The Week in Light & Sound
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ATG’s purchase of Mehr! Entertainment means it will operate the Starlight Express Theatre in Bochum, the purpose-built venue which has been home to the long-running musical since 1988. It will also take over the Mehr! Theatre in Hamburg, the Admiralspalast in Berlin, the Capitol Theatre in Dusseldorf and the Musical Dome in Cologne. ATG chief executive Mark Cornell said: “These major venues across Germany are each unique and captivating in their individual style and offer exciting opportunities to expand our services and reach new audiences.”
The News Bulletin - Singer Huey Lewis has cancelled his band's future shows after losing most of his hearing. The 67-year-old US star said he felt "horrible" and apologised to fans as he revealed that doctors believe he has an inner ear condition called Meniere's disease. His group, Huey Lewis And The News, have axed all of their performances planned for 2018, but the frontman insisted he hopes to perform again "one day soon".
Lewis tweeted: "Two and a half months ago, just before a show in Dallas, I lost most of my hearing. Although I can still hear a little, one on one, and on the phone, I can't hear music well enough to sing. The lower frequencies distort violently making it impossible to find pitch."
Merseybeat Revisited - A ‘masterplan’ to boost Liverpool's Beatles Quarter has been proposed by Liverpool City Council. The plans concern a regeneration around Mathew Street, where the Cavern Club - which hosted the band's early shows - once stood. The aim is to bring an "enhanced and more co-ordinated Beatles tourism offer" to the area, the council said. City Mayor Joe Anderson said there was a need to improve the area's 24-hour appeal as the current offer was "not at the level it could and should be".
If approved, the regeneration work would focus on the area from Victoria and North John Street to Lord Street and Stanley Street. The council said the city's "Beatles-related industry" had been growing at up to 15% annually in the last decade and was worth £90m a year. A spokesman said Cavern City Tours and the Cavern Club, the venue built on the site of its namesake nightclub using the original plans, now attracted 800,000 visitors a year. However, a report to the council said visitors were "increasingly looking for a quality experiential visit" and there was "a clear need to curate a Beatles Heritage offer".
Class Issues - Less than a fifth of employees working in music, performing and visual arts are from a working class background, a new report claims. The study reveals a “significant and longstanding lack of social mobility” in the creative industries. Just 18.2% of employees working in music, performing and visual arts are from working class origins – compared with 35% of the workforce overall. However, this is a slight improvement on other areas of the creative industries, including publishing and film, TV and radio, which have 12.6% and 12.4% representation respectively.
The report by arts charities Create London and Arts Emergency, titled Panic! Social Class, Taste and Inequalities in the Creative Industries, claims to be the “first sociological study on social mobility in the cultural industries”. Create London and Arts Emergency have revealed a cultural programme aimed at addressing some of the issues explored in the report.
Chelsea Nights - The door to US singer Bob Dylan's room at the famed Chelsea Hotel in New York has sold at auction for $100,000 (£70,000). It was one of 50 doors from the hotel, where a host of stars stayed over the years, to be sold. The door to a room used by singers Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen during an affair, as well as the singer Joni Mitchell, fetched $85,000. Jack Kerouac wrote his classic book On the Roadwhile staying there in the 1950s. The door to his room sold at auction for $30,000.
(Jim Evans)
17 April 2017
