If you want a flavour of what to expect, then Martin Pickard’s has a load of lovely photos from the rehearsals.

A side note: I saw a complaint on Twitter about The Voyage not being very well advertised (from someone who heard about it, went along and enjoyed it). I wasn’t there but I’ve heard crowd estimates of between 3,000-4,500 people, which sounds pretty good for something starting at 10pm on a less-than-balmy evening. This pic certainly makes Victoria Sq look pretty full.

I’m not dismissing the comment out of hand though. I’ve heard quite a lot about The Voyage over the past few months, but then I’m plugged into pretty much every possible source for this kind of news. I wonder if the problem is that we just haven’t got enough ways to get the news out around Birmingham at the moment.

Dean Melbourne‘s first solo show is now up at BryantPriestNewman. It’s on until December and you’re welcome to go check it out during office hours, just give them a shout first.

Chantal Powell and Martin Pickard have both blogged about this already, with the latter having some good photos from the installation. FAKE Magazine were at the launch and have pointed out Corinna Spencer’s photos from that.

Preclusion

No Venue : No Permission : No Money

A genuinely guerilla experience, Preclusion is a totally unsupported spontaneous art exhibition.

A space has become available for a limited time and the secretive El Perro Radicale has chosen to take advantage of this opportunity to unveil a collection of locally and nationally produced art.

El Perro Radicale hopes that nothing precludes your attendance.

More confirmed artists including street art, street dance, guerilla poets and the following:

• Jane Baker Photography
• Lucy Grange Photography
• Ryan Hughes Mixed Media Installation
• Matthew Hunt Mixed Media Art
• Lewys Jones  Painting
• Lucy Sparrow Felt Art and Street Art
• Luke Thompson Painting
• Martin Pickard Photography
• Lizz Lunney Illustration
•  Wesley Wezism Painting
•  Pete Grange Photography
•  Ben Waddington Drawing

Preclusion will be at the derelict Whitmarley factory on Ivy Road, Stirchley (B30 2NX for the sat nav fiends out there) which is currently playing host to The Birmingham Social Centre.

There’ll be a grand opening on Friday 29th July at 6:30pm and the exhibition will be up until Sunday 7 August.

Ta to Birmingham Loves Photographers for flagging this one up. I like. I’m going to try to get along on Friday.

The Rep – The Final Curtain

The Rep’s closing for a couple of years while they finish off the new library (which will integrate with the Rep to a fair degree). They’ll be touring around venues across Birmingham but before then they held one last little event. Joanne Malin hosted and Polarbear had written a piece for the audience to perform with some help from performers from the Young Rep.

It was short, sweet and good, wholesome fun and a nice way to see off the current place.

They were doing backstage tours after that but we didn’t have time for that because we wanted to go and see…

Birmingham Hippodrome – (re)Stretch

This was ace. I went to a little preview on Friday night and it was so good I went back on Saturday. (re)Stretch answers the question ‘how much fun would it be to string up 8 miles(!) of fine elastic to make a 10 metre-wide screen and then project things on to it and make it make noise too?’. The answer is, of course ‘very fun’, especially as you’re encouraged to get involved and play with the thing.

At the preview on Friday a couple of dancers cavorted in and around the piece (it’s presented in association with DanceXchange), which was lovely, but they were no match for the unrestrained glee shown by a class of young ballet dancers on Saturday when they were let loose on it.

It’s free and it’s there until Sunday 16 January. Martin Pickard’s taken some lovely pics from the Friday which you can see in this slideshow:

The Old Rep – The Firework Maker’s Daughter

We managed to score some tickets to this at the last minute, leading to the admission that I’d never actually been to the Old Rep before. It’s a good place and the staff were very nice and friendly. The show itself (written by Philip Pullman) was more kiddy-friendly than the sort of thing I’m used to (this was the Christmas show, after all) but it was entertaining enough – the elephant costumes were ace and it had a good energy about it.

Also on a theatrical tip

• Stan’s Cafe are doing an earlybird ticket offer for The Cleansing of Constance Brown at AE Harris from 1 to 19 March
• The first show of The Rep’s next peripatetical two years is The Rememberers on 4 February, also at AE Harris. It’s a ‘classic tale of good versus evil, told through rap narration, lyrics, projection, music and graphic novel illustration’ which sounds good to me