Month: March 2019

We are very excited that the Plymouth Language Club’s first event at their new home at The Plymouth Athenaeum will take place on Saturday 30th March (7.15pm for a 7.30pm start).

The line up features John Wedgwood Clarke, Gabi Marcellus-Temple, Mark Totterdell, Sarah Cave and James Turner.

The event will see an extended reading from John Wedgwood Clarke, who is a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter.

His new poetry collection, Landfill, explores the poetics of rubbish and marine ecology and was featured recently on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

His poems have appeared in PN Review, Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland, POEM, Poetry Wales, The Guardian and The New Statesman. Recent commissions include the poetry project, Red River: Listening to a Polluted River, which explores global river pollution and the emotional impact of environmental damage through a small polluted river in his home area of West Cornwall.

His TV credits as a presenter include the documentaries The Books that Made Britain (2016) and Through the Lens of Larkin (2017), both for BBC4.

Gabi Marcellus-Temple is a visual artist, translator and writer who has a Masters degree in translation from the University of Manchester. Her translations have been published worldwide.

She currently focuses on installation, performance and writing and exhibits, performs and curates regularly in Plymouth with groups such as Flameworks, WonderZoo and Feminist Fusion.

Mark Totterdell was born in rural Somerset and now lives in Exeter. He studied at the University of Southampton.

Mark’s first collection This Patter of Traces was published in 2014 by Oversteps Books to great acclaim and was shortlisted for the Stare’s Nest Fledgling award for the best first collection by a poet over forty.

His second collection, Mapping (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2018) blends tradition and experiment in the field of landscape poetry and has also received critical acclaim.

Sarah Cave is a poet and academic currently working towards a practice-based PhD. at Royal Holloway, on the poetics of prayer in contemporary poetry.

Her third chapbook, Like Fragile Clay, was published by Guillemot Press in September 2018, and her first full collection, An Arbitrary Line, was published in November 2018 by Broken Sleep Books.

Her second collection is due to be published in late 2019 and she is working towards a third. She lives in Bodmin.

James Turner is two years older than the NHS, is retired and lives in Exeter where he was Poetry Slam Champion between 2014-15.

His poetry has appeared in a variety of magazines including The Rialto, Tremblestone, Envoi and Acumen.

His first collection of poetry, Forgeries, was published by Original Plus in 2002 and his second, A Chance of Love (sonnets of two decades), was published by Oversteps in 2014.

He has performed live at many venues including the Blue Walnut (Torquay), The Hay-on-Wye Fringe Festival, CrossCountry Writers and Uncut at Exeter Arts Centre.

Entry is by donation (suggested minimum £5 waged, £3 unwaged).

The Language Club receives no public funding at the present time and relies on your generosity to maintain regular readings.

In April 1917 Emma Scott was elected President of The Plymouth Athenaeum, then known as the Plymouth Institution and Devon & Cornwall Natural History Society.

Emma was the first of 11 women to serve as President of The Athenaeum and her inaugural address was titled ‘WOMAN’S WORK’.

Emma, a headmistress who lived in Lockyer Street, was elected to the Society in 1900 and had served as a Vice President for a number of years.

She opened her first address with the following remarks: “As I am the first woman President of this Institution, it seems to me appropriate to take as the subject of my address the work which women are doing in the world…

“…and their progress in the learned professions opened to them by the higher educational facilities which were first offered about the middle of the nineteenth century.”

In her address, she drew attention to the improvement of education for women following the accession of Queen Victoria to the British throne and the scientific work of the French-Polish physicist, Marie Curie.

She also highlighted nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale and the 1908 election of Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson as Mayor of Aldeborough, the first woman to hold such a position.

Emma’s election to the Presidency of the Society came in the midst of the First World War, two months before the passing of The Representation of the People Act 1918 finally granted votes to women over 30.

The Plymouth Institution was renamed ‘The Plymouth Athenaeum’ when it moved into the current building in June 1961, which is sited on the same location as its pre-Blitz home.

The other women to have served as President are Miss M. Raymond (1920–21), Miss M.V. Lebour (1940–41), Miss R. Lang (1949–51), Mrs. W. Harper-Cornish (1955–58), Mrs. M.A. Wilson (1963–65), Mrs. J.C. Spring (1992–94), Mrs. M. Halfacree (1996–98), Mrs. B.J. Smith (1998–2001 & 2005–08), Mrs. P.E. Rowe (2001–03) and Miss V.A. Power (2008–10).

Emma’s full Presidential address can be read here.

The Plymouth Athenaeum and Barbican Theatre and are delighted to announce the launch of PL1 Partnership to develop The Plymouth Athenaeum as a vibrant theatre, music, comedy, dance, lecture, screenings, and lifelong learning venue.

PL1 Partnership is ​​led by directors of both organisations who will ​​work together to upgrade the building and bring it fully into public use.

Owen Ryles, Chief Executive of The Plymouth Athenaeum, says: “We are delighted to be entering into the next stage of our developing partnership with Barbican Theatre with the formation of PL1 Partnership.

“The plan to undertake a full refurbishment of the building by 2030 offers an exciting opportunity for both organisations to continue to grow and play a key role in arts, culture and education in Plymouth for decades to come.”

The Plymouth Athenaeum stage closed to the public in 2009 and re-opened in 2017 through a Social Enterprise Investment Fund grant and loan from Plymouth City Council. This boost helped to reinstate basic lighting and sound to this well-loved auditorium making it possible to bring local artists work onto the stage and support the development of the creative industries in the city.

Sheila Snellgrove, Chief Executive of Barbican Theatre explains: “There is a huge gap in provision for artists in the city and PA will provide a crucial pathway for creatives to show their work at middle scale and build an audience.

“This is essential if we want to stem the well-recognised talent drain to Bristol and London. We also want to see an eclectic mix of toured in shows on the stage that have commercial value so that we can pour it back into talent development.”

Over the past 18 months the partnership has experimented with its programme which has included The Fab Beatles, Le Navet Bete’s Dracula: The Bloody Truth, Avant Garde Dance’s Fagin’s Twist, comedian Iain Stirling’s U OK HUN?x, Plymkids Les Miserables, James Wilton Dance’s The Storm, The Story Of The Beach Boys® and recently our FUSE Diverse Dance production of Put On your Red Shoes.

The Plymouth Athenaeum (credit Jo Cann)​

The well-loved Devon based comedy troupe Le Navet Bete completed two highly successful Christmas Shows at The Plymouth Athenaeum – A Christmas Carol (2017) and Aladdin (2018). The mid-scale venue was an essential stepping-stone for the company at a time when they needed to progress from small-scale in order to stay local. Le Navet Bete’s Al Dunn says

“We knew we had a loyal Plymouth audience and we’ve sold out the Barbican every year for 7 years– going to The Athenaeum was a massive step, almost doubling our audience size just at the time when we needed it – and we did it. We are massively grateful for the opportunity and want to do more work in the city”.

PL1 Partnership have commissioned a pre-feasibility report from the internationally-recognised Theatre Projects Consultants who have worked on major Theatres, Arts Centres, Museums and Concert Halls worldwide. Their expertise will help to shape and plan how to create an innovative, flexible, hardworking, and efficient space at Plymouth Athenaeum to achieve a great audience experience and enable The Athenaeum to continue and improve on its 200-year history as a hub for lifelong learning well into the 21st century.

Theatre Projects Consultants were asked to look at a phased approach to development with a full refurbishment complete by 2030.

PL1 Partnership is currently in discussion with Arts Council England, The Theatre Trust, Rank Foundation and others to put together a funding package to begin this exciting process.

PL1 Partnership are inviting members of the public and media to join them at The Plymouth Athenaeum at 11am Friday 22 March, where there will be a chance to look at preliminary drawings and plans and talk to PL1 Partnership directors.

The Plymouth Athenaeum’s 2019 Winter Talks series continues with a talk on Scam Awareness on Tuesday, March 12 (2.30pm).

We are all encouraged to be ‘scam aware’ and look out for offers that aren’t all they seem. While there might be new scams cropping up all the time, the tactics of scammers remain the same.

These include being contacted out of the blue to being pressured to sign up to a deal on the spot, receiving an offer that sounds too good to be true or being told to pay an advance fee for an item or service.

Anyone can be a victim of scammers, but they deliberately prey on the vulnerable and isolated, often older people and once they send money or provide their personal and private information, their name is added to a scams list which is sold to other criminals and they are targeted again.

Tracy Birnie, Enforcement Officer at Trading Standards, will be talking about scam awareness and will answer your questions.
Talks are free and open to the public.

If wheelchair access is required please contact The Athenaeum in advance on (01752) 266079 or via email at info@plymouthathenaeum.co.uk