Open Centre

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FRIDAY 8TH AUGUST

(L-R) Sonja and Reverend Mark Slaney

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Have you ever spent time with a vicar? Ever spent a week with one? Like me you might have preconceived perceptions but Reverend Mark Slaney made the experience brill. We spent a week with Mark on the BBC bus and enjoyed every minute of it, with that in mind we returned the favour and invited him to our gaff.  Being used to standing at his pulpit Mark showed no nerves at all and like a practised proficient presenter entertained our full house.

Like a mid summer Santa, Sonja Kilby arrived back at the Radio Theatre bearing gifts. The wife of Burnley FC’s chairman has backed the “get your kit off” campaign and brought in bags full of the teams kit to be sent off to people with very little. She seemed to like the idea of Karaoke funeral after the audience told what music they would like at their interments.

A very special thank for today’s live music must go to Sound Sanctuary, they were top drawer and we look forward to watching them get massive.

Geeky tech fact of the day, we normally have four inputs going in and out of our mixing desk and today we have thirteen!

Don’t forget the Ladies will be in Preston the week after next..

Chris

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THURSDAY 7TH AUGUST

(L-R) Big Girls Don’t Cry and Shirley and Alison

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Bizarre moment of the month...Shirley Dawson who runs Shirley’s Second Image working with hair extensions and wigs told us about her times of alopecia and recommended cures. My favourite was to rub chicken poo into her forehead - needless to say the treatment was unsuccessful, as was an 'acid-peel' type therapy which left Shirley in excruciating pain. After years of battling with the condition herself and seeing many friends coping with hair loss through chemotherapy Shirley decided to do something about it. She  set up 'Second Image' offering wearable, stylish wigs that quite frankly are impossible to distinguish from the real thing!

It takes bottle to up sticks and move to the other side of the country but that’s what Alison Medlicott did. She moved from down south to work for 'Nightsafe' in Blackburn.   Alison has no family in this part of the world but was determined to 'get out there' and make lots of new friends once in Lancashire.  She's a very out-going lass so clearly this isn't a problem, but it wasn't always so. Alison chatted about how she's consciously worked to become more 'open' with people as she felt her natural shyness held her back in childhood and adolescence...now there's no stopping her!

We were gifted with the talents of Big Girls Don’t Cry as they travelled from London to the Lowther Pavilion for their show on Sunday. The show celebrates the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. If the gig is anything like the three numbers they did for us today get yourself down there…pronto.

Like school girls playing with the dressing up box, Carole, Sally and Alison tried on some of the wigs Shirley had brought in. This was great fun but Shirley did point out the serious aspects of the subject....... some people turn up at her door in terrible a state – they are probably at the lowest state of their life. The effects of hair loss can't be underestimated.

Flower arranging from Margaret, singing from the lads and some great conversation  made for yet another entertaining Ladies@Lunch.....when are you coming along ?

Chris

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WEDNESDAY 6TH AUGUST

(L-R) Karen and Jo

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Check out the 1881 census and you’ll find Wendy to be a mans name. J. M. Barrie, however, decided to bolt it onto his female character in Peter Pan – thus changing its use forever.

Not to be out done, Charlotte Bronte did something very similar, she commandeered Shirley from what was a fella's "monika" and bestowed it upon ladies.

Why, in the name of gender confusion would you need to know this? Well, Jo Baker is a lecturer in English and creative writing and she’s working on adapting one of the lesser known novels of Charlotte Bronte...Wendy or Shirley – which do you reckon? Neither epitomises nor typifies what she describes a smouldering sexual tension packed novel, but what’s in a name? Cue tenuous link…Carole is the French feminine form of Carolus which is Latin for Charles. An obvious leap from masculinity to femininity. Sally is a Diminutive of Sarah, this was the name of the wife of Abraham in the Old Testament. She was originally called Saray, but God changed it! Bit of a talking point for all you Sally’s out there, you can keep your deed poll God renamed you!

A Radio Theatre favourite and theatre performer Karen Gray came back to see us. She tells us of her next production of My Fair Lady and she’s hoping for the lead role. Good luck Karen, we wish you well.

If you’re still wondering, the answer was Shirley…

Chris

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TUESDAY 5TH AUGUST

Tuesday's panellists

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Starter for ten – what do the following have in common: racecar, level, madam, eye and nun? Sussed it out? If not they are all palindromes, that’s to say words that read the same backwards. Here’s another one – ABBA – and today the panel discussed Mamma Mia and how much they loved the movie – each to their own and I know I’m in the minority but I really do not like ABBA.

It could be the first words ever spoken were a palindrome “Madam, in Eden I'm Adam”…

Imagining the above where to be the first utterances, just imagine again how many have followed – how many words have been spoken in the world through history? I think you might agree that it’s a fair few. That said I would put our panels up against any other groups in the ‘how many words you can fit into two hours competition’. To such degree I do believe we need to plant a couple of trees a programme to offset our C0² carbon footprint.

Linda Sawley spent her life as a nurse and today made a return visit to tell us all about it, she told us how when taking her masters degree she critically reviewed a subject with 40,000 words only to be told it wasn’t what was wanted. She followed by telling us about how she sent off a novel to 30 publishers – something you are not meant to do and didn’t receive any replies – she has still sold 900!

Marina Blore works in PR and today was her first visit to the Radio Theatre and along with the others regaled in times of childhood, building castles in the air – times when a piece of elastic was all you needed. She also told us how she has represented Tony Hadley and the last thing he did around here was to turn up at a private birthday party.

Working with The Wishing Well House Marina will help provide one to one education for children with autism using a programme called Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). It'll make a positive difference to the lives of autistic children and will have a particular focus on the arts to include music and movement.

So there you have it – take it, it’s to you from us.

Chris

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MONDAY 4TH AUGUST

(L-R) The Ladies@Lunch panel and On The Go rap stars!

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Hey, another Monday – and how was your weekend? If you’re coming along to see Ladies at Lunch anytime soon, don’t forget to ask Carole that very question…while the experience is still raw and fresh in her mind…

You see, Carole decided to go camping on Friday for a couple of nights. If you’ve been tuning in recently, you might have heard her discussing the planned trip with a sense of fear and trepidation…but surely it can’t have been as bad as she thought…can it…? Alas, I don’t have the full details (Carole is still traumatised from the ordeal!) but I can reveal she heroically…well…gave up after the first night! I personally don’t blame her…who would willingly go and live in a tent in the middle of nowhere, without even the basics of hot water and decent sanitation……?

As it happens, today’s first panellist would! Caz Brader works for Bolton Octagon, that beautiful theatre in the hotly-disputed border town of Bolton (the Friends of Real Lancashire are in no doubt – Bolton belongs to us, but officially it’s part of Greater Manchester…) on various exciting projects – but some time ago, Caz ventured abroad with a charity called Dignity to work as a brickie on a medical centre in a deprived area. No hotels, not even a B&B…home was a tent on the arid floor, the water tap was a bore hole in the floor…and you don’t even want to imagine where the loo was. She’s still in touch with the project – and the medical centre is still in operation, helping villagers deal with life in a difficult climate.

Caz has fingers in a lot of theatrical pies – working with young people and inspiring them to get creative and providing an outlet for their talents, showing there’s other things to do than hang around on street corners. As an interesting offshoot from this work, Caz opened up the same kind of opportunities to the more “mature” end of society…and one result of this was the formation of the “On The Go” theatre company, a collective of 50-plussers who write and act. The group have already won commissions from the local council to write and perform sketches looking at the differences – and similarities – between older people and the youth of today, and it’s always interesting to hear how successful this kind of inter-generational work is. Often, older and younger folk don’t mix and mingle – and because of this, fail to understand where the other lot are “coming from”. Couple this with the media’s almost gleeful reportage of “hoodie Britain” and the terrible youth problem blighting our streets, and we become convinced all youths are good for nothing – hanging round on street corners, drinking underage and so on. Here’s a thought – not one of mine, but borne out of comments from today’s mature audience – although it’s fair to say that some kids are problem kids and do very bad things, isn’t it true that most teenagers are only doing what we all did at their age? Maybe the difference is the unrelenting glare of the 24-hour media spotlight and the thousands of column inches which need to be filled by indignant commentators….what do you think?

Imagine the scene…the audience as one, massaging their heads and temples, running fingers nimbly over their scalps…twiddling their ears…honestly! What madness has infused its way through our visitors? Actually, the mass massage session was down to our second panellist, Elaine Aspin. She’s a massage therapist, fully trained in an array of Eastern therapeutic techniques and Elaine was demonstrating to our live studio audience some of her skills. Back in the day, such therapies were frowned upon or even derided as foreign mumbo jumbo – but there’s a general acceptance of the benefit of these old wisdoms nowadays. Elaine gave one audience member a special hand massage using a blend of oils, and if the look on the lady’s face was anything to go by then there’s a lot to be said for a touch of Eastern promise – indeed, when Sally asked if the experience was better than sex (she always has to ask, doesn’t she…) we got the best line of the day…”they both have their moments!”

Elaine certainly knows her stuff – she was trained in India, and still goes back there for tuition regularly. Our audience was enthralled by her descriptions of some of Elaine’s therapies and techniques – mind you, I wasn’t keen on the sound of one particular treatment involving dribbling warm oils over your forehead, sounds a bit too close to Chinese water torture for my liking. I did quite like the sound of a herbal dumpling massage though….mmmmmm, tasty….!

A top show, rounded off nicely by a rap from some of the “On the Go” lot – more tomorrow!

Garry

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