Galley Beggar Advent 2023

DECEMBER 5

STU HENNIGAN’S CULTURAL HIGHLIGHTS

IN ANOTHER YEAR OF SWIRLING INSANITY, even more so than usual I’ve longed to shut myself away from it all in a lonely cottage with my books and my guitars. In the absence of that materialising for real, I did it vicariously through Jade Angeles Fitton’s wonderful Hermit, a gorgeous mix of memoir, nature writing and historical analysis which explores the human urge for solitude across the centuries.

Award-winning photographer Marc Davenant’s Outsiders exhibition, currently at the Williamson Gallery in Birkenhead, and accompanying book are hugely important additions to the canon of social documentary photography in this country which provide a heart-breaking portrait of the lives of Britian’s street homeless and those who are forced to live in sub-standard housing.

There are great things happening in the North East at the moment, much of it facilitated by Steve Kirby of Industrial Coast Records via his superbly-curated series of multi-arts gigs, badged as A Monday Night In Middlesborough. I was lucky enough to appear at one of these at The Auxilliary, this summer, and it was my favourite event of the year by a mile.

In Leeds, die-hard gig-goers with kids can still enjoy brilliant live music and take their offspring with them, courtesy of the institution that is Youth Anthems, which celebrated its 10th birthday this year. The hardcore skankings of Philadelphia outfit Catbite were a real treat for Yorkshire punks of all ages and a real highlight of another great year of these shows.

I’m not much of a TV watcher and rarely have time for films, but have to give a shout out to the BBC4’s eternally excellent Storyville documentaries, particularly A Bunch of Amateurs, which is hilarious and heartwarming yet suffused with wistful melancholy. It’s also a hauntologists wet dream, with so many layers of meta it very nearly broke my brain. A perfect one for a dark night in, so good I watched it four times.

STU HENNIGAN is a writer, poet and musician from the north of England. His book Ghost Signs was shortlisted for Best Political Book by a Non-Parliamentarian at the Parliamentary Book Awards in 2023. His short fiction, essays and poetry have been published by Lunate, 3:AM, Lune Journal, Massive Overheads, Visual Verse and Expat Press, with pieces forthcoming in January 2024 in Broken Sleep Books’ Masculinity anthology, and the winter edition of Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal.