Biennale Special, 20th June

The doctor is delighted to announce that the salon will open once more for a Whitstable Biennale Special, on Sunday 20th June, 7pm, at The Duke of Cumberland.

Conversationalists will be announced later this week, but they will all be artists whose work is featured in the Biennale.

This looks set to be out most exciting salon yet, so, as ever, do come!

Meet the conversationalist: Matt Rowe

Matt Rowe has many cultural identities.  As Go Go Whippet he produces props, imagery and decorative curios constructed from, bone china, porcelain and glass.  Go Go Whippet’s range of eclectic art works reconfigure traditional seaside tat “n” treasure into commemorative souvenirs of a distinctively British folk identity.

He is also the curator of the B&B Project Space.  Situated in Folkestone’s creative quarter, this former bed and breakfast, brothel and Tobacconist has been renovated maintaining many of its original Edwardian features, creating a unique platform for emerging and established artists to showcase work and develop dialogue, raising cultural awareness in the area.  The B&B Project Space hosted Chalk de Ville with East Kent Live Lit for the Folkestone Book Festival.

As Club Shepway, Matt is currently creating a project for the Whitstable Biennale, Tall Tales.  He will be sharing – and collecting – tall tales through his conversation.  Have you got a tall tale to tell?

Dr Sunday’s Medicine Show, Sunday 18th April

The Doctor is delighted to announce two extraordinary conversationalists for Sunday 18th April:

Writer, cultural producer and all-round Renaissance Man Greg Klerkx will be talking about aliens, staging plays in shipping containers and the delicate art of the pecha kucha.

Matt Rowe, avant garde ceramicist, and founder of Club Shepway will be talking about his new project for the Whitstable Biennale, Tall Tales.

And our very own (Nurse) Peggy Riley will be wondering whether black moods are necessary for creative greatness.

There will also be stylish sounds from DJ Moogaloo, and the wonderful environs of the Duke of Cumberland’s stunning Victorian dining room to enjoy.

Do come.

7pm, Sunday 18th April, Duke of Cumberland, Whitstable, CT5 1AP. Entry £2.

Unsure what happens at a salon? Click here. It’s friendly, fun, and a great chance to network with fellow creative folk of all stripes.

Meet the conversationalist: Greg Klerkx

As a writer, Greg has earned journalism awards in Los Angeles, and Arts Council support for both fiction and playwriting. His first book, Lost in Space, about the travails of NASA, was named among the best books of 2004 in both the Independent and San Francisco Chronicle. A frequent contributor to New Scientist magazine, Greg’s writing has also appeared in the Evening Standard, Sunday Telegraph, and theNew York Times.

As a facilitator, Greg has delivered sessions on writing and creativity to schools and community groups in the US and UK. He also works with The MAP Consortium to develop and deliver arts-based training in government and corporate settings.

As a producer, Greg has staged events in a hilltop mansion, a cycling velodrome and, memorably, in a decommissioned aircraft hangar. In 2006, he created Nimble Fish with Samantha Holdsworth, a cultural producing company that specialises in creating high-quality, arts-led happenings that foster social change.

And don’t get him started about his years working with SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence…

Meet the conversationalist: Peggy Riley

Peggy Riley is a writer and community artist based in Kent.

Her short story, Pearl, will be published in The Willesden Herald New Short Stories 4 in April. She was also on the shortlist for the 2009 Asham Award. Recent work as a playwright includes Postcards from the Edge, a series of radio monologues commissioned by the BBC and New Writing South and broadcast on BBC Radio Kent, and Ghostman, commissioned by Jumped Up Theatre and performed at the Peterborough Festival and the Cambridge Hot Bed Festival.

Productions include: Wire and Wool: Life in the Women’s Internment Camp, commissioned by the Isle of Man Arts Council and performed on the island with a community company of over 100; Galileo, commissioned by Jumped Up Theatre and touring historic churches throughout London; and Cold Draft on Tap, the Old Red Lion in London. Staged readings include Burying Price at Soho Theatre, Wolves and Worse Things at BAC, a musical adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes for On The Line Entertainment in New York, Fancy Meeting You Here at Jermyn Street Theatre and Cold Draft on Tap at The Man in the Moon in Chelsea.

Peggy was a writer on attachment to Soho Theatre, where she was commissioned to write Burying Price, and has been a staff reader for the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and the Young Writer’s Festival at the Royal Court Theatre. She was Writer-in-Residence at the young offender prison in Rochester for four years and ran the Koestler-Award winning magazine, LBB: Life Behind Bars, as well as running creative workshops in schools, prisons, art centres and at festivals throughout the UK.

Find out more about Peggy at Notes from the Blue House or follow her excellent blog, The Victory Stitch.

She also runs the live literature network East Kent Live Lit.

The Doctor has a new surgery

Dr Thursday has been seeking a more laid-back vibe, and so is now proud to announce that she is opening a Sunday surgery.

Dr Sunday’s Medicine Show will still be dosing the sweet medicine of conversation and the intoxication of music, but in a splendid new venue.

Join us for our launch on Sunday 18th April, in the Duke of Cumberland’s gorgeous Victorian dining room – and every third Sunday of the month after that.

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Your prescription:

Sunday 18th April

7 – 10.30pm

Duke of Cumberland, High Street, Whitstable, CT5 1AP.