Arts, Crafts, Music and Culture

Southgate Opera and Winchmore Hill-based ELODS are among four musical theatre companies that perform at Wyllyots Theatre in Potters Bar. This month they have launched a series of YouTube videos of special performances celebrating musical theatre, all recorded out of lockdown at Wyllyots. They're free, but you're encouraged to contribute to fundraising in support of Wyllyots and NHS Charities Together.

The new Tier 2 criteria mean that we won't be able to bring you any live blues at the Southgate Club for a while. The Southgate Club is either a concert venue, in which case no alcohol, or a bar in which alcohol can be served only with a substantial meal; in either case it just isn't viable. Thanks to Mark Hawkins' filming and editing skills we now have more offerings for you on the St Harmonica's You Tube Channel with That Blue Patch and the Cadillac Kings' performances from October 30th now available.

Winchmore Hill photographer Katrina Campbell is planning to turn her online exhibition Tales of Life under Lockdown into a book with the title When We All Stayed at Home and has launched a Kickstarter campaign to have it printed and published in time for Christmas. The idea isn't to create a large coffee table book to be saved for special occasions, but an A5 volume that can be shared at the kitchen table or read on the bus. What an excellent way of recording and remembering an extraordinary year!

To spread a bit of Christmas cheer, local arts organisation Tiger Monkey are making a short festive film for Enfield Council and you could be in it - without even leaving your living room.

Thanks to the filming and editing skills of Mark and Katie Hawkins, it's now possible to relive the Blues Chapter mini residency at St Harmonicas supported by Big Alan Craig with Lindsay Fraser Craig, or catch it for the first time.

The latest offering from Chickenshed's YouTube Premiere channel is a piece of verbatim theatre, staged in the Chickenshed Studio in 2016, that deals with the subject of domestic abuse. In the Absence of Silence was inspired by interviews conducted with women as part of Chickenshed's outreach project, Survivors. It will be available to watch until 30th December.

Fortunately, St Harmonica's didn't waste the few weeks that live music was able to return to the Southgate Club. Thanks to the filming skills of Mark and Katie Hawkins, edited footage from the September and October gigs is gradually being uploaded to the St Harmonica's YouTube Channel. Plus, download a recording from Lockdown Part 1 by local musician Tig Trafford.

Three much loved centres of important cultural, artistic and historical significance in Enfield have received more than £670,000 to safeguard their futures. Following applications from Enfield Council, Forty Hall has received £137,000 from the first round of the Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) for Heritage while the Dugdale Centre and Millfield Theatre have been given £534,995 from the CRF grants programme. There were also awards for Chickenshed, Border Crossings and dance promoter Radioactive Clothing.

A new art course from Enfield & Southgate WEA begins after half-term, when Colin Lomas will be looking at Baroque and Rococo art to show the impact of the political, social and religious changes in art and architecture between 1600 and 1800.

Making History is a Lottery-funded project designed to encourage young people to express their emotions and experiences relating to COVID-19 and the London lockdown. Platinum Performing Arts is inviting children aged 9-18 from the Enfield community to take part in free creative workshops at Millfield House - pottery, dance, poetry, spoken word, fitness & wellbeing and more!

Enfield Art Circle's annual exhibition is under way - this year it's moved online.

The Enfield Poets are inviting people to send them poems about Enfield, past and present, to help create an interactive poetry map of the borough.