Shows
Behind The SceneryEp. 33 Andy Smith, LA23 and Kendal Calling May 25For a few days every summer Andy Smith is in charge of thethird biggest town in Cumbria. Kendal Calling, which he set up when still a teenager, has grown to the point where its size has eclipsed the actual Kendal.It's a stat that Andy looked back on with pride during aninterview with Tom Speight celebrating the festival's 20th anniversary at a networking event held by LA23NET atEden Arts’ base the Old Fire Station, in Penrith. Lessons he shared: never say no to a music agent, knowing Blondie's songs doesn’t help if you don’t...2025-05-2841 minBehind The SceneryEp. 32 Deluge and Art Gene March 25When was the last time you shared some love for a saltmarsh ? Salt marshes are the weird intertidal landscape of mud andgrass, occupying huge swathes of coastline around the world, continually exchanging their existence above and below water as tides rise and fall about them.Deluge is a new exhibition of different media curatedby Art Gene in Barrow, celebrating salt marshes through three artists’ work. Over three years, Oscar van Heek, Dana Olarescu and Linde Ex have all visited three different locations, including Barrow, to respond in different ways to the glories of salt marshes. Re...2025-03-1928 minBehind The SceneryEp. 31 Shipping Brow & Jim Osborne March 25What’s bright blue, lives on the harbourside in Maryport andonce was a pub called the Queens Head ?The answer is Shipping Brow Gallery, now just over a yearold and very much now a local landmark. The building had been home to Maryport Maritime Museum since 1975 but a new lease of life dreamt up by Dolly and Brian Money has seen it turned into an art gallery with both permanent and temporary exhibitions.Painter Jim Osborne became its second ever artist in residence in September. His new group exhibition, along with Cockermouth printmaker Jack Fawdry-Tatham an...2025-03-0327 minBehind The SceneryEp. 30 Emma McGordon and the Catalyst project Feb 25The Catalyst project is an ongoing collaboration between the University of Cumbria, Art Gene, the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership and the Cumbria Arts and Culture Network.Its aim was to find three artists with Cumbrian connections– to fund them to the tune of £25,000 each, to give them an opportunity to make a substantial piece of new art connected to the county over a year. Over 220 people applied.Emma McGordon was one of the three award winners. She’s a poet, writer and storyteller originally from West Cumbria. She’s making a film about the area she’s f...2025-02-1124 minBehind The SceneryEp. 29 Rosehill & Alice Faye Dec 24Rosehill is a beautiful arts centre based just outside Whitehaven high up overlooking the Irish Sea.
It’s a hub for all kinds of performance and brings both
local and national talent on stage. But it’s also increasingly engaging with its local community too.
CACN’s Tom Speight went along to talk to the people who are now running Rosehill to see how their plans are coming together for 2025. And we also get a chance to hear a Rosehill performance too – by Glaswegian singer-songwriter Alice Faye, on her Cumbria debut! She spoke with Tom Salmon a...2024-12-2037 minBehind The SceneryEp. 28 Lorna Singleton Oct 24Lorna Singleton is one of Britain’s last remaining swillers, a specialist in weaving baskets using coppiced oak and hazel. Using simple hand tools and ancient techniques, she creates baskets based on traditional patterns from South Cumbria as well as patterns found on her travels.
She’s based in Grizedale Forest – and as well as running her own one woman basket making business, she’s spent the last year teaching seven basketmakers the unique
skills of spelk basketry on a course called Wood Water Weave.
This autumn, a beautiful exhibition by the same name has opened a...2024-10-3034 minBehind The SceneryEp. 27 Eden Project Morecambe Oct 24Eden Project Morecambe is something that’s been talked
about for some years now – the development of a brownfield sight in the Lancashire town into something like the massively successful Eden Project in Cornwall. And it’s recently been handed another £2.5m by the government, bringing the total funding to £5m, to allow design teams to get going.
But why should it matter to Cumbria ? Specifically, to the
Cumbrian arts and culture sector ?
For Episode 27 of Behind the Scenery, Tom Speight went along to The Midland Hotel, itself a beautiful art deco
jewel on the Morecamb...2024-10-0815 minBehind The SceneryEp.26 Behind the Scenery August 24Alison Critchlow is a contemporary British painter based in Bowness on Solway – right on the northern edge of Cumbria.
She paints mainly in oils. She’s recently been shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2024, an annual event which promotes the best of contemporary painting produced in the UK.
Alison is also one of the organisers of the annual Around the Island open studio art trail which takes place in September in north west Cumbria.
Tom Speight went to meet her in her studio – but began on the crunching shores of the Solway…
2024-08-2025 minBehind The SceneryEp.25 Behind the Scenery July 24Exhibitions showing off world class art in Cumbria come and go. But none quite like the artwork of Jackie Morris.
Jackie rocketed to prominence with the phenomenal success and acclaim associated with The Lost Words, a big, sumptuous book full of her wildlife illustrations accompanied by writer Robert Macfarlane’s words.
But Jackie has been drawing and painting all of her life. And a brand new exhibition at Rheged takes you through that lifetime’s journey, from childhood drawings through to The Lost Words and its successor, The Lost Spells. Over 250 pieces of work in all...2024-07-0221 minBehind The SceneryEp. 24 Behind the Scenery May 24How can we be smarter about funding our work at a time of real challenge for the cultural sector in Cumbria ?
That was the question being discussed at the most recent Cumbria Arts and Culture Network Big Meet in May.
Star of the show was Edinburgh based Bernard Ross, Director of =mc consulting, a leading training and consultancy organization working to transform the performance of value-driven organizations worldwide.
He knows a thing or two about fundraising too.
So for this special edition of Behind the Scenery, Tom Speight asked delegates to help him...2024-05-0718 minBehind The SceneryEp. 23 Behind the Scenery April 24Final rehearsals for two brand new Cumbrian one person shows about isolation and the environment – and the involvement of real people in recognising the issues
raised - are just about complete.
The Butterfly Collector by Peter MacQueen and Nancy’s Orange by Grace Kirkby are both being directed by the other person, so to speak. The two Cumbrian writers
and actors have come together to create two pieces of theatre which have real resonance for the county and for the wider world.
For this month’s Behind the Scenery, Tom Speight went along to meet them a...2024-04-0918 minBehind The SceneryEp. 22 Behind the Scenery March 2024This month, Behind the Scenery talks to two very special Cumbrians who have committed a lifetime to the British arts scene.
Sue Gill and John Fox founded Welfare State International in 1968. It was a loose association of freelance artists
bought together by shared values and philosophy. A way of life. A way to approach art differently.
John and Sue have just published a new book called "Eighty-Something – a lifetime of conversation". And they invited Tom Speight to their home on the coast near
Ulverston to listen in to that decades old conversation, as well as to...2024-03-1933 minBehind The SceneryEp. 21 Behind the Scenery Feb 2024This month, Behind the Scenery has a very special guest.
Darren Henley is the boss of Arts Council England. A pretty influential sort of chap.
He’s been visiting Cumbria recently. And Tom Speight got the chance to sit down with him to find out what he thought about the arts landscape in the county today. And to chat about where and how his organisation is looking to influence and support.
2024-02-0716 minBehind The SceneryEp.20 Behind the Scenery Jan 24This month, Behind the Scenery has a fresh sound and a fresh, ambitious sounding musician for you to enjoy.
Season two begins with a look at and listen to the brilliant young Cumbrian singer songwriter and multi instrumentalist, Maebh Brayne.
Now in London but still very much with a base near Cockermouth, Maebh is slowly developing a name and a brand.
Tom Salmon has been to meet her at her family home.
2024-01-3017 minBehind The SceneryEp. 19 Behind the Scenery Dec 23For December, Behind the Scenery puts a big smile on its – and hopefully your - face.
Artists Chris and Jennie Dennett from Ulverston, aka Artfly, were commissioned by Barrow’s Signal Film and Media to dream up the future. What might life actually be like in a
few decades time ?
Relax into 2050 is their answer. A fun, colourful, interactive exhibition in Signal’s great space on Abbey Road. Involving airships, whale poo, a giant canvas dome, a beautiful
soundscape and loads and loads of imagination.
It's open until the end of January - Tom Sp...2023-12-1217 minBehind The SceneryEp. 18 Behind the Scenery late November 23For this episode, Behind the Scenery visits Grange Over Sands and Ambleside to examine how a countywide project to get more and different types of volunteers into the Cumbrian arts sector is getting on.
Helping Hands - as it’s called - was set up 18 months ago with Arts Council England funding. It’s being run by the Cumbrian Museums Consortium.
We’ll visit the Victoria Hall in Grange to find out how the Cumbria Opera Group has benefitted from joining up with young people who had never thought of volunteering before.
But first...2023-11-2715 minBehind The SceneryEp. 17 Behind the Scenery November 23This month, Behind the Scenery looks at green energy for performance, publishing your first collection of poetry at 94, and music inspired by Ullswater.
Tom Speight explores how powering performance in Cumbria can be done sustainably with Tom Salmon from Oh My Days.
We discover why it’s not too late to publish your first collection of poetry well into your 90s with Michael Baron.
And we hear a beautiful new song composed this year incorporating Cumbrian dialect as well as the sounds of the county, by singer celloist Sarah Smout.
2023-11-1625 minBehind The SceneryEp. 16 Behind the Scenery late Sept 23For this episode, Behind the Scenery visits a pottery with a difference in Workington. It's frankly, a bit of a hidden Cumbrian gem.
West House Pottery is a not-for-profit social enterprise. It supports local artists and ceramicists whilst helping young people and adults with learning disabilities gain creative skills and knowledge. The quality of the work is beautiful.
Everything they produce can be bought – as Tom Speight found out for Behind the Scenery.
2023-09-2916 minBehind The SceneryEp. 15 Behind the Scenery Sept 23Behind the Scenery explores a brand new Cumbrian theatrical production about depression and hope, confusion and joy, heartbreak and anger, relationships and solitude, guilt and
forgiveness for this edition.
Every Brilliant Thing at Theatre by the Lake in Keswick is a one man play about mental health and suicide bereavement – and so much more. The production coincides with World Suicide Prevention Day. It’s hoped that it will encourage further conversations about suicide awareness and prevention across Cumbria, where the suicide rate is 50% higher than the national average.
Tom Speight caught up with the play’s director, the pl...2023-09-0414 minBehind The SceneryEp.14 Behind the Scenery Aug 23Behind the Scenery is off to Barrow for this edition – and to India !
Back in April, we headed to Barrow Town Hall to catch up with rapper JD and producer Swerve, from Horizon Studios. They were fresh off the stage after presenting a musical showcase as part of Barrow's Festival of Colours.
We met them in the Town Hall's drawing room, where Swerve was taking in his surroundings.....
2023-08-1610 minBehind The SceneryEp.13 Behind the Scenery July 23
A fascinating new exhibition has recently opened at Abbot
Hall in Kendal to mark the gallery’s recent refurbishment and reopening.
Run by Lakeland Arts, Abbot Hall has been shut since early
2020. Since then over half a million pounds worth of work has gone on to modernise the building as well as offering time
to its curators to pause and rethink its direction of travel and purpose.
The result is a much brighter, fresher gallery space as well as enhanced facilities and infrastructure. And an exhibition by
internationally renowned British artist Julie Brook cal...2023-07-2722 minBehind The SceneryEp.12 Behind the Scenery May 23We’re just coming to the end of another Spring season of what’s called Rural Touring across Cumbria.
That’s the name given to getting professional performance art – be it music, theatre, magic, even dance – into rural areas, usually village halls but also schools, pubs and even libraries. There are about 25 organisations that do it across the UK. Here in Cumbria, it’s run by Cockermouth based Arts Out West for west Cumbria, and Penrith based Highlights Rural Touring for most of the rest of the county. About 50 venues altogether are on the schemes.
Behind the S...2023-05-1616 minBehind The SceneryEp.11 Behind the Scenery April 23
It’s April – so time to talk about daffodils – ten thousand of them to be precise.
Behind the Scenery this month gets a look in at an astonishing Cumbrian arts project that’s been taking shape near Lowther Castle for the past 6 months or so. Ten Thousand Daffodils is the brainchild of Helen Ratcliffe. She’s brought together communities, creative practitioners and businesses to raise funds for charity while producing a significant piece of art – thousands upon thousands of bright yellow ceramic daffodils, soon to go on display in the castle grounds.
Tom Speight has...2023-04-1321 minBehind The SceneryEp.10 Behind the Scenery late March 23This month, Behind the Scenery goes Around the World in 80 Days.
Jules Verne’s epic novel is getting Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake’s Spring treatment as their first big show of the year. With the single minded Detective Fix of Scotland Yard in hot pursuit, will Phileas Fogg and company manage to avoid arrest and make it home before their time is up ?
Involving music, puppetry and circus, it promises to be fun for all the family and be a little bit different in the mix.
But how you get a produc...2023-03-2715 minBehind The SceneryEp.9 Behind the Scenery early March 23As Spring is hinting at springing, Behind the Scenery in early March is about creating noise. The nicest of noise.
Tom Speight gets the chance to chat with poet John Hegley who was in the county recently to promote his new collection inspired by and touching on the life, love letters and laughter of John Keats. It’s called A Scarcity of Biscuit, published by Carlisle’s very own Caldew Press.
And the other Tom, Tom Salmon, introduces us to singer songwriter and musician Annemarie Quinn who hails from Keswick but who now lives in Mala...2023-03-0524 minBehind The SceneryEp.8 Behind the Scenery Jan 23This month, Behind the Scenery really does get to go behind doors that are usually closed.
Tom Speight visits Number 14, St Georges Terrace, Millom, the birthplace and lifelong home of Cumbrian poet Norman Nicholson, who was born in January 1914. It’s a small terraced house built in 1880.
There he meets Charlie Lambert, Chair of the Norman Nicholson Society, at the open day of the house which the society are in the middle of trying to buy, to turn it into an active and lively memorial building.
If you want to help with the So...2023-01-1709 minBehind The SceneryEp.7 Behind the Scenery Dec 22This month, Behind the Scenery is all about the creation of sound in Cumbria.
Sound creator and creative Dan Fox is Director of Ulverston based Sound Intervention. He says there are five ways of making sound - hit, pluck, blow, bow and sing. He was commissioned to create an 18 minute soundscape for the Westmorland Dales Landscape Partnership . Dan talks about where his interest in sound came from, and how he went about recording sound for the commission.
For the occasional series of the sound of Cumbrian creatives at work, Julie Jackson got in touch from...2022-12-1930 minBehind The SceneryEp.6 Behind the Scenery Nov 22This month Behind the Scenery takes a trip to the farm.
But it’s not just any old farm – it’s photographer Amy Bateman’s 900 acre farm Croft Foot at Docker just outside Kendal, a mixed farm which she runs with her husband Colin. It forms the basis for a book she has written, alongside publisher Dave Felton, called Forty Farms, profiling agriculture and farming across Cumbria in 2022. Tom Speight has been to interview her to find out how her project came about.
In this edition he also talks to Harriet and Rob Fraser, two environm...2022-11-1136 minBehind The SceneryEp. 5 Behind the Scenery Oct 22This month Behind the Scenery takes time to find out what makes one of Cumbria’s cultural leaders tick.
Liz Stevenson has been Artistic Director at Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake for 3 years. Just months after she arrived the covid pandemic led to the theatre having to completely shut – leading to huge challenges for its staff and its leaders. It’s now back at full throttle, but as with all venues, is having to work hard to bring back audiences and build confidence.
Tom Speight went to meet her as final rehearsals for The Beauty Q...2022-10-1323 minBehind The SceneryEp.4 Behind the Scenery Sept 22This month Behind the Scenery visits Whitehaven, St Bees, Keswick and the Langdales, to get under the bonnet of the arts and culture vibe in Cumbria.
Tom Speight bases himself at The Beacon Museum overseeing Whitehaven harbour, where seagulls join him in chatting to Aldo Rinaldi, the chief curator of Deep Time, the ambitious multi million pound public art project backed by Copeland borough council. He also chats to Eric Barker from the council, to find out where the project came from and how it fits in to wider attempts to revitalise the Copeland coast.
...2022-09-1532 minBehind The SceneryEp. 3 Behind the Scenery late Aug 22Two podcasts for the price of one in August ! Based at the recently renovated art deco Old Cumberland Pencil Factory in Keswick, Tom Speight finds out how August seems to be a particularly busy time for exhibitions all across Cumbria. First it's a visit to the always busy EVAN, or the Eden Valley Artistic Network, whose appropriately named FACTORY festival of creative arts has recently been exhibiting there. He meets EVAN's organisers and some of the artists involved. Then to Carlisle and the Historic Quarter Arts Festival, now in its second year. Run by Intro PR, it's managed to...2022-08-2229 minBehind The SceneryEp 2. Behind the Scenery - Aug 22Based this month at Wordsworth Grasmere, Tom Speight discovers how the museum and attractions there have been recently developed to really bring William and Dorothy’s story alive – and discovers the joys of finding poetry in coffee cups.
Curators Jeff Cowton and Melissa Mitchell take Tom on a tour of Dove Cottage, the newly developed museum and café, and finish up with a section of Wordsworth’s “To A Butterfly” poem in the garden.
There’s also a chance to get behind the scenes at Eskfest, one of Cumbria’s micro-festivals, and Tom hears what gets Ulverston...2022-08-0537 minBehind The SceneryEp 1. Behind the Scenery - Jul 22Based this month at Rosehill Theatre in Whitehaven, hear how Soundwave in Workington is making young musical dreams come true, how the writer of The Climbers at Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, Carmen Nasr, was inspired by a trip by her brother to Kilimanjaro, listen to an award winning poem from the Kendal Poetry Festival - and find out why David Bowie appeared on stage in west Cumbria as a mime artist....
Behind the Scenery, the podcast from Cumbria Arts & Culture Network, find out more at: cacn.co.uk2022-07-0735 min
Behind The SceneryBehind The Scenery - Podcast TrailerTrailer for Behind The Scenery, the new arts and culture podcast brought to you by Cumbria Arts & Culture Network.2022-06-1407 min