On 14 November 1922 the BBC launched its very first radio broadcast.
The first programme, at 6 pm, was a news bulletin, supplied by news agencies. This was followed by a weather forecast, prepared by the Met Office. They were read by Arthur Burrows, Director of programmes. Burrows read the bulletin twice, once fast and then slowly, so that listeners could take notes if they wished.
To mark this anniversary our National Lottery Heritage Fund supported project Moonbeam Magic will see a series of Heritage Audio Workshops commencing 14 November to celebrate this milestone and to start building skills towards our Audio output to launch in January 2024. (Another 100 year anniversary. The first play broadcast on the BBC – Danger by Richard Hughes and February 1924 see the introduction of “the pips” ).
The exciting blended programme evening, daytime, studio and online sessions of research and practical workshops will be led by Lil Warren (Writer & Director of our Audio doc Queen of the Blues and podcaster) and broadcaster and historian Adam Zmith who most recently created The Film We Can’t See for BBC Sounds. (Voted No. 2 in the Best Podcast of 2022 by GQ magazine).
To register interest and to receive more details please submit the form below.
As part of the National Lottery Heritage Fund project
MOONBEAM MAGIC
Unity Arts and the Rio Cinema are hosting an event
SEPTEMBER 29 from 830pm
The Beauty of Silent Film
looking at the history of silent movies in post WWI Britain.
This in the year that the Rio celebrate their 115th Anniversary as arguably the longest running cinema in the UK.
The event will include a presentation by expert Andrew Woodyatt from the Rio Cinema, a live performance from Dan de la Motte and Lil Warren created by Unity Arts, based on the very first films made by Edison.
There will be a small installation in the foyer created by participants in our first set of Silent Film workshops at St Margaret’s House in Bethnal Green (where silent star Mabel Poulton is from). One discovery was the first screen male on male kiss.
All followed by a screening of the silent film The Pleasure Garden, the directorial debut of Alfred Hitchcock.
Hitchcock and his wife Alma
The bar will be open. There will be 1920s music played and a bottle of champagne for the most interesting costume worn!!!
This is a FREE event but you need to register on the link below (for obvious reasons).
Theatre Soap as part of the #CLASS Season at Hoxton Hall
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
“nails the complexity of London working-class life”
I do not watch soaps. It’s not really a loaded statement, it’s just we don’t have a tv for fear of the tv licensing people knocking down our door, and netflix has a strangle-hold on our quiet nights. So when my partner mentioned she had tickets to Hoxton Street, a Theatre Soap written by working-class writing duo Oladipo Agboluaje and Lil Warren (based on a concept from Karena Johnson) about life on the street, I was not prepared in the slightest. I’m a stranger to soap dramas, a relative stranger to the theatre, and a stranger to Hoxton Street.
I’ve cycled it’s length a few times and always been surprised at its old London feel – even the skyline high-rises of the city can’t overshadow the bustle of the market, nor the proximity to the ultra-gentrified stomping grounds of Shoreditch and beyond.
Alan Turkington (Zach) and Nathan Welsh (Tony)
The set is our first introduction to the street. (Designed by Amy Yardley). It’s wonderfully simple, belying the choice power of its cultural cues; from a record shop with a Janet Kay lover’s rock record on the wall, to a family-run falafel stand on the market, or a new-build living tower for yuppies (they’re clearly not estates when the middle classes move in) – these are scenes we all recognise on streets like Hoxton street. The cast flit between these uncompromisingly effortless settings, as thick east-end accents spin stories that are instantly relatable.
We follow the arrival of Tony Maynard (Nathan Welsh), a returning Hoxton street fixture who’s about to cause trouble for the street’s residents new and old. What unfurls are a small clutch of mini-dramas, that in true soap style, are forever ending on cliffhangers and intrigue, carrying each episode at pace. This was not my sort of thing, I had told myself, yet there I was, clinging to the edge of the wrought-iron balcony of Hoxton Hall, itching to jump to the next scene.
Merch Husey (Okhan), Helen Pearson (Josie), Hannah Traylen (Ella)
And though there was a healthy dose of soap-esque melodrama, a little hamming it up here and there (to a raucous response from the audience), the relationships and situations were also shown with remarkable sincerity. Take Tony’s mother (Helen Pearson) and her relationship with her daughter (Hannah Traylen). There’s something incredibly touching about their bond – it’s undoubtedly genuine – and yet it also highlights the struggles they have faced as a pair, and the expectations that they, as working class women, thrust on themselves. It is remarkable how fluently all of these ideas are delivered.
Nathan Welsh as Tony Maynard
The same exists across the piece – in Episode One alone we hear themes of class shame, the tussle between old locals and (arguably old) gentrifiers, the generational struggle within migrant families – and remember, this is a soap! A drama filled with giggles, and oohs and aahs from the audience. All of this, crammed into quick, half-hour-long-ish episodes.
There seems to be a real love for these characters from the writers – none are scorned or oversimplified, in a world where still to this day, major broadcasters fail to represent working class people as having any depth. It nails the complexity of London working-class life without doing any disservice to the people. And nor does it do a disservice to the audience; we shout and holla on cue, as each episode finishes with a dual cliff-hanger – we are chosen to deliver the next instalment, voting on which outcome we would like to see aided by the gossipy Monica Belo (Carol Moses).
Carol Moses as Monica Belo
And boy does it work well, because glancing around the gorgeous old music hall, it’s filled with plenty of local characters, heady from a mix of Eastenders omnibuses and the twinkle of a night out with friends.
So here I find myself, itching to watch Episode Two, shouting from the balcony for more alongside a gaggle of local Hoxton life. Hoxton Street has been cleverly serialised, with episodes one and two back to back in the first weeks, and an omnibus of all episodes finishes the run.
It’s like an homage to music hall programmes, the bastions of working class entertainment in these parts of London. Hoxton Street is fun, joyous, yet doesn’t skip over or shy away from the very real problems that normal working people face day-to-day. Soak it in, and join me for the next episodes.
Hoxton Street Omnibus runs 18-28 May.
For more info on the #CLASS season and tickets visit the Hoxton Hall website
We have just had the exciting news that our submission to NLHF to fund a 30 month project with a 1920s heritage focus has been successful!
MOONBEAM MAGIC will deliver a blended programme of in person and online events and activities looking at post-war social history including the subjects the “Bright Young Thing” Stephen Tennant and silent movie star Mabel Poulton.
Over the life of the project there are so many activities to get involved in which include:
Working with Queer Tours of London to create a walking tour and App based on the letters of Stephen Tennant.
Heritage site visits and Specialist talks.
Create exhibitions and installations and learn analogue photography.
Archive research and training to help deliver an Audio output and an ebook
Work on a silent movie.
Our flagship event at The Rio Cinema in 2024 will include all our research and the silent movie screening!
We will officially launch the project in January 2022 please let us know if you would like to sign up or find out more!
QUEEN OF THE BLUES is a set of community created responses to the life, work and letters of Bluestocking, Elizabeth Montagu and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
This Virtual Exhibition was installed and filmed in lockdown.
An online brochure with more detail on the research behind the exhibition is available here
This exhibition has been created and filmed by the team at Unity Arts directed by Lil Warren and shot and edited by Neil Webster from Edwin Louis Fear Films. The work on display is from from our community in addition to the portraits and objects loaned by Dr Johnson’s House of Elizabeth Montagu and Samuel Johnson. With the support of Curator Celine McDaid and Deputy Curator Helen Woollison.
You will be able to book slots to see the exhibition in person and visit Dr Johnson’s House once lockdown eases. See the website.
Queen of the Blues was the name given to Montagu by Samuel Johnson and the pieces that are displayed have been created during the Covid-19 pandemic. The artwork, 3D installations, audio installation, and information panels came out of online workshops, heritage trips in pairs and one to one socially distanced meetings with the researchers and artists also using Primary Sources, archive materials, art, poetry and music as prompts.
If you would like more information and updates please email us on unityarts@hotmail.co.uk
The Hackney Society and Hackney History have launched a new publication containing 113 brief illustrated biographies of women from Hackney’s history who lived or worked, were born or buried in today’s borough. Drawn from widely differing backgrounds, none of these women is still with us but their stories cover five centuries and show us how times have changed for women and for Hackney.
Written and designed by Hackney women (including our very own Lil Warren who wrote of Edith Cavell), the book has been produced in collaboration with Hackney History (Friends of The Hackney Archives).
This 36 page colour booklet gives an overview of the findings during Blue Circle of Dissent. A National Lottery Heritage Fund community research project delivered between 2019 and 2021. (One year of the project was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic). Our researchers and participants responded to artwork, primary sources and the lives and works of
This collection of poetry and images was produced by participants in the HACKNEY DISSENT community research project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
This segment of the two year project BLUE CIRCLE OF DISSENT looked at the life and work of Mary Wollstonecraft and the subjects of dissent and radicalism.
There were workshops, activities and trips delivered in partnership with Hoxton Hall Youth Arts and Dr Johnson’s House.
Groups of 8-11s, 12-16s and the Joelle Taylor workshops for over 18s looked at the legacy of dissenters that have gone before and what dissent means to us now, investigating through Drama, Debate, Movement, Poetry and Art sessions.
The project also included watching and discussing the graffiti artist STEWY’s Mary Wollstonecraft documentary. This saw the beginning the “bunting” that would be realised as an installation and several of the pieces are also included in the book.
There were performances of the poetry and display of artwork and information installations at Hoxton Hall and Dr Johnson’s House and some of the poets also appeared in the documentary made by our Digital Outputs Team and directed by Lil Warren also called HACKNEY DISSENT.
On 4 December this year, we again laid flowers at the monument in St Martin’s Place, London to mark the birthday of Edith Cavell. (Flowers are also laid every 12 October by the Royal London Hospital to mark the day of her execution in 1915).
It was eerily quiet in London’s West End and as Edith’s favourite hymn, Abide With Me was sung, we remembered her contribution to nursing, her faith and her bravery.
Lil Warren was invited to write a short biography of Edith Cavell as part of a collection of 100+ women from Hackney’s history being compiled for a future Hackney Society/Hackney History publication. (see below).
Edith Cavell 1865 – 1915
WWI nursing pioneer and iconic woman of courage
“Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone.”
These are the last words of Edith Cavell before she was executed in Brussels, 12 October 1915. The striking George Frampton monument to her in St Martin’s Place, London (adjoining Trafalgar Square) also bears this simple but powerful statement.
Edith Louisa Cavell was born in Swardeston, Norfolk 4 December 1865. (The family name is pronounced to rhyme with travel not hell). A religious, Victorian, middle class upbringing included attendance at the progressive Laurel Court school in Peterborough where Edith began working with children and became fluent in French.
At that time opportunities of employment for “gentlewomen” were scarce and Edith took a series of governess posts, lastly with the Francois family in Brussels. She returned to England to nurse her seriously ill father and when he recovered, decided her vocation was to be a nurse.
Her training began at the London Hospital, Whitechapel (now known as The Royal London Hospital) under the formidable Matron and contemporary of Florence Nightingale, Miss Eva Lückes. Edith qualified in September 1898. By November 1903 she was appointed Assistant Matron at Shoreditich Infirmary (now St Leonard’s Hospital in Hackney) where she had a great deal of supervision of wards and opportunities to teach the nurses training there.
Still looking for promotion to Matron in a British hospital in 1907 she had the good fortune to be recommended by the Francois family to a Belgian surgeon, Dr Antoine Depage. She became Matron and teacher at the Berkendael Institute in Brussels and pioneered professional nursing, previously tasked by nuns. One of her nurses, Mademoiselle Boheme wrote of Edith:
‘Her clear, grey eyes were direct and searching in their gaze. Her voice was low, agreeable and cultured; her French was fluent….I formed the impression that everything around Edith Cavell, the atmosphere of her room, the neatness of her attire, her attitude and poise, and the words she used, all conveyed her characteristic efficiency, thoroughness, serenity, kindness.’
On 3 August 1914 Germany declared war on France and invaded Belgium. Britain declared war on Germany for attacking Belgium’s neutrality. In September 1914 Edith could have returned to England. She chose to stay. She nursed the wounded of all nationalities and surprisingly the German authorities did not intern her as an enemy alien.
For the next year, unbeknownst to her nurses, she became part of the escape network which helped Allied soldiers to safety via Holland. She was closely watched by the secret police and on 5 August 1915 was arrested. On 10 August she was accused of war treason. At her court martial on 9 October she was condemned to death.
At dawn, 12 October she was taken to the Tir National and tied, blindfolded, to the execution post. At 0700 the firing squad opened fire. She died instantly.
Her legacy to nursing will endure as will her qualities of humour, unselfishness, commitment to duty, faith, bravery and her love of others. We will not forget.
Unity Arts London 