About the host
Nick Ahad is a multi award winning journalist and broadcaster, as well as a writer for theatre and television. He is currently under commission with Leeds Playhouse and Rifco Theatre Company, and his plays include Glory for Red Ladder and Dukes Theatre, Lancaster.
Nick is a presenter with the BBC and has presented his own weekend shows with BBC Radio Leeds since 2014, and has been a presenter with Radio 4’s arts programme, Front Row since 2019.
Nick is the former Arts Editor of the Yorkshire Post and is currently a Yorkshire Post theatre correspondent. He is also the North of England critic for Plays International, his writing and reviews have regularly appeared in The Guardian and The Independent.
Time
7pm - 9pm
Place
Salt Works, Saltaire
Who is Culture Club for?
Culture Club is for anyone involved in the making or sharing of live performance in Bradford and who would like to come together to have lively conversations about creative work.
This is for you if you want to:
- be inspired by exciting online performances
- participate in enriching group discussions
- explore what makes ‘high-quality’ performance
- expand your critical language when talking about performance
- practise articulating your thoughts and feelings about a performance piece
- become more reflective about your own work
- develop your critiquing skills with writer and theatre critic, Nick Ahad
- connect with other like-minded creatives from Bradford
How do I sign up?
We will release tickets three weeks ahead of each event, see below for upcoming events.
Places are limited and are therefore offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
We expect this series to be popular! To be notified when tickets go live, sign up to our mailing.
Links to access each online performance will be sent at least 1 week before each meetup.
See below for more of our FAQs.
Culture Club dates and performances
Next event: Thursday 28 September 2023
Performance: Consent
Friends take opposing briefs in a rape case. The key witness is a woman whose life seems a world away from theirs. At home, their own lives begin to unravel as every version of the truth is challenged.
Nina Raine’s funny, painful and challenging play sifts the evidence from every side and puts justice herself in the dock.
A production from National Theatre and Out of Joint.
This bracingly clever, bleakly funny play offers no easy answers to any of its questions: what is justice, what is vengeance, and which is right?
This play contains discussion and depiction of sexual violence.
Past events:
Thursday 13 April 2023
Performance: It’s True, It’s True, It’s True
This gripping dramatisation of a 1612 rape trial brought by the gifted painter Artemisia Gentileschi roars down the ages centuries after it shocked Renaissance Rome.
When Agostino Tassi, the pope’s favourite artist, was accused of raping 15-year-old Gentileschi, the ensuing seven-month case was widely publicised. It’s True, It’s True, It’s True interweaves jaw-dropping court transcripts with history, myth, contemporary insight and moments of satire to ask: how much has really changed?
Filled with ire and using modern language, the devised show shines a spotlight on a remarkable woman who went on to triumph through her art.
This new film version, shot on location in a former chapel, was specially staged for TV and originally shown on BBC4. The film is produced by Artemisia Films and Breach and was commissioned by The Space for BBC Arts.
Breach are a New Diorama Theatre Associate Ensemble.
Thursday 11 May 2023
Performance: Oliver Twist
Specially filmed for audiences to enjoy online
This meetup was joined by special guest, Amy Leach – Deputy Artistic Director at Leeds Playhouse
Born into poverty and misfortune, Oliver Twist escapes the workhouse for a life of adventure where he joins Artful Dodger, Fagin and their mischievous gang of pickpockets. But the enjoyment is short-lived as he falls under the influence of the vicious Bill Sikes.
This landmark production has been specially filmed for audiences to enjoy online at home. Bold, brutal and beautiful this highly acclaimed version of Oliver Twist sends you on a dark adventure through the twisted streets of London. Adapted by award-winning playwright Bryony Lavery, the production features creatively integrated sign language, audio description and captioning.
Oliver Twist is produced in association with Ramps On The Moon. Now in its fifth year, this pioneering initiative from seven major UK theatre companies is committed to putting deaf and disabled artists and audiences at the centre of its work.
For more information about this production, including content warnings, head to the National Theatre website.
Tuesday 6 June 2023
Performance: Blues for an Alabama Sky
A production from the National Theatre
‘To realise our dreams, we must wake up.’
New York, 1930. Following a decade of creative explosion, the Harlem Renaissance is starting to feel the bite of the Great Depression.
In the face of hardship and dwindling opportunity, Angel and her friends battle to keep their artistic dreams alive.
But, when Angel falls for a stranger from Alabama, their romance forces the group to make good on their ambitions, or give in to the reality of the time.
Lynette Linton directs a startling revival of this extraordinary play by Pearl Cleage, which received three 2023 Olivier Award nominations.
Samira Wiley (The Handmaid’s Tale) makes her UK stage debut alongside a cast that includes Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo (Three Sisters), Osy Ikhile (Sweat), Sule Rimi (Barber Shop Chronicles) and Giles Terera (Death of England: Face to Face).
Olivier Awards 2023 Nominations include: Best Actor, Giles Terera, Best Costume Design, Frankie Bradshaw, Best Supporting Actor, Sule Rimi.
For more information about the performance and to watch the trailer, head to the National Theatre at Home website.
Thursday 28 July 2023
Performance: Creature
Based on the acclaimed English National Ballet production, choreographed by Akram Khan and directed by Academy Award-winning director Asif Kapadia.
This month’s Culture Club pick has been chosen by BPH Consortium Member, actor and writer, Kamal Kaan.
A genre-busting collaboration that fuses film and contemporary dance.
In a dilapidated former Arctic research station, Creature (Jeffrey Cirio) is unknowingly enlisted by a military brigade into an experimental programme. Creature meets and falls in love with Marie (Erina Takahashi), a cleaner who shows him kindness and compassion; together they dream of escape. This vivid cinematic experience is a beautiful, tragic tale of an outsider’s search for belonging, the insatiable desires of the powerful, and the enduring hope found in human connection and compassion.
Creature is Olivier Award winning choreographer Akram Khan’s third work for English National Ballet, following Dust and his reimagining of Giselle.
For more information on this performance, head to the English National Ballet website.
About the venue
The monthly meetups will take place at:
Salt Works
202 Saltaire Rd, Saltaire, Shipley BD18 3JF
Salt Works is a multi-purpose arts venue and co-working space in Saltaire, home to Split Design Studio and People Powered Press.
Salt Works is an accessible venue with access and toilets all on the ground floor.
FAQs
Culture Club is free to participate in.
We’ll pay for you to access each performance and send you the links.
We’ll provide refreshments during the meetups.
We always do what we can to reduce any barriers to participate in our events and programmes to make these opportunities as accessible to as many people as possible.
If you have any access needs to view online content, or to attend our events, please let us know when booking and we will do what we can to accommodate. We can provide interpreters for those who require it.
We have funds available to help towards any access costs you may face. This may include support towards childcare, other caring costs, disability support, or travel costs.
Places are extremely limited. We would therefore ask that you only book if you can attend. If you can no longer attend, please cancel your booking on Eventbrite, or email hello@bdproducinghub.co.uk as soon as you can so that we can allocate your place to someone else.
If you fail to attend on multiple occasions without notice, we may need to restrict you from booking future events.
All performances will be accessible online.
Specific access instructions for each performance will vary.
For most performances, we will provide you with a link and instructions on how to view them.
Most performances will be video, but some may be audio performances.
Creative Quality Series
These events are part of our Creative Quality Series, a programme of events and training designed to inspire, connect, and develop the rich talent of performance makers across Bradford in readiness to create amazing work as we become the UK City of Culture 2025.
