Goldie's Fab Four #3
My cultural highlights of the last seven days
The Light In the Hall
“Happy Valley” has quite rightly won plaudits after completing its third and final series, but I’d like to put a word in for ‘The Light In The Hall’, another powerful drama with a strong female cast set in a picturesque part of the UK.
Originally broadcast last summer, it stars the ever-excellent Joanna Scanlan as vengeful mum Sharon, angry at the release from prison of her teenage daughter’s killer Joe (Iwan Rheon) – especially as he won’t reveal the whereabouts of the body.
Meanwhile, the dead girl’s old schoolmate Cat (Alexandra Roach) returns to the scene of the crime in rural Camarthenshire, as she pursues a career in journalism.
As you’d expect, there are plot twists aplenty, and as the pursuit of the dead girl’s body evolves, plenty of dark secrets are exhumed along the way.
What’s really impressive, though, is how alongside the grisly revelations, Regina Moriarty’s creation never loses sight of human interaction and the warmth of friendships.
It’s this tender touch that sets it apart from the routine telly potboiler.
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-light-in-the-hall
The Reytons Pop-Up Shop
Okay, so you’re a rising indie band with a neat line in T shirts, hoodies and badges. How else do you spread the word and raise a few quid to keep yourself going?
South Yorkshire’s Reytons hit upon a novel idea – opening a shop at Sheffield’s Meadowhall Centre.
As well as flogging merch, the pop-up also features an exhibition of their rise from local pub gigs to selling out mid-sized venues around the country.
It might seem incongruous for a band who proudly proclaim their independent status, and who revel in their working class origins to squat in such a mainstream locale, but I’m seeing this positively as a bonding exercise with their local fan base.
The Reytons unashamedly want to be ‘big’, and as I discovered when I caught them in Birmingham last year, their stomping, Sillitoe-flavoured kitchen sink anthems have created a fervently devoted footy terrace following.
Now if only we could get Meadowhall and every other shopping centre in the country to ditch their regular muzak and pipe ‘Little Bastards’ instead.
Table Scraps
My mate joked the other day that if someone falls down the stairs in Manchester, you can guarantee that Marc Riley will be at the bottom with a microphone to record it.
That comment might say as much about our inbuilt West Midlands chipiness as any genuine regional bias on the part of 6 Music, but it’s interesting to speculate how much more attention Brummie band Table Scraps might have garnered if they were based 90 miles to the North-West.
Their punky energy and Sabbath-style riffs at a show to mark the 15th anniversary of enterprising promoters This Is Tmrw wowed a packed crowd at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath but the band remain relatively unknown outside their home town.
They deserve a bigger and broader audience.
The Horse Head Busker
Spotted in Birmingham city centre recently. The sign on his keyboard says he’s trying to raise money for an engagement ring. He doesn’t play ‘The Horse’. Or ‘Nag Nag Nag’. Unfortunately.