Flatpack 2009 will launch at Town Hall on 11 March with ‘Curzonora’, a show featuring ‘musical whirlwind’ The Destroyers and celebrating Mr Jeffs’ legacy and that of 1900s film-shows in general. Here’s the poster:
The Mr Jeffs referred to is film showman, and patron saint of Flatpack 3, Waller Jeffs who, from 1901 to 1912:
introduced hundreds of thousands of Brummies to the delights of cinema through his annual seasons at the Curzon Hall, Suffolk Street, with light opera, military bands, live sound effects and intriguing novelty acts
Nicky from DiG has been keeping a better eye on the Flatpack website and blog than I have and reports:
The festival, taking place 11-15 March, is set to make the most of Digbeth and Eastside ‘in venues ranging from Floodgate Kino, a warehouse in Birmingham’s Eastside district which will be transformed into a picturehouse for the weekend, to art project spaces IKON Eastside, Eastside Projects, The Edge and the Electric…’ It also looks like they’ll be bringing the poor, neglected Curzon Station to life.
cheers for the mention Chris.
Just to clarify, that poster is a Waller Jeffs original from 1901 or thereabouts. Our publicity will no doubt be plundering some of his images and purple prose (eg, ‘The Rage of Birmingham and Country’) but will be slightly more informative. And the venue for the show is not Curzon St station but Birmingham Town Hall, a stone’s throw from where Jeffs’ regular venue Curzon Hall once stood.
By the way, near the back of this month’s Little White Lies magazine you can find a writeup we did on Mr Jeffs.
Here endeth the plug! Happy new year CiB.
Ever the nerd, and not having heard of Curzon Hall, I had to go find out more. A pretty full history here:
http://cinematreasures.org/theater/19933/
The link for the map on the site is incorrect. Sussex street is the road Alpha Tower is now on and the cinema occupied the site of the recently demolished Central TV studios.