The brilliant cultural bonus of lockdown. Take your front row seat.
The coronavirus lockdown has restricted our lives in so many ways, but it has also opened them up in other, unexpected and fantastically rewarding, enjoyable ones.
You know that blockbuster art exhibition that you either couldn’t get tickets for, or live too far away to get to? Or that literary festival that you always wished you could go to but somehow never remembered to try and get tickets for until they were all sold out? Or that play/opera/dance performance you longed to see but for the eye-wateringly expensive ticket price?
Well now you can! What’s more, you can entirely for free. Plus you get an unrestricted view from your comfy sofa, whatever liquid accompaniment you choose and no distraction from noisy seat neighbours or heaving crowds to do elbow room battle with. Oh, and you can definitely be in your pjs, ‘cos who’s ever going to know? I mean, could it get any better?
With all arts and entertainment venues shut for the foreseeable future, and cultural events and festivals having to cancel left and right, many are coming up with innovative ways to make their shows, performances and presentations available to the widest possible audience.
So settle down in your front row seat and make the most of an unprecedented (in the not just good, but best possible sense) cultural feast of glorious goodies, of which this selection is merely a small, but hopefully tempting taster.
Front row at: The Hay Festival
Next week I was due to spend a few days at the fabulous Hay Festival, where, just to give you the full picture, the plan was to be first-time glamping in a not-exactly-roughing-it yurt. I knew you’d want to know that.
This would have been my second visit to this buzzing, brilliant banquet of talks, as wide ranging as the authors whose work it showcases, (you can read about the highlights of my first visit here) and I was looking forward to pigging out on the inspiring, enlightening, informative and entertaining spread of speakers in the programme (OK, I’ll stop with the eating analogy now).
When I received the email informing me that the event had been cancelled - no surprise there - I resigned myself to waiting as patiently as I could until bookings for next year opened.
But it turns I don’t have to. I can still enjoy a huge array of the scheduled talks live on-line and even join in with question and answer sessions after some of them. In fact, I can see and hear far more of the distinguished, inspirational speakers than I could have if I’d been to the festival in person. Because I can select from any talk on any day of the 10-day event.
And it’s not that I can do that because I had a ticket for the festival. Anyone can, just by going to the the Hay Festival Digital site, browsing the programme, then signing up for any talk or performance that takes your fancy.
The range of subjects is huge - from science to politics, arts to history, language to life - so you’re bound to find something that takes your fancy.
The talks are at set times, and when you sign up for whichever one(s) you want (there’s no limit to how many that is. I constrained myself to a maximum of three each day. It was hard!) you get sent a 10 minute warning when each session is about to start.
All of this completely free, but if you would like to support the work currently being done to provide all these fantastic digital delights, and help to ensure there’s a ‘real life’ festival next year, you can make a donation
Front row at: The National Portrait Gallery
The BP Portrait Award is an annual exhibition (and one of my favourites) that showcases the best in innovative contemporary portraiture.
Alexander Nilere, Kilburn by Peter James Field
The works are selected from nearly 2,000 entries from artists around the world, and is always a dazzling, unexpected, moving and uplifting experience.
This year, everyone can enjoy the chosen pieces in satisfying detail thanks to the excellent, fully interactive virtual tour on the Portrait Gallery’s website
Front row at : Sadler’s Wells
The Cloud Dance theatre performing Moon Water
If dancing is your delight, then head over the Sadler’s Wells website, where you’ll find a fabulous selection of free full-length dance performances and brilliant workshops ‘on’ their Sadler’s Wells Digital Stage
The performances are specifically timed, and then available for seven days on Facebook and YouTube.
Front row at: Town Hall Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Birmingham’s renowned Symphony Hall is widely considered to be one of the best in the world and usually hosts a busy schedule of concerts and performances.
Xhosa Cole’s Quintet performing their Watch Party jazz set
The centre has chosen to make their live music available to the widest possible audience via Facebook Watch Parties. To find out how to join in, and to watch any of the performances already broadcast, click here
Front row at: The National Theatre
Gillian Anderson in A Streetcar Named Desiare
The National has been streaming a selection of their world-class productions for free on YouTube as part of their NT At Home programme. At the time of writing the spellbinding performances of Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okenedo as Anthony and Cleopatra, were on offer, and next up is Gillian Anderson as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
Visit the NT website to find the full schedule
Front row at: The Royal Opera House
Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana
Magnificent opera in magnificent surroundings enjoyed from the surroundings of your own (magnificent?) home.
The Royal Opera House has a free programme of curated online broadcasts as part of what they’re calling their OurHousetoYourHouse series.
Details of the full-length productions, musical masterclasses and glimpses behind the scenes that can be seen for free are on their website
Front row at: Turner Contemporary
The striking exterior of the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate
The Turner Contemporary has played a major part in making Margate a mecca for artists and art, and their intriguing new exhibition, We Will Walk, Art and Resistance in the American South, is available as a virtual tour hosted on YouTube via the gallery’s website
Front row at: The Royal Academy
Did you miss out on seeing the blockbuster (and incredibly busy) Picasso and Paper exhibition?
Picasso and Paper - without the crowds
Well now, you catch up with the huge and wide ranging selection of pieces on display without having to to battle with the crowds thanks to a carefully filmed virtual tour
And, better still (well, as a huge David Hockney fan, I think it’s better) is the chance the RA website offers to revisit two of his landmark exhibitions at the gallery, both of which I was lucky enough to see in person.
Front row at: anywhere you choose
Of course, you don’t just have to confine your cultural delicacies to things going on in the UK. You could, for example, dip into the selection of performances at Live With Carnegie Hall or settle down to one of the nightly opera streams from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
If you fancy more of a cultural meander there’s a mind-bogglingly wide range of content and experiences, on Google Arts and Culture I dare you to spend less than an hour bingeing on what’s on offer on the site.
This really is a time when artistic and cultural experiences and events are open to us all in a way they never have been before, and may never be again.
From the comfort of my front row seat, I hope you’ll make the most of every glorious moment on yours.
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