If you’re stuck for something to do this weekend and fancy something a little more edifying than necking Buckfast outside Nandos and fighting with the emo kids, you might want to head along to the Late Shows, the sixth ‘culture crawl’ staged in the city, and the biggest yet. Since its inception in 2007, the event has grown constantly, to the point where this year 55 venues are taking part, throwing open their doors late into the night on Friday and Saturday (19th-20^th).

Part of the nationwide Museums At Night weekend, The Late Shows is the biggest (and local regional pride demands we suggest, the best) event of the lot.

Friday night is all about Ouseburn, with 11 locations open until 11pm. As well as exhibitions and art workshops (at 36 Lime St, Mushroom Works, Holy Biscuit and Northern Print, amongst others), there will be music and visuals from upcoming and established artists at The Biscuit Factory and a vintage tea party at the anything but vintage Toffee Factory, with music from the wonderful Lady Koo & Her Kooky Kitchen.

At Seven Stories, we’re told childrens’ book characters will come alive, while street theatre outfit The Time Bandits will be lurking around Ouseburn Valley for a Jack The Ripper themed show. There’s everything two-wheeled at the new Newcastle Cycle Hub and an art / architecture collaboration at Ouse Street Arts Club, a new shipping container-based site at the bottom of the valley.

On Saturday, as well as the Ouseburn venues staying open again the rest of the Newcastle / Gateshead area gets involved, and while some of these events have entry fees, if you grab a Late Show glow stick there are plenty of reductions and offers. Among the dozens of events – many the usual mix of exhibitions, tours and workshops – a few things stand out: there’s circus skills to learn at the Discovery Museum, while tours of the ‘electro-acoustic machinery’ artwork-cum-tidemill are available to those who book.

There will be open studios, installations and performances at the Baltic’s new Baltic39 space in High Bridge St and all sorts of curious happenings at the main Baltic, including a choral version of A-Ha’s Take On Me. The Sanctuary has street art, B-Boy street dance demonstrations and live hip hop, while The Sage has everything from a ukulele jam to a tribute to legendary Los Angeles songwriter hotbed The Troubadour, featuring local talents like Natasha Hawes and Matt Stalker. DJ collective Soft Rocks are at the Star & Shadow to 5am, and World Headquarters are offering cheap entry as well. There’s a bar screening of Raiders Of The Lost Ark at the Tyneside Cinema and African house and electro from DJ Vamanos at Shipley Art Gallery. There’s also… well, why not download the brochure?

The Late Shows gets underway this Friday.

It’s a grand year for arts and music festivals in the North East – the AV Biennale was the best yet, the Americana Festival is looking amazing and if that weren’t enough, this year’s Vamos! Festival is almost absurdly busy and varied.

This year’s event – billed as ‘a celebration of Latin and Lusophone (Portuguese) cultures’ – is the 7th the organisers have staged, and runs for a mammoth six weeks (June 1st – July 15th) across the region. A quick tally comes up with more than 25 music-based events – from concerts to club nights, dance classes to special commissions – as well as a dozen or so movies, two theatre performances, a handful of exhibitions and so much more, from talks to picnics, zumba classes to language courses.

It’s no easy feat to pick some highlights, but you’d be daft to miss the a sole UK exhibition of Complicidades, a series of photographs documenting the fascinating and troubled lives of Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (The Bowes Museum, May 12th – June 24th).

Doug Shipton – the man behind Manchester’s Finder Keepers label – plays his favourite Latin sounds on a bill that also includes Todo el Mundo DJs and El Nino del Toon (Butterfly Cabinet, June 8th). The acclaimed Radio Revellers escape from London to present The Blade Of Xorro, the latest in their stage presentations of radio plays, complete with jingles, sound effects and the rest (Theatre Royal Studio, June 11th). Everyone can get involved with the second Tyne Carnival (Northumberland Street, June 30th – contact the organisers for more details on how to take part). And perhaps most impressive of all, Brazilian musical legend Arto Lindsay stages Keep Your Hat On (Elvet Bridge, Durham, July 7th) in collaboration with BRASS: Durham International Festival. Working with dancers, musicians and artists, Keep Your Hat On is a riverside boat processon – and it’s free.

Vamos! Festival gets underway on June 1st. More information available online.

The Guardian’s Northerner Blog recently ran a piece on the successes of the Sunderland music scene – but it left some of those mentioned wondering just how wide of the mark their view was. Here, David Brewis of Field Music tells us how he sees it.

It seems odd, 7 years on from our debut album, to be thinking again about the formula for Sunderland’s brief flurry of musical activity which, to outsiders, begins with The Futureheads releasing Hounds of Love and ends, well, as soon as they stopped noticing that we were all still releasing records. Or maybe those onlookers have just discovered Sunderland’s ‘regenerated music scene’ because the council and others are trying to promote their 2008 Music City strategy document and can point to a whole host of stadium bands playing their stadium shows at our very stadium-y Stadium of Light to give credence to their optimistic daydreams.

The impetus for this overarching music strategy for the city, of course, came largely from the success of The Futureheads and, to a lesser extent, Field Music and The Golden Virgins. It would surprise me greatly if the authors of the strategy document or those now promoting its conclusions had heard of or cared about This Ain’t Vegas, Mavis, Written From Negative, Hoth, Pretty Girl 5, Brilliantine, The Bubble Project, let alone all of the bands and permutations of bands which only lasted for one or two gigs, but which made music in Sunderland seem quite exciting between say, 1999 and 2005. And when I say exciting, I mean exciting in an unpredictable, argumentative, slightly-defeatist, self-sabotaging, crotchety and all-round inconsistent way.

When our little milieu began starting bands and throwing around ideas as if they were simultaneously sacred scrolls and hand-grenades which shouldn’t be held onto for too long, The Bunker was in a financial and literal mess; so much so that we made it our mission to set up our own practice space as soon as we realised we were allowed to. Gigs took place in the upstairs room of The Royalty pub with borrowed PAs and £2 door charges or in the function room of Ashbrooke Cricket Club.

James ‘Jam’ MacMahon and his Boyeater nights were a catalyst. A student at Sunderland University, he brought a knowledge of underground music and culture – of fanzines and DIY and band t-shirts – which was alien to most of us. He put on gigs and talked and wrote about music as if nothing could be more important. His own bands were like a potted history of alternative music from 1992.

“Sparks flew. Bands were formed, ditched, reformed and reformulated. It was brilliant.”

Another nexus was the youth music project run by Dave Murray as part of his Sunderland City Centre Detached Youth Project. Peter and I were tutors here from 1994 until 1999 and true to the opinionated teens we were, we cajoled and indoctrinated, tried to encourage but probably mostly bullied. Amidst the Saturday morning cacophony, we forged friendships which have lasted for the best part of two decades and still inspire us. Barry Hyde turned up one morning with a bunch of schoolfriends and was so obviously in possession of an unusually musical brain and ear we immediately set about recruiting him to play with us. We didn’t think about recruiting his precocious brother, Dave, because he was only 12 and couldn’t come every Saturday due to his scouting commitments. Barry and Dave easily countered our attempts at indoctrination by way of their dad’s gargantuan record collection. Sparks flew. Bands were formed, ditched, reformed and reformulated. It was brilliant.

But not many people came to the actual gigs. We watched our friends’ bands and they watched us for the most part. At least until This Ain’t Vegas came along with a year or two’s youth and a ready-formed community of Fugazi-loving friends to their credit. This Ain’t Vegas were the kind of band who inspired devotion and, more so, they inspired other bands to form. Not only that but TAV (as everybody knew them) made links with bands from other cities and dragged them north to play Beats Happening nights alongside the merry-go-round of newly-minted Sunderland bands. When you put this together with Dave ‘Heartstrings’ Harper’s evenings of song and dance and mild-anatgonism, you’re looking at the kind of thing which could be mistaken for a music scene.

It’s also worth noting that there was a latent music scene in Sunderland before we had anything to do with it. Lucas Renney and Neil Bassett already had a couple of years under their belts, first as the Rolf and Cindy Band, then as Brilliantine and eventually as The Golden Virgins. John Peel had already noticed the verve of Comatose. Boyeater and the rest made being in a band in Sunderland seem worthwhile. And I don’t mean worthwhile in a ‘making it big’ way. There were many different opinons rattling around our disparate little community but making ourselves commercially-palatable was not on anyone’s agenda. The Futureheads – standard bearers for commercial acclaim in Sunderland music – were trying to do something quite extreme. Their earliest songs were usually less than 2 minutes long, had next-to-no repetition, were sung by four mackem voices shouting and trilling in complete opposition to each other and at breakneck speed. Their first gig consisted of 6 songs played in 8 minutes.

“At least a few of us had to learn how to record. A few of us had to be able to work a PA. Someone had to print the flyers. Someone always has to work the door. Nobody needs a dressing room.”

A successful music scene does not come from a monolithic infrastructure or a clever long-term business strategy. It doesn’t come from lots of industry-savvy bands making the most of their commercial potential. Whatever commercial success came from Sunderland’s early 00′s music scene grew from a defiantly-anti-commercial spirit of creative risk-taking and community spirit. We all had our own strongly-held, and often loudly-voiced, take on what was good and what was terrible. Living in a town with so little infrastructure and so little support allowed us to develop a myriad of cultural ethics, which then rubbed against each other, sometimes complementing, sometimes not. Playing in venues which weren’t really venues at all meant that it didn’t matter if nobody came. At least a few of us had to learn how to record. A few of us had to be able to work a PA. Someone had to print the flyers. Someone always has to work the door. Nobody needs a dressing room.

I don’t want to be excessively critical of Sunderland Council or of the people and organisations who want to promote Sunderland as a ‘music city’. However, in trying to map out a clear, linear route from the practice rooms of The Bunker to a floodlit stadium stage they risk curtailing the diversity of opinion and experimental drive which made it worth listening to Sunderland in the first place.

Years after Durham and Hexham got in on the lit-fest act, Newcastle finally gets one of its own – The Festival of Belonging, which is probably the first festival of its kind to be themed around the idea of “belonging”.

Taking place on campus at Newcastle University and at various venues across Newcastle, the festival will include readings and workshops by world renowned authors such as Tahmima Anam, festival writer-in-residence Helen Oyeyemi, and Hari Kunzru, who courted controversy earlier this year when he read from The Satanic Verses at the Jaipur Literature Festival in support of his pal Salman Rushdie.

The timing of the Festival of Belonging, on Monday 30 April to Sunday 6 May, has been planned to lead up to the regional Cultural Olympiad festivities. “With the whole world coming to London to mark the biggest sporting event, we wanted to bring people from around the world to Newcastle,” explains Juliana Mensah, one of the festival coordinators.

Viccy Adams, another festival organiser adds: “This is also the year that Newcastle University launches its societal challenge on Social Renewal. The idea of ‘home’ arose from this. In the discussion around what it means to be at home and to have a home, to belong, literature tends to take the outsider view. So we became interested in what it means to come into a space from a different area to build a new life, to move between different communities. ‘Home’ in that context impacts on who you are and on your identity.”

With increasing ethnic diversity and rolling debates on nationalism and multiculturalism, a good natter about belonging, home and identity is as timely as ever. And we northerners know a thing or two about identity and the sense of belonging to a certain patch (you know what I’m talking about, you Geordies and Mackems…)

“For myself and people of a similar background to me, you often feel slightly lost or you feel like the outsider,” said Juliana, a second generation Anglo-African who grew up feeling like she didn’t fully belong in her birthplace, London, or in her parents’ homeland. “So when I moved up here I found it really interesting how rooted in a very specific history and identity people were.”

 “The North East is defined by the history of industry and the mines, but that’s changing. It’s become somewhere people choose to belong to, it’s somewhere people come to make their home and carve out a space,” adds Viccy, herself a Scot-turned-Geordie.

All sounds good so far, but what do books have to do with it?

“Books open up different perspectives on the world,” Viccy said.

“Literature is also a very intimate way of engaging with your audience,” adds Juliana. “You’re inside somebody’s head. You can find yourself empathising with a person, a thought process or an experience that is completely removed from your own.”

“The North East is defined by the history of industry and the mines, but that’s changing. It’s become somewhere people choose to belong to, it’s somewhere people come to make their home and carve out a space,”

But worry not, if this is all sounding a little stuffy for your liking. Trashed Organ have been roped in to complement the NCLA’s programme with a more tongue-in-cheek look at the idea of “un-belonging”. They will curate a fringe festival of free-flowing performance poetry, alcohol and music of the highest calibre, with a strong focus on regional writers, playing out in more informal settings.

There will also be two film screenings at the Tyneside Cinema: award-winning film Precious on Friday night, with a discussion between Sapphire (the author of Push, from which the film was adapted) and the festival chair Jackie Kay; and on Sunday afternoon, I Am Nasrine, a budget coming-of-age drama set in Tehran and Newcastle, with director Tina Gharavi.

Other highlights are a series of radio plays by Voices of Iran, and readings by Kayo Chingonyi, Benerdine Evaristo and Daljit for the Out of Bounds Anthology, the culmination of a three-year project on migrant literature called Devolving Diasporas.

It’s apparent by now that there’ll be lots of lovely delights for the North East literati, but what about the curious, trepidatious few who are fearful of dipping their toes in the water?

“This festival is for anyone who likes stories. The writers are really diverse and write such a range of styles and subjects – you’d be hard pushed not to find something that interested you. Just check the NCLA archive website to see what you can expect,” says Viccy, reassuringly.

“Even within the many people out there who love books, so many don’t know they can come and love books with us. We just want to share that love more widely,” she says. With such fantastic writers and brilliantly bookish events lined up, I’ll definitely be joining the literary love-in.

The NCLA Festival Of Belonging Starts Monday the 30th of April at venues throughout the North East. Visit the website, or view the entire programme.

Excellent news chums, it seems that the work to turn the disused withered old shell of Hoko 10, into what will be the shining beacon of great beer that will be BrewDog Newcastle, is tantalisingly close to completion.

Cast your minds back, if you will, a mere month ago, to a time when we gleefully rubbed our hands together and told you that something tasty was brewing down near the quayside. Namely, that Scottish beer chain BrewDog were planning on launching their long awaited Newcastle branch.

“BrewDog swear off traditional pub fare, swerving like like a misjudged hairpin away from mass-produced lagers and stale, dull ales and towards every vibrant flavour combination under the sun. You want a beer that’s so hopped-up that it’s 41% proof and has to be served in shots? You got it. You fancy something that’s been brewed with coffee so that it tastes as refreshingly stout as your morning brew? No problem. What about a beer so dark and brooding that it would reduce Robert Pattinson to tears? That’ll be £3.60″. We wrote, eyes wide with boozy anticipation.

Well, with the palpable taste of proper beer lodged firmly in our throats, we popped down yesterday to speak to Mark Hislop, the man elected by BrewDog to steer the good ship Newcastle into the hearts and minds of the regions pint punters. There’ll be a full video interview and behind the scenes look in the coming future, as well as a thorough review of all the delights on off. That last one might not make it to print.

The boys themselves had this to say on the matter.

BrewDog Newcastle is due to officially open in Friday the 13th of April. The address is 16 Dean Street and the official opening ceremony will commence from 7pm on Friday. It is not a ticketed event so just rock up!

The new craft beer bar is located in a striking glass fronted premises with exposed steel beams, bolted columns, concrete glad walls and a partial mezzanine. We have almost completed turning 16 Dean Street into a Mecca for craft beers, A bar where you can escape the pathetic monotony of mass market industrial beers made by faceless multi-national corporations.

You can look forward to old school pinball, live music, vintage records, board games, 14 beers on draft, friendly, passionate and informed staff. As well as a selection of the best craft beers on the planet. And a brass band in penguin outfits.

We will also have IPA is Dead on tap from the launch event alongside all your usual BrewDog favourites and some very special guest beers.

*Excited face*

BrewDog opens its doors to a soon to be adoring pubic this Friday the 13th of April

Ice Cream clubnights will return to Sunderland this Sunday, starting with sets from DJ Fearbox and DJ @chrisjallan. The night will take place upstairs in BarOne and play mostly indie and electro – from The Smiths and Crystal Castles to Kraftwerk and Gary Numan.

“It’s a one off night for now,” says DJ and organiser Ian Todd. “It’s a free night for people to have a dance and enjoy uncool and generally great music from Indie pop to pop”. The history of the event stems back to when Todd began indie electro nights in Newcastle, having guest stars like Peter Brewis and Michael McKnight DJ at Bernaccia.

“I was trying to play music I liked from Numan to cult bands like the Research,” Todd says. “It wasn’t about being popular – if it was uncool it was fine!”. This time round, the clubnight will hear both DJs offer slightly different sounds.

“I offer obscure indie pop and amazing synth pop, while DJ @chrisjallan offers more cool indie pop with a nod to uncool film soundtracks”. With a whole ‘uncool’ feel to the evening, people are asked to simply go, enjoy themselves and lose their inhibitions a little. So, what kind of an atmosphere does he envisage? “Fun and dancey, with people not afraid to admit they enjoy pop tunes!”.

Ice Cream returns to Sunderland on Sunday 25^th March at BarOne.

What if all smokers in UK would put their cigarettes down for one day? The air would be over 260 million times cleaner, more than £85m would be saved and at least 13 million people would be healthier. But let’s see if people in the region are willing to contribute to such an initiative.

One in five UK adults smoke, including 22 per cent of people in the North East, according to the 2009 General Household Surrey. However, 63 per cent of those addicted to nicotine want to quit. No Smoking Day, which this year takes place on 14 March, aims to help them. As, with the right NHS support, people are four times more likely to succeed in quitting.

Gillian Gibson, Chair of the Sunderland Tobacco Alliance, said: “The charity does this by raising awareness of the Day and by highlighting the many sources of help available for quitters. In 2011 No Smoking Day merged with the British Heart Foundation with the aim of securing the future of the campaign and building on its success. On 14 March 2012 more than a million smokers are expected to make a quit attempt.”

No smoking day has been celebrated for over a quarter of a century and, with this occasion, events are held across Great Britain organized by a variety of health professionals and stop smoking services. About 50 events are taking place across the region today. But, despite the fact that North East is ahead of the rest of the UK when it comes to smoking (22% comparing with the national average of 21%), they don’t seem to be aware of the importance of this day.

“I’ve decided to quit smoking because I know it’s not good for me. But I enjoy it, that’s the problem. So I need the nurse to make me not enjoy it by telling me how bad it is for me.”

Carole Hoke, 26, from Sunderland, said: “I did not know that the 14th of March is No Smoking Day and I will probably smoke during that day. I usually don’t smoke that much anyway; just a couple of cigarettes in one day and there are days when I don’t smoke at all.”

Louise Blair, 28, started smoking when she was 15. She quit at one point, but then she started again. “At one point I just stopped smoking,” Louise said. “I haven’t smoked for about a year and then I just started it again this year pretty much.”

But coincidence or not, there are smokers who actually intended to quit around this day. Emma Noble, 28, was actually surprised to hear that No Smoking Day overlaps somehow with her decision to treat her addiction to nicotine.

Emma said: “What’s funny is that I have an appointment later today to go and see the nurse about the non-smoking. But that has got nothing to do with No Smoking Day.”

John Tumilty, who’s 60, is smoking for 46 years now and he’s also determined to give up this habit. “I didn’t know that on 14 March is No Smoking Day, but I’m actually thinking about pack it in,” he said. “It’s not easy, but I want to try my best. I’ve got that kit from the NHS in the house, ready to start.”

The good news is that the North East is seeing a fall in smoking over the past few years. According to a study conducted by Durham University, men are more determined than woman to quit tobacco. It seems like smokers are aware about the fact that their chances to succeed are higher if they ask for support. “I’ve decided to quit smoking because I know it’s not good for me,” Emma said. “But I enjoy it, that’s the problem. So I need the nurse to make me not enjoy it by telling me how bad it is for me.”

In fact, thousands of people quit smoking for good with the help of free local Stop Smoking Services.

Julie Parker, Public Health Lead for the Tobacco Alliance, said: “We held a Stop Smoking roadshow in 2011 which reached over 2,000 people locally.

 “Many people consider quitting and it is never too late to stop smoking and see the health benefits. This year we hope the roadshow will reach even more people wishing to quit smoking.”

Smokers who want to find out more can visit www.taketheleap.co.uk or call 0800 434 6677. If you want to contact the NHS Stop Smoking service in Gateshead, South Tyneside or Sunderland call 0191 283 1145.

When asked to imagine a venue for Riot Grrrl and Other Ecstatic Imperatives, discussions of punk rock feminists of the nineties, the stuffy confines of Newcastle University aren’t a blindingly obvious choice. Sara Marcus, author of Girls to the Front – The True Story of Riot Grrrl Revolution appears to disagree, choosing to host her discussion of Riot Grrrl and other grass roots revolutionary movements in the Lipman Building on Tuesday 13th March.

Marcus will host the seminar and use her book to prompt a discussion about other cultural and political initiatives that appear at a glance to have little in common with radical feminist punks. The cause was made up of young women who refused to allow feminism to become a dirty word. They ran zines, played in bands and organised conventions to make noise and chase the equality they’d been promised. Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring are movements that have seized a culture by the throat with the same force as Marcus’ riot grrrls of the Northwestern US in the early 90s.

Despite the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street appearing to embody entirely different aims, beliefs and strategies to the Riot Grrrls, Marcus’ discussion will centre on the political and social environment around the movements with a focus on the cultural contribution of female adolescence. More recent causes seeking to make a racket have done so through the “digitised communication” network (those darned intertubes) whereas riot grrls had to rely on indie distribution methods. They printed things on paper, for example, like cave people must have.

Marcus has been featured in several prominent publications and founded her own micro-press for the publication of innovative prose. A former riot grrl, Marcus has also lived in vegetarian co-ops, anarchist communities and several spare rooms in her quest to produce music, writing and positive social change. As of today, there have been 108 International Women’s Day, where changes to unequal pay, unequal access to education and disproportionate suffering from violence and ill health are encouraged and celebrated. For those looking for a worthy example of anti-sexism, or an example of awesome women doing stuff to celebrate this year, there can be no better candidate than the Riot Grrls and the women they became.

Riot Grrrl And Other Ecstatic Imperatives takes place at Newcastle University’s Lipman Building on Tuesday 13th March.

Parents, grandparents and childminders rejoice! No more will you struggle with where to take the kids on your days off. No more will you be bored off your arse in the park staring at ducks or be faced with the daunting prospect of seeing the increasingly sad decline of a once popular actor’s career in the latest Alvin and The Chipmunks ‘film’. No, those days are a thing of the past, because Theatre Hullabaloo has just received a lovely new grant from the Arts Council, and they’re looking to expand.

Illustration for theatre Hullabaloo's Angel

Based in Darlington, Theatre Hullabaloo are the region’s leading young people’s theatre group, putting on shows that tour both regionally and nationally, and they have just had their future secured for a further three years.

Their latest show, Angel started its national tour kicked off this week after opening at the company’s home turf of Darlington Arts Centre. Written by award winning play write Kevin Dyer, Angel continues Hullabaloo’s tradition of productions with a social conscience, tackling themes of dementia and the relationships between the young and the elderly.

“It’s for audiences of ten and above,” explains Miranda Thain, Hullabaloo’s creative director. “It’s particularly interesting as it’s about a friendship between an older person and a young teenager and it’s a timely piece because there’s lots in the play that suggests how we currently manage an elderly and ageing population.”

Clearly then, Angel has strong subjects, but Miranda is keen to emphasise that the age of the target audience makes them no less effective: “One of the problems we have is when we say children’s theatre people think its pantomime. That’s the biggest misconception around our work that we really struggle with. I also think what we’re trying to make is work that really delivers everything an adult audience would want from the theatre.”

If you’re one of those people who has been reading this and imagining nothing more complex than Punch and Judy shows, then shame on you. Children are people too you know, and Hullabaloo are constantly pushing the boundaries of what you would expect of children’s programming, with a Gothic, Tim Burtonesque operetta tour also in the works.

Titled ‘My mother told me not to stare’, the opera has been produced in partnership with Oxford University and will be touring nationally in the summer. This is just an example of the many ways in which Hullabaloo is working to raise the profile of youth theatre in the North East, they also produce their own festival, Takeoff.

Takeoff Festival sees Theatre Hullabaloo hold shows outside of Darlington, with this year’s event being held in Durham in November. It’s an important part of Hullabaloo’s identity, and the additional funding will be instrumental in allowing them to continue them.

Unfortunately, it’s not all rolling around in cash and theatre bookings, as very shortly the group is going to have to look for a new home. Budget cuts within Darlington Borough Council, one of Hullabaloo’s most important partners, have meant that they will soon have to leave the Arts Centre which they have called home for the last fifteen years.

Thankfully though, the council isn’t leaving them on the streets entirely, as Miranda explained: “The council has really exciting plans for their new building which will be much more sustainable than the current arts centre and the council is very much in support of theatre for young people.”

She added: Although it feels like a crisis at the moment I’m cautiously optimistic that things will work out.”

Despite this small setback, Theatre Hullabaloo continues to grow, and they have high expectations for the future: “In three years time, if we haven’t changed perceptions and got the North East on the map for being somewhere really special in terms of children’s theatre then I don’t think we’ll have done our job properly, that’s what we’re aiming for.”

What a difference a day makes.

I spent my Sunday afternoon in what I suppose you’d call a haze. Wandering around Newcastle in some sort of post debry-day stuppor, just looking for somewhere to sit and have a quiet pint, I was turned away from my favourite watering hole by staff sweeping up broken glass, my faith in humanity as shattered as The Forth’s window.

This is after I’d been physically moved out of the range of enemy archers (coins replacing arrows in the modern age) and seen a woman who comfortably qualified for her bus pass be escorted out of the stadium for having the cheek to get in the way of a flying bottle. Somewhere in between the rumours of vandalised trains and unmentionable things smeared on toilet walls, Shola Ameobi and Nicklas Bendtner managed to ruin a perfectly good scrap with two moments of actual football.

Elation and despair for one team, despair and elation for the other, managers squaring up to each other, accusations from and through the press, professional players feigning injury, players attempting to professionally cause it, the abuse, the chanting, all of it.  It’s enough to make you wonder why we even bother with football.

Well, I’ll tell you.

Not even 24 hours before the living, breathing FA investigation that was the 146th Tyne/Wear derby, I was stood in a sports hall with fans of Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Blyth, Darlington, Hartlepool, and a smattering of others, as Mackem royalty and former face of Detroit Social Club David Burn stood before us, adorned in the black and white, and told us we’d raised in excess of £4,000 for children born with rare heart conditions. Simply by kicking a ball around for the afternoon.

The (hopefully inaugural) Little Hearts Matter cup, which featured teams of semi-pros, wheezing amateurs of all shapes, sizes, skills and staminas, encompassed an entire Saturday at Heaton Park Manor school, and brought North-East wide attention to one of the most worthwhile causes imaginable.

“About £3,000″ was the magic target for the day, but raffles, competitions, crossbar challenges, the tournament itself and a generous lashing of warm generosity ensured that figure for the day was well, well in excess of even the most optimistic predictions. Christ’s shelves, I even scored a goal.

If you weren’t there (or even if you were) and would like to help children born with rare heart conditions, Little Hearts Matter have a Just Giving page here. Image courtesy of Michael O’Grady.

“We need The Writer’s Cafe because I have nowhere to write in my house.”

“What’s wrong with the loo?”

“Being in the loo is like being in a cafe, somebody always wants your place.”

Such is the response when the attendees of The Settle Down Cafe’s first Writer’s Cafe event are asked why such an event is necessary. The writer hogging the comfy corner in a cafe is to be expected, as much an accepted inconvenience as the burned coffee and and wobbly tables. Of course they have to endure gawking passers by and glares from proprietors.

Image courtesy of Marian Shek

Why is there no place in Newcastle for these corner-hogging socket-using keyboard-tapping cafe dwellers to gather? Marie Lightman and Jenni Pascoe have attempted to condense all of the city’s writers into bi-weekly collaborative meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, 9:30 til noon. Why has it taken this long for something so obviously necessary to manifest itself?

“I came up with the idea about four years ago, sitting in a cafe,” says Marie. “I felt frustrated I enjoyed writing out of the house but people would turn me out of the cafe. I needed somewhere to write. Like this, with no clutter.” Casting a sceptical eye over the countless writing guides, laptops and half eaten cake she says, “Well, it’s social clutter, something to write about.”

There’s a consensus among the group that there’s a dearth in the area of anywhere productive for writers to meet. People hide in corners of the Lit and Phil or one of Newcastle’s cafe’s. Or they find a writer’s group, but most of them charge. Happily, The Writer’s Cafe doesn’t, unless you want cake.

“There isn’t a social aspect to writing in a cafe anywhere else. It’s a very individual thing, or you can go to a writers group where it’s social but it’s very structured,” says Jenni. “We wanted somewhere between those two extremes. It’s casual and it’s social, but we incorporate things from the individual side and the structured side.”

The first meeting was more of a coffee and a chat to establish future plans, and Jenni is keen to state that they’re not ‘being precious’ about the structure of the meetings. The dozen or so attendees of the first meeting boasts poets, screen writers, novelists, play writes and journalists. However, Marie is keen to stress that any sort of words-to-paper activity is encouraged. “I’ve always said it doesn’t have to be a creative writing activity. It could be that you’re writing a report for work. Even people write something about say…science. They’re still writing.”

The Settle Down Cafe was chosen, according to Marie, on account of its excellent supply of electricity. “I walked in here and I thought ‘Yeah. They’ve got sockets, cool.’ The tables don’t wobble, they’re flat. They’re good for writing on. So, we set the date and had a launch party.” The fact that it seems to welcome being taken over by writers twice a week probably played some small part.

Not since the arrival on the BBC of Professor Brian Cox OBE (yes, a member of D:Ream has an OBE) have I been so excited about science. This year’s Newcastle Science Festival, taking place across various venues in the city and beyond from Thursday 8^th until Thursday 15^th March, features a host of great exhibitions, tours, parties and lectures. Here are some of our top tips.

Exhibition A Slice Of Pi at the Lit & Phil on Monday 12^th explores how pi has fascinated culture vultures – from Kate Bush and film director Darren Aronofsky – and mathematicians alike; while on Wednesday 14^th join Northumbria University lecturers in exploring the sun and its effects on the earth and space travel. There’s also the option of a visit to the Centre For Life for a presenter-led Live Skies planetarium show.

If local history is your bag, the tour of Victoria Tunnel in the Ouseburn Valley (every day of the festival) will fascinate. These underground tunnels are an amazing feat of engineering, discover more about their construction and use as a wagonway for the Newcastle coal industry.

A series of special evening events for adults across the week include Bright Club at The Black Swan Arts Centre on Thursday 8^th, described as the ‘thinking person’s variety night’ and blending science, comedy, music, art and performance; Science In A Nightclub at Liquid And Envy on Tuesday 13^th explores how computers are used by DJs, how lasers work and what effect dancing has on our bodies; if all this is a bit too technical for you, join the Skeptics In The Pub at The Bridge Hotel on Wednesday 14^th – a monthly gathering of Newcastle’s finest thinkers, there will be several short talks on a range of subjects and an opportunity for local sceptics and free-thinkers to take to the stage for 15 minutes in the spotlight.

The closing night at the Centre For Life looks to be quite a treat too. Thursday 15^th will see a noir-inspired evening of trickery, tomfoolery, secrets and lies with tricks in code-breaking, becoming a human lie-detector and conspiracy theories mixing with live jazz, poker tables, forensic science, cybercrime and themed cocktails.

When Art And Science Collide is a series of fascinating projects that explore the boundaries and possibilities of art and science and features a lecture at the Centre For Life on Friday 9^th about music, architecture and acoustics; a lively panel explore what happens when artists and scientists collaborate, also at the Centre For Life, on Monday 12^th; while Science Into Short Fiction at the Lit & Phil on Tuesday 13^th looks at Sean O’Brien’s short story about memory manipulation and the reality behind the fiction.

Aside from all that there’s a series of satellite shows featuring Catalytic Clothing at the Pop Up Gallery in Eldon Square, the Undress:Redress exhibition at Arts Centre Washington and loads of events in conjunction with AV Festival.