Following the success of last year’s Hammersmith and Fulham ArtsFest Finale, hosts Anjan Saha and Nina Joshi Ramsey return with a rare opportunity to be up close and personal with a stellar array of guests across disciplines.
Listen in as they explore mind-altering blind spots, challenges, and hopes around access to being in the Arts, as faced by Artists – perspectives range across finances, identity, location, disability, age, class, gender, art form, subject matter, culture, society, etc. Ask questions, share your thoughts, and have some ‘Aha’ moments
The evening will be interspersed with live music, showcase performances and comedy, for a winning Festival Finale! Expect, at times, irreverent, humorous and philosophical searches for deeper and maybe brutal truths, and possibly even solutions to unseen challenges.
This event continues a series of hothouse thinking towards better community cohesion. Join us at the Bush Theatre Garden before and after the event, to engage with the activities and discussion topics and meet people from across the H&F Arts Festival.
Anjan Saha has a Chemistry BSc and MA in Cultural Management. He is an Arts Council of England Fellow for Senior Managers, a consultant, writer, broadcaster and an Arts and Heritage specialist. He studied Tabla and became a disciple of the legendary Pt Sharda Sharda in London, travelling to India to document the tradition.
Anjan is lead curator for PRSSV’s Benares Baaj Story, which tells the story of Indian Classical Music from the 18th century courts of India to 21st century Britain, supported by the Heritage Lottery in 2015. The project has involved digitising audio and visual archives, publishing a book on the tradition and a touring exhibition.
Anjan founded London Literature Lounge and brought together writers and artists to broadcast a regular radio programme on Resonance FM. He has performed regularly at the Barbican, BBC Poetry Season and South Bank Centre. His other projects have included ITC, Arts Council of East England Decibel Manager, London Metropolitan Archives and Keat’s House visiting writer and projects at PRSSV.
He is currently founding the pioneering music Suriya Recordings with a leading music producer in the UK and representing some of UK’s finest Indian classical musicians collaborating with world music and electronica.
Twitter: @AnjanSaha
Archie Maddocks is a multi-talented, multi-disciplined creative artist, with extensive experience in Comedy and Drama.
As a Stand-Up Comedian, Archie is a confident, cheerful, provocative and most importantly hilarious award winning stand-up comedian armed with a natural stage presence, quick acerbic wit and a ‘winning smile.’
Much in demand on the national circuit and internationally, Archie’s style lends itself to any environment, whether that be rowdy weekend comedy club, festival shows or after dinner entertainment. Quick on his feet, with a warm and affable energy, Archie is equally comfortable doing sets as he is hosting, he’s worked in some of the biggest clubs in the UK, and as fair afield as South Africa and the USA
★★★★ “Poignant, inventive and razor sharp” – Broadway Baby
★★★★ “He is a natural with an audience, boldly exploring controversial topics such as race and religion. Just as you’ve tensed up, he manages to bring the energy back down with amazing skill – leaving everyone in stitches by the end of the show” – Ed Fest Mag-
★★★★ “One to watch” – ThatreFullStop.Com
“A real highlight of the evening” – BBC Introduces
“A super cool, super smart storyteller” – Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke and Evening Standard
Twitter: @ArchieMaddocks
Bryony Meteyard, a trained Director, founded Ignite Me Workshop Theatre, which is an inclusive theatre company that aims to create theatre that tells real people’s stories. This is theatre that reflects reality and raises awareness about issues that are current and important in society. This is theatre for social change.
Working in partnership with RUILS, a pan-disability charity, we have been touring Lives Like These, which tells the true stories of two disabled people and two full-time carers, who play their own parts. Lives Like These is about specific personal experiences but the issues resonate on a national level. It was performed at The House of Commons on 1st May to an audience that included politicians.
Ignite Me Workshop Theatre aims to make engaging political theatre that gives people a voice and enables dialogue with decision-makers; build partnerships with local organisations to involve more people in this work; include people who may never have acted before and equip them with the tools to perform confidently and with conviction. Because they are telling the truth and their voices need to be heard.
Website: www.ignitemewt.com
Twitter: @IGNITEMEWT
Facebook: Ignite ME Workshop Theatre
Hassan Dervish was born and raised in London, with a few years in Derbyshire. He’s a musical comedian. A semi-finalist at Amused Moose 2016, finalist at Comedy Virgins Max Turner Prize 2017, Quarter Finalist in the Leicester Square Theatre’s New Comedian of the Year Award 2017 and semi-finalist of the Musical Comedian Award 2018. Brighton Fringe Show in May 2018.
Twitter: @hderv
YouTube: Hassan Dervish
Award winning producer and entrepreneur Lynne Parker created ‘Funny Women’, now recognised for leading expertise in female comedy, helping women write, perform and do business with humour. Funny Women Awards are now in their 15th year, and events run in London, Brighton, Manchester, Dublin and at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Funny Women also runs corporate events and training for world-leading companies, including JLL, PwC, MasterCard, Investec, Lloyds of London, Aon, Virgin, Women in Rail, and Accenture.
Lynne runs workshops about using humour in the workplace for confidence, team-building and improving diversity. She is a regular contributor to the Independent, Guardian, and Huffington Post and hosts ‘Funny Women On Air’ on Women’s Radio Station.
Lynne was awarded the ‘Inspirational Woman Award’, and ‘NatWest Award’ at the NatWest Ladies at E11even Business Awards in 2011. She was recognised as one of ‘One Hundred Unseen Powerful Women who change the world’, and nominated for the 2015 and 2016 Forward Ladies Women in Business Awards. Funny Women was voted Creative Business of the Year in the Independent Business Awards Kent 2017
Lynne is a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Women and Enterprise. Funny Women is a certified Women Owned Business (WBE)
Twitter: @FunnyWomenLynne Website: www.funnywomen.com
Nina Joshi Ramsey is a Writer, Speaker, Workshop Leader and Coach, with global corporate experience, who started stand-up last year – although she’s been sitting down a lot.
Her migration account, A Leaky Roof in London, won a Penguin Decibel Short award and was recently Screencraft Cinematic Short Story Quarter-finalist. Her writing includes a gas disaster novel, Lifewalla, and a privately commissioned Industrialist Biography. Her stage play, Familiar Strangers, which confronts cultural racism using a family setting, had a stage reading produced by Kali Theatre. She co-wrote a short play with Achala Odhavji, Pickles, Puja and Pin-ups, showcased by the Bush Theatre. She was Media Ambassador and Presenter at the 2018 Bollywood Fever Festival, leading a sing-a-long with hundreds of cinemagoers, warming up to watch the cult classic, Sholay.
Nina has worked in various roles, including coding, auditing and technology management before heading a Global Projects group for a Reuters subsidiary. She has a BSc in Applied Computer Systems, MSc in Creative Writing and a PGDip in Psychology.
Her observations underlie her practical approaches in stress transformation for decision-making. Nina knows with the diverse thinking power of 8 billion people in the world, there are balanced ways for progress.
Twitter: @iamninajr
Instagram: @iamninajr
Robert Hokum is a Bluesmaster, Funkateer, Raconteur and Global Groover.
Robert is one of the ambassadors of the British Blues Scene, whose achievements include founding the highly regarded annual Ealing Blues Festival, headlining major Blues festivals across the country and performing across Blues to World music.
His performances cover intense versions of blues classics, original songs based on ‘personal experience or downright lies’ and a sense of humour which verges on the surreal.
In 2011, he became involved in promoting the music Heritage of the famous ‘Ealing Blues Club’ of the early ‘60s, which was the birthplace of British Blues & Rock, where the Rolling Stones were formed and artists such as Eric Clapton, The Who and Rod Stewart started their careers.
Robert has been a key figure in the placing of the Heritage Plaques to Alexis Korner/Cyril Davies at the former site of the Ealing Blues Club and for Marshall Amplification in Hanwell, where they were first made.
Robert Hokum currently performs with blues quartet The Great West Groove mixing swing, delta blues and acoustic funk and with Blues Dharma, where he plays bass guitar alongside Tabla and Veena in an ensemble, which merges Raga and The Blues.
Facebook: Robert Hokum
Website: www.roberthokum.co.uk
Vinay’s debut play, True Brits, opened at the Edinburgh Fringe 2014, transferred to the Bush Theatre and went on to headline the 2015 Vault Festival. His latest play An Adventure will premiere at the Bush Theatre in September 2018.
Vinay’s television debut Murdered By My Father was commissioned for BBC3 and later repeated on BBC1. It won the Royal Television Society award for Best Single Drama before going on to be nominated for three BAFTAs and Vinay was named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit for his work.
He has since written for ITV, Channel 4 and the BFI, as well as contributing to the bestselling collection of essays, The Good Immigrant. Vinay is currently developing work for the National Theatre, Paines Plough and the BBC.
Twitter: @VinayPatel
