand. I wore some flowers on my head, a penis made out of an uninflated modelling balloon and a blanket to precariously cover my modesty. There’s something fun about taking a high-culture reference, and doing the stupidest possible thing with it. “Ee am Jiffrey Chowcer, middy evil poot. A poot is lick a reeter, but moo ee lick to rim! At end of every line ee rim. Lick, lick lick, rim, rim rim”. But this year I get to play a witch, a giant, a vampire and the ghost of an Irish girl who left her country, like many thousands of others, in pursuit of a new life in the Spice Girls.

Is it important to you to look funny as well as talk funny?

The way I look at it, it’s a way to put some funny on top. Sure, you can talk funny and that can be really entertaining. But if you can look funny too, then that just adds more funny. And why stop there? It’s also useful to feel funny, to taste funny, and to smell funny.

What part do props play in your act?

The part they play is this:
Stage 1. I think “I am not going to use any props this year because they are too much trouble to carry around.”
Stage 2. I think “But it would be funny to have a prop to at this point in the show. OK I can use just one prop in the show, because it will make it funnier. Just one though.”
Stage 3. I have 53 props in the show.

Any singing or dancing in the show?

I cannot give away all my secrets – but what I will say is that if you like singing and dancing the answer is “yes”. And if you don’t like singing and dancing the answer is “why don’t you come along and find out”.

You’ve been touring since October. Has it changed much since then?
It’s basically the same show, but there’s always bits changing and new jokes turning up. You need to keep a show slightly fresh for yourself because the audiences can tell if you’re bored of it.

How do you keep yourself interested when doing the same material every night?
Each audience is different so the show always feels new.

As well as stand-up you do lots of other writing and presenting work. What else are you working on at the moment?
I’ve just been co-writing a top-secret radio revival for a beloved comedy troupe, but I’m not allowed to talk about it yet. Apart from that I’m writing a novel about a bee who thinks he’s a horse (it’s an allegorical piece about consumerism and the Lisbon earthquake of 1755) and working on my next show.

John-Luke Roberts: All I Wanna Do Is [FX: GUNSHOTS] With a [FX: GUN RELOADING] and a [FX: CASH REGISTER] and Perform Some Comedy! is at The Lowry, Salford Quays on 19 January 2019. Tickets available from www.thelowry.com 

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Over the last decade there has been a revolution in the world of children’s theatre, with some of the biggest children’s brands seeing the value in creating theatrical productions based on much-loved characters from well-known TV shows. For young audiences, this means an opportunity to get up close and personal with some of their favourite TV characters, whilst also experiencing the magic of live theatre at an early age. But how do you go about translating the colourful, magical and fantastical worlds of children’s TV shows to the physical world of theatre?

For Zoe Bourn this is a full-time job, and for the last 15 years she has been turning some of the world’s biggest children’s brands into theatrical productions for young audiences. Her passion for creating magical, memorable and unique live experiences has led her to working on world-famous titles including Thomas and Friends and Fireman Sam.

Now Zoe is turning her talents to Twirlywoos, about a group of mischievous bird-like creatures whose adventures have become a smash hit on Cbeebies since 2015. Whilst the TV show utilizes stop-motion animation, the stage production will feature inventive handcrafted puppets that will bring the show’s colourful characters to life.

Twirlywoos has enjoyed phenomenal success on TV. What do you think makes it so popular?

“I think its success is largely due to the playful nature of the characters. The humour appeals to everyone and really helps to make it universally accessible.”

What can audiences expect from Twirlywoos Live?

“We have purposely stayed close to the TV format so our little audience members will feel safe and familiar with what they’re seeing. But they can expect a very different experience as we invite them into the action and bring the Twirlywoos magic to life all around them.”

Do you have a favourite Twirlywoos character and why?

“I actually love Peekaboo! It’s such an easy character for children of this age group to relate to and offers a really lovely interlude from the chaos the Twirlywoos create. And I love the fact that no one else ever sees or interacts with it and yet you never feel sorry for it – that’s a powerful character!”

What are the challenges of transporting Twirlywoos into the 3D world of theatre?

“There have been many! Due to the nature of the show we have needed to have lots of research and development sessions in order to figure out how best to translate it. One of the main challenges is how to present the real-world scenes as the characters are very small and we have to ensure they are seen from every seat in the auditoriums. The team who look after the TV show have worked really closely with our production team to give us the flexibility we needed on the scale of our puppets without them appearing any differently.”

You have adapted other much-loved children’s titles for the stage. How do you go about writing new stories for these well-known characters?

“It’s important to immerse yourself in the TV episodes and to respect the rules and structure that their writers have invented wherever possible. Shows of this calibre have a whole science behind them and I think if you can balance the inclusion of this with the golden rules of live theatre then you have a winning formula. Children are also sticklers for detail. They will be the first ones to tell you if you’ve got it wrong!”

Why do you think it’s important that children experience theatre at a young age?

“Giving young children the opportunity to experience live theatre opens them up to a new dimension of experience and can inspire their own creativity. The earlier we can do this and the more regularly the better – especially in the UK where our education system doesn’t always recognise the importance and value of the arts to our growth and wellbeing.”

Twirlywoos Live! is at The Lowry Theatre, Salford Quays on 15 – 18 February 2019. It is recommended for ages 1+, with babes in arms welcome. The running time is 55 minutes with no interval. See website for full tour details.

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Mark Watson has never been a comedian to take the easy route of opening a show by asking his audience how they are and where they come from. In the past, he’s started shows by communicating with his crowd over Twitter, crawling out of a suitcase, and running on a treadmill. With his new touring extravaganza, The Infinite Show, Mark is getting up close and personal with his fans by handing them cards with questions on them beforehand, whether they’re in the queue, hanging around the bar or perhaps even sitting comfortably in their seats.

“I do feel that the more I see shows and study the form of them, a slow start is very difficult to come back from,” he says. “So, the idea of me handing out cards is that it makes the audience feel that the show has already begun and they’re already in that space. I think it has a positive psychological impact on the audience and it’s a good way of breaking down that awkwardness.”

On those cards will be questions that are geared towards assessing the empathy of his crowd toward their fellow humans and celebrating our idiosyncrasies. Having already road-tested the show for a month at the Edinburgh Fringe, Mark knows that the responses he gets can rarely be second-guessed and this gives the evening a vibrant energy. “The best ones are the inexplicably fierce opinions about something trivial which nearly everyone has,” he says. “Or it will be something where the audience goes ‘what?’ The worst ones are, and at least one person every night says this, ‘there’s nothing odd about me, I’m always right’ or it’ll be something about hating audience participation or filling out postcards. Those ones are immediately pulped.”

Although the cards do state that each respondent will have their anonymity respected, Mark is always keen to tease out someone who has offered up something of comedic or social value. “Because we’ve said you can remain anonymous, it might sometimes be hard to find the person who wrote something interesting. Other times you see something really contentious and think ‘I’ve no chance of finding that person’ but they immediately put their hand up.

“One of my favourites was when someone wrote that the Titanic never sank, that it had been swapped for another ship and that it was an insurance thing. But I chatted with her and she was sort-of convincing. I Googled it later and, sure enough, it’s a branch of conspiracy theory in the same ilk of the 9/11 Truthers. I still don’t believe it but there’s room there for a good few minutes talking about that. It’s much more stimulating to do a show that’s different every time: it offers me unprecedented opportunities to mess about with the audience.”

Messing around with an audience has been just one of the things that has elevated Mark Watson to great heights in the British stand-up scene since his arrival in 2002 upon winning the Daily Telegraph Open Mic competition. A combination of barely restrained energy (“it sometimes takes me 20 minutes to say hello”) and relentless innovation (his 24 and 36-hour shows are the stuff of Edinburgh Fringe legend), Mark is also a published author having written novels such as Bullet Points and A Light-Hearted Look At Murder, while his TV credits are certainly a varied bunch, including everything from the first episode of Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow and guest-presenting Never Mind The Buzzcocks to We Need Answers and Celebrity Island With Bear Grylls.

Mark Watson

But it’s on stage that he is at his most hilariously inventive. As well as building up an archive of responses from his audience with The Infinite Show, he’s also lifting the lid a little on his own personal life, something he’s largely shied away from in his previous live work. In particular, he’ll be exploring his divorce and the relationship he now has with his young son.

“At first it was very difficult to do, as it felt very raw and it felt very uncharitable to my ex: I don’t want to be one of those comedians who rages against their former partner. The tone is meant to be more rueful than attacking. There are lots of dilemmas; the biggest difficulty of talking about my son on stage is that he’s now of an age where he could put my name into YouTube and have access to this stuff. But parenting consumes so much of your life, even if you’re not the primary carer, and it’s inevitable that you’ll discuss it a bit on stage.”

Now a well-established presence on the comedy touring circuit (he’s taken acclaimed shows such as I’m Not Here and Do I Know You? to the theatres and arts venues of the UK), Mark Watson is well attuned to the pros and cons of zipping around the country and entertaining audiences night after night. While he misses his family when he’s away from them, the fact that he’s able to maintain his status as a must-see act across Britain is a strong vote of confidence.

“Touring represents the kind of life that you hope you’d have when you first start off,” he says. “Being seen by pretty much your own audience and being able to sustain yourself out of performing your own show rather than gigging on mixed bills is what most comedians want.

“I’m fortunate to have started stand-up in a climate where that was just about to become more and more possible. I don’t mind the travelling and being in hotels; I’ve had that lifestyle for so long that I almost don’t know myself if I’m not in perpetual motion.”

Mark Watson is at The Lowry, Salford Quays on Sunday 17 February 2019. See website for full tour details  with nationwide dates until 24 November 2019.

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Just over 200 years later, this forgotten hero of free speech, and likely first investigative journalist, is centre stage again in a new play by satirists Ian Hislop and Nick Newman, Trial By Laughter.

Quays Life meets the writers to find out more.

How would you sum up the premise of Trial By Laughter?

Nick: It’s a story about press freedom and free speech and a battle for freedom and free speech. It’s the story of a trial in 1817 – the trial of a man called William Hone, who was a sort of shy bookseller and publisher of cartoons and satirical pamphlets. He was taken to court by the Regency government to try and stifle jokes about the monarchy. That’s essentially what it’s about.

Ian: It’s exactly that. It’s a courtroom thriller but it’s a historical courtroom thriller with jokes, which means it’s three different genres in one for just one ticket price.

Nick: I think we’d describe it as The Madness Of King George meets A Few Good Men…

Ian: Meets Crown Court.

What was the original inspiration for the radio play?

Nick: We’d just finished doing The Wipers Times for BBC2, when we did the film of it, and the head of BBC2, Janice Hadlow sent us an email asking if we’d heard of William Hone. Janice is an expert on Regency history and has written books about it. We both said ‘Who?’ which is often a very good starting point for a story because we think ‘Well, if we don’t know anything about it let’s find out’. We started doing research and suddenly out came this amazing story about this amazing man – a complete nobody really but who took on the might of the government in a landmark case.

Ian: It’s incredible. He had his moment when history beckoned and then fell into obscurity, to our shame really. I’m the editor of Private Eye and Nick’s a cartoonist yet we didn’t know about him, but again that makes for a much better story because you’re telling people something new.

From researching the tale what were you most surprised or interested to learn about Hone?

Ian: Without giving spoilers, it’s incredible that they tried him three times in three days. At the end of each day when the jury found him innocent they just tried him again the next morning until there were 20,000 people outside the Guildhall and they thought ‘We’re going to have a riot now’. This was only a couple of decades after the French Revolution.

Nick: And a year before the Peterloo Massacre so tensions were incredibly high. The Crown was very worried about the possibility of revolution and there were failed harvests and a lot of famine, squalor and whatnot. Meanwhile the Prince Regent was being portrayed in cartoons and in pamphlets as this libertine voluptuary who was scoffing vast quantities of food while people were hanging outside the windows. The other thing we discovered about Hone as we did more research is what a remarkable man he was because he wasn’t just a satirist, which was our first interest and his friendship with the cartoonist Cruikshank interested me as a cartoonist myself. Their working relationship was also a natural thing for us to explore and Hone was also probably our first investigative journalist. He was a witness to the execution of a young serving girl, a maid called Eliza Fenning, and he was absolutely appalled by it. He did a lot of research into her case and basically proved that it was a miscarriage of justice. We also learned he was an amazing philanthropist and he took a terrific interest in the lunatic asylums and campaigned for better conditions. There was the reform of juries, which he campaigned for and won. He never stopped working.

Ian: And he believed in universal suffrage, which at the time was a good 100 years away. If you look at his range of interests, they are pretty extraordinary.

What changes have you made in preparing the play for the stage?

Ian: It’s completely different. The thing about radio is that it has to be very words-driven, which is fine because there are lots of bits about speeches and whatever, but to get it to the stage we have to make it more dramatic. There’s a lot more about the role of his wife and we’ve set more of it in pubs.

Nick: It’s a matter of fact that Hone and Cruikshank devised their strategy for the case in all the pubs and coffee houses of London so it’s a very rich milieu in which they were working. Hone was admired at the time by his literary colleagues, even though he was always bankrupt and had schemes which lost him money, and one of his admirers was William Hazlitt, who was one of the most caustic critics of the era. The only person Hazlitt seemed to like was William Hone so we’ve put Hazlitt in the story as well, which is great for the colour.

What do you feel makes Hone’s story a great subject for a play?

Ian: Hone’s tactic in the trial was to appeal to the jury so his whole way of winning was to make it accessible to an ordinary… I’d hate to say viewer but that’s sort of how he approached it. Courtrooms are great theatre on the whole and Hone and Cruikshank, in devising the strategy as it were, realised that playing to the gallery is not a bad thing in a big trial – it’s what you need to do because you need to get them on your side. That’s exactly what happens in the theatre.

Nick: What was slightly unusual about their tactics is that they set out to make the jury laugh. The basic of their entire case was that Hone spoke for six-to-eight hours every day of the trials just producing more and more examples of stuff he thought would make people laugh – and they did. There are some transcripts, which admittedly were edited or written by Hone so he did beef up his own amusingness quite a lot.

Ian: A bit like Oscar Wilde writing the account of his own trial and Hone’s account is fantastic. He’s brilliant in it, unsurprisingly because he edited it.

Nick: History written by the victors…

Ian: Yes and it’s bloody funny.

How you feel the subject matter resonates for contemporary audiences?

Ian: I think it’s a reminder that this battle has to be won in every generation. We are incredibly privileged to be the beneficiaries of all those battles that were won in Britain in the 19th century but they can be lost again. History doesn’t only go one way.

Nick: And the arguments that are buzzing around now are very similar. Hone was targeted because he wrote parodies of religious text, principally The Lord’s Prayer and the Litany and The Ten Commandments, and they were the sort of stuff we’d put in Private Eye now for a bit of fun. Only the other week you had Rowan Atkinson talking about ‘Should we be allowed to make jokes about religion?’ Hone believed you should if the context is political or whatever and that’s what free speech is. On a global scale there are cartoonists in Turkey and Malaysia who are still being persecuted and there’s this amazing Malaysian cartoonist called Zunar who until recently faced 45 years in jail for seditious libel, which is basically the same charge that was levied against Hone, for making jokes about the Prime Minister and his wife. Zunar, like Hone, could have done a runner. I met him when he was over in England but he was going back to face trial because he felt this was an important case, like Hone did, that establishes what we can and can’t say about our rulers.

You’ve worked with director Caroline Leslie a few times now. What do you enjoy about the collaboration?

Ian: [Laughs] She’s very annoying because she demands you put in new scenes and change things around to try and make it better.

Nick: What’s that joke? ‘How many writers does it take to change a lightbulb?’

Ian: ‘None – don’t change anything!’

Nick: That’s very much our view but Caroline forces her to make changes. We first started working with her on our first play we did, A Bunch Of Amateurs, and she was absolutely brilliant and brought all kinds of things to the script which we didn’t know were there, including a lot of music. Then she directed The Wipers Times and that’s a play that’s full of music and movement and we wrote it accordingly because we thought ‘Caroline’s very good at this so let’s make sure she has a lot of stuff to work with’.

Ian: It’s very good having a woman director, particularly in situations that are quite blokey by definition like the Army and English court in the 1800s. She makes sure that it expands beyond that and that the emotional elements are not ignored.

This is your third play to be developed by the Watermill Theatre. What do you see as its importance to the UK theatre scene?

Ian: It’s a very exciting place to work.

Nick: It’s a remarkable theatre. Apart from being a jewel in terms of its setting and the closeness to the stage you have as an audience, the standard of productions has been incredible. I first came across it when they did a production of Sweeney Todd in 2004 which transferred to the West End. They’re just brilliant at doing things, particularly with music. When we were invited to do A Bunch Of Amateurs there we knew nothing about the Watermill but we enjoyed the experience so much that if we were able to we’d always go there because the audiences are lovely and it’s a great place to do a play.

You’ve been writing together for a long time. How would you describe your collaborative process?

Ian: We write together, literally. We don’t send each other drafts and we physically work together in the same room. I suppose we try and make each other laugh; that’s the first thing. But we’ve known each other long enough to be able to say ‘That isn’t very good’ or ‘That’s a terrible suggestion’ and then just get on with it. There’s a sort of joint self-editing.

Nick: There’s always a lot of energy when it’s the two of us doing something, particularly because Ian’s time is so precious because he’s everywhere. When we get together we have to get on and do some writing. We tend to work quite fast. We both do stuff independently but to edit each other as we go is a sort of bonus. I’ve got lots of writer friends who write on their own, which I think is a very ghastly prospect. They have to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite; if you look at the greats like Alan Bennett, his diaries are full of the pain of rewriting. We have to rewrite as well but it’s a bit less than if we working on our own.

Ian: Because Nick’s a cartoonist he’s always had a strong visual sense whereas I tend to be a bit more word-bound. So there’s always a point where Nick’s thinking ‘What would look great is this…’ which I usually haven’t thought of. I’m thinking ‘This bit I’ve just written would be really clever’ when actually if might be terribly boring and getting something across visually is what it’s all about. That’s another reason we really enjoy collaborating.

How hands-on are you with your touring productions?

Nick: They take on a life of their own really. If we go do a Q&A we see the show and occasionally have some notes, which we pass on to our producer or to Caroline. But really by opening night it’s all pretty much there.

Ian: [Laughs] Our notes are always ‘Could the actors not ad-lib please? Can they only say exactly what we’ve written?’.

You are doing post-show Q&As again for Trial By Laughter. What do like about the process?

Nick: The ones we have done for The Wipers Times are always very instructive because we meet people who’ve got their own stories to tell. We did a Q&A down in Chichester last year and a lady in the front row said ‘I have a little knowledge of this subject because my grandfather was Fred Roberts [who edited the paper]’ so we said ‘Please come up on stage’ and we just sat there asking her questions about him. It’s a great way of interacting with your audience. In Salisbury we were talking about trying to make The First World War accessible to younger audiences through a humorous story and a young girl at the back who was around 13 went ‘Well, it works!’ With the Q&As you get a bit of a discussion going and a bit of a debate.

Ian: There was a great moment just before one of the Q&As where someone said ‘There’s an Army chap in the audience who said he thought you’d got it pretty much right’ and when we asked who he was they said he was Deputy Supreme Commander Allied Nato Forces.

What you hope to get out of the Trial By Laughter Q&As?

Ian: We want to know what they think really, what bits they’re interested in and whether they think we should still be worried about this sort of thing. Hopefully they’ll think we very much should be.

Nick: We’ve become very energised by this subject matter and we’ve found it fascinating. All we’re really trying to do is try and get other people as interested in it as we are. We happen to think Hone is one of the most brilliant men in history and we hope other people share our opinion

The Wipers Times is touring the UK before heading into the West End and Trial By Laughter is heading out on tour. Is this your bid for theatrical domination?

Ian: [Laughs] Everyone else is toast. No, we’ve come to theatre a bit late I suppose in terms of writing. We’ve done a lot more telly and some film, but it is fabulous and there’s nothing like it – the pleasure of crafting something that goes on to have a life of its own, where it plays in different places and has different reactions from an audience. It’s incredibly rewarding.

Nick: It’s one of the biggest surprises of our writing career that this has happened. Never in our wildest dreams would we have thought of doing a play but then we were asked to. Now we can’t think of anything we’d rather do. We wrote the original radio script of Trial By Laughter with an eye to thinking ‘This has theatrical legs’.

Trial by Laughter is at The Lowry, Salford Quays from 29 January to 2 February 2019. 

The post Ian Hislop and Nick Newman on their new play, Trial By Laughter appeared first on Quays Life.