Michael Smith looks for the positive in what some consider Europe’s most boring city – Birmingham

Putting the ‘n’ into ‘BBC cuts’.

UPDATE

You can see this episode on iPlayer until 7pm on 4 November. It featured The Event (in particular, Creative Machines, Minimalist Sculpture at Curzon Street Station), Eastside Projects and Project Pigeon and was actually quite complimentary about the fringes of the city (although not the centre, which is probably fair enough).

Factual programming for BBC television and Radio 4 would be moved out of Birmingham and consolidated largely to Bristol and Cardiff, though television production investment with independent producers in the Midlands would increase. Substantial network television drama (eg Doctors, Land Girls) and radio drama (The Archers) would continue in Birmingham alongside the BBC’s local and regional services

Someone’s going to need to spell this one out to me:

• What are the local and regional services that will be staying? (presumably Midlands Today, BBC WM… anything else?)
• Who/what will be moving to Bristol and Cardiff? (Asian Network… anything else?)

‘There are young people working within the BBC for long periods without pay’, he said.  ‘This is not fair to them, but more importantly it excludes many others who simply don’t have the means to support themselves’

While someone from In Birmingham has applied the same to this city’s cultural industries, using un/low paid opportunities at Punch Records and VIVID as examples.

Here’s the article – Exploitation in the Cultural Sector: unpaid internships in Birmingham’s cultural industries. Go comment if you’ve got an opinion either way.

a behind-the-scenes look at Graham Vick’s productions of Aida and Othello

In fact I’ve just noticed that BOC have announced that:

Birmingham Opera Company’s Verdi’s Othello and a documentary on the work of Graham Vick are to be broadcast in June 2010 on BBC 2

Which is good. I remember hearing that the BBC came in to film Othello during it’s hugely fantastic run at the end of last year but I also heard it didn’t go quite as planned. Looks like everything turned out alright after all.

Graham Vick is the Artistic Director of Birmingham Opera Company. Year-round he works with the world’s major operas and returns to Birmingham to let his imagination run riot. If you’re lucky enough to see one of his BOC productions he’ll be the guy with the look of impish enthusiasm ushering the audience around and mouthing the words.

Here are his notes from Othello’s programme:

After the first night thousands hijacked Verdi’s carriage to parade him through the streets of Milan in triumph

I think Birmingham owes Graham Vick the same treatment.

Othello is deservedly sold out. However, I’ve heard a rumour that the BBC will be filming the show for broadcast, so fingers crossed on that.

The investment means that Hustle will relocate to Birmingham, and the city will provide a new backdrop for the drama which is broadcast across the world. This is a major coup for the city and forms part of a wider strategy by Screen WM to secure and create a more sustainable screen media sector in the West Midlands. The series will bring an estimated £1.2 million into the regional economy and will provide jobs for local crew.

The Hustle team are due to move to Birmingham and will be living in the city for the duration of the filming. In addition to financial investment, Screen WM have played a significant role in attracting the new series of Hustle to the West Midlands, working closely with Film Birmingham, providing locations and crew support. The producers were attracted to the West Midlands on the basis of the region’s diverse locations, excellent facilities and experienced crew.

Simon Crawford Collins, Joint Managing Director of Kudos said: “We are hugely excited about Hustle’s move to Birmingham.  It’s a transformed city whose cool new locations have rarely been used for TV dramas and we will hope it will become a hub for Kudos’s output for many years to come.”

Ashley Blake goes on set of forthcoming Northern Soul film ‘Souled Out’ during its filming in Stoke-On-Trent, and explores other recent feature films shot in the region such as up-market chiller-horror ‘The Children’, ‘Nativity’, the semi-improvised Christmas comedy starring Martin Freeman and also Ashley Blake! as well as ‘Faintheart’, the world’s first user generated feature film which will be screened in 150 cinemas for free next week. All four films have been co-financed by regional screening agency, Screen WM through its Media Production Fund. (Thanks to Screen WM).