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Showing posts from June, 2019

The Bodies Beneath: The Flipside of British Film & Television

7.15pm Monday 9 September 2019 £6 ( Advance tickets ) Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL Tube: Holborn Directions Facebook event page Veteran film curators William Fowler and Vic Pratt crack open the caskets of forgotten or neglected British films and telly to serve up a feast of curiosities to tempt the palate of even the most jaded cinephile. Their unflinching, all-embracing investigative gaze is as likely to reassess an established classic as it is to focus on cobweb-covered delights like pioneering 1930s female film director Mary Field’s beautifully bizarre The Mystery of Marriage , the much- maligned Doctor Who epic ‘The Trial of a Time Lord’, underground offerings like Anna Ambrose’s experimental art piece Phoelix and Andy Milligan’s bawdy bloodbath The Body Beneath . All is grist to this monstrous mill, as the authors tamper with outmoded video formats and meddle with magenta-bias safety film in their mission to finger-paint an entirely unexpected,

Nature's Strangest Genitalia

7.45pm Wednesday 31 July 2019 £4 / £2 Concessions ( Advance tickets ) The Bell , 50 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EX. Train and Tube: Liverpool Street.  Tube: Aldgate, Aldgate East Facebook Page no idea Join science-writer and BBC zoology correspondent Jules Howard , author of Sex on Earth and Death on Earth, in a whirlwind tour of nature’s finest and most spectacular genitalia. As well as taking in phenomenal phalluses such as those of dolphins, barnacles and bed-bugs, Jules will take us through some fascinating recent revolutions in female genitalia science, culminating in a 3D tour of a duck’s vagina.  Optional Virtual Reality headsets will be made available for brave attendees. 7.45pm Wednesday 31 July 2019 £4 / £2 Concessions ( Advance tickets ) The Bell , 50 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EX. Train and Tube: Liverpool Street.  Tube: Aldgate, Aldgate East Facebook Page

The Old Stones

7.15pm Thursday 11 July 2019 This event is now sold out. Thank you to everyone who has booked, we shall endeavour to re-book Andy for a later date. Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL Tube: Holborn Directions Facebook event page Andy Burnham presents a highly illustrated talk based around many of the themes, new discoveries and mysteries highlighted in the book The Old Stones, the most comprehensive and thought-provoking field guide ever published to the iconic standing stones and prehistoric places of Britain and Ireland. He will look at lesser known but interesting sites in the London and surrounding area. Andy is the lead author of The Old Stones book alongside contributors to the vast Megalithic Portal web resource which he founded in 2001. The Old Stones was awarded Current Archaeology Book of the Year 2019 and is the most comprehensive and thought-provoking field guide ever published to the iconic standing stones and prehistoric places of Britain and I

Saints, Sleep-Surgery and Medieval Dream Miracles

7.45pm Wednesday 26 June 2019 £4 / £2 Concessions ( Advance tickets ) The Bell , 50 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EX. Train and Tube: Liverpool Street.  Tube: Aldgate, Aldgate East Facebook Page Thousands of stories of miraculous healing at shrines survive from the middle ages. The most striking tales involve a sick person who was cured in a dream by a saint’s touch. Dreams were considered a space where dead holy figures could interact with the living: saints could manipulate the sleeper’s body, including performing invasive surgery.  Dr Bill MacLehose , historian of medieval medicine and religion at UCL, explores the different ways in which saints were thought to heal, purify or even punish people through dreams. What made sleep and dreams so important to healing rituals in mediaeval culture? And how important were sacred spaces, such as shrines and other pilgrimage sites, to these dream cures? 7.45pm Wednesday 26 June 2019 £4 / £2 Concessions ( Advance tickets ) The B