The Crack Magazine

A poster with the text: Telling Tales: Making Stories Come to Life. It has illustrations of a Javanese puppet, the Soga Brothers, woodblock prints, a blue-white ceramic, a scary Noh mask, a blue Peking Opera face painting, a musician playing a horn, an orange robe with a golden dragon and a colourful shadow puppet. 

There’s only a few days left to experience the wonder of storytelling through our MA students’ exhibition, Telling Tales, at the Oriental Museum. This family-friendly exhibition will be closing; 9th of November. 
Unable to make it? Check out our online exhibition and audio guide. #TellingTales

This Wednesday we're excited to welcome Edinburgh alt-rockers Swim School to Reflex for a special instore signing session!

For entry, simply order the band's excellent eponymous debut album from us - available on CD and green vinyl!

Buy: reflexrecordshop.com/product/8385...

The Engine Room, North Shields join their neighbours Three Tanners Bank for a Vinyl Market tomorrow Sunday 2 Nov. Traders over both venues. From 12 midday. Browse & buy drinks & music.. sounds good.

This December, adventurers of all ages are invited to experience a night of cosmic wonder, as Enchanted City transforms Northumbria University's City Campus after dark. www.enchanted-city.co.uk

Saving Disgraceland Middlesbrough’s alternative community rallies round its flagship venue

Small venues are facing big problems. Yet these are the very fabric of our cultural life - far more so than oversized, overpriced arenas. So it's encouraging to see efforts to keep Middlesbrough's Disgraceland afloat: talkingnortheast.substack.com/p/saving-dis...

‘In Concert @thebowesmuseum.bsky.social transforms the museum’s elegant Jubilee Room into an intimate venue for unforgettable evenings with internationally acclaimed musicians.
thebowesmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/

All God’s Creatures by Anthony Gardner | The Crack Magazine Anthony Gardner won much acclaim for his previous novel ‘Fox’ – a farcical thriller concerning a virulent disease carried by foxes – and ‘All God’s Creatures’ balances a similar madcap sense of intrig...

Here’s @thecrackmagazine.bsky.social’s full review of @anthonygardnera.bsky.social’s new novel All God’s Creatures www.thecrackmagazine.com/view-editori...

This week's eletter.
thecrack.createsend.com/campaigns/re...

Just a handful of places left for Friday's Florence + The Machine listening party... email us at florence@reflexcd.co.uk to secure yours!

See the quoted post for full details.

Editing occasionally borders on the contrived, but documentary 'Folktales', which focuses on 3 troubled teens attending a traditional, rustic folk high school in remote Arctic Norway is empathetic & quietly inspiring, & the Norwegian environs are beautifully captured. Excellent husky action too.

November issue back from the printers & out for delivery! Coming soon to a gallery, theatre, music venue, bar, library, cafe, museum, independent cinema or shop near you, (if you live in the North East - or delivered to your door).
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BIG NEWS! We’re super excited to announce that GemArts Masala Festival has been nominated for the North East Culture Awards 2025 in the Arts Council England Award category.
the awards on 27th Nov at The Stockton Globe Theatre.
#NECultureAwards #MasalaFestival #ACESupported #LetsCreate

North East crafters crochet oysters to boost conservation A conservation charity hopes adopting crocheted oysters will connect people with the species.

BBC News - North East crafters crochet oysters to boost conservation - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Get your crochet hooks out, people! 😍👍🦪🧶

French-Moroccan writer-director Sofia Alaoui’s singular & bewitching first feature ‘Animalia’ clocks in at a mere 90 mins but manages observations on class, money & gender, against a sci-fi/supernatural end-of-days setting replete with moments of beauty & ecstatic wonder #Animalia

⭐️Tickets are now on sale for Enchanted City! This December, adventurers of all ages are invited to experience a night of cosmic wonder, as Enchanted City transforms Northumbria University's City Campus after dark. 🌠 enchanted-city.co.uk #EnchantedCityNcl

Open now. Sarah-Jane Szikora's exhibition, 'A House is Not a Home', has opened at BottleWorks in Ouseburn. The free exhibition features paintings exploring the human condition & the absurdity of life. 23-27 Oct. 10am - 6pm.
www.sarah-janeszikora.com
8 Riverside Walk, NE6 1LX

Dave Ball was not some bloke in the background of Soft Cell – he drove their startling, subversive sound Far more than a mute foil to Marc Almond, Ball brought his love of northern soul and strange electronics to bear on some of Britain’s most uncompromising pop

Dave Ball was not some bloke in the background of Soft Cell – he drove their startling, subversive sound

www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

Is the venue you love getting involved in #IVW26? There's still time... Send them this post as a little reminder and say why you'd love them to be part of it 🙌

Just been to the excellent @narbiprice.bsky.social exhibition at Sunderland's Museum & Winter Gardens. Strong overlap with the locations in Ken Loach's 'The Old Oak' (which I starred in for almost 20 seconds)

After presenting a work in progress of the show at Hexham Pride back in 2023, Matt Miller is bringing Fixing to Queen’s Hall on Thursday 6 November!

A drag show about family breakups, car breakdowns and how to get over them.

Grab your tickets: www.queenshall.co.uk/whats-on/fix...

🍃 ‘Sarah Hall is a writer bold and talented enough to pull off a novel in which the main character is the wind itself. . . Helm, which was 20 years in the making, will sweep you off your feet.’ Independent

Join Sarah Hall on Sat 29 Nov | 11am | City Library
www.tiny.cc/booksontyne2025
📸 Faber Books

Pictish Trail's new single Torch Song is from the new album, LIFE SLIME. He plays a special solo show at The Engine Room, North Shields on 13 Nov! Based on the Isle of Eigg in the Hebrides, Pictish Trail is known for his wildly inventive electro-acoustic psych-pop.
www.terns.co.uk/tm-event/pic...

From this Thu 23 Oct - Sat 1 Nov we are delighted to be bringing to our audiences the brilliant #MotherCourage and Her Children from Ensemble '84 & Isango Ensemble

Check out some of the production pics taken by Keith Pattison & then book asap at tinyurl.com/5aetykwh

Saturday 1st Nov.

Packed Friday night with audiences getting a first glimpse of Shelagh Stephenson's new play #AstellandWoolf read by the amazing Gemma Whelan and Rosie Cavaliero as part of #WOWNE
@WOWisGlobal

Watch this space for more news on this sharp new comedy...
🔜⌛👀

Iggy Pop played the Mediaeval Baebes on his BBC 6music show this afternoon. They're playing @newcastlecathedral.bsky.social on 18 Dec. Beautiful early music & folk; ethereal harmonies, through a myriad of ancient & forgotten languages. As recommended by Iggy.
www.tickettailor.com/events/media...

For a film that champions the potency & need for storytelling, dark feminist fairytale ‘100 Nights of Hero’ feels a bit of a narrative chore. Emma Corrin locates wryly correct comic register from the get-go, although most of rest of cast flounder, & there are droll sight gags a la Lester/Greenaway

A random sample of No Kings crowd

#NoKings If the Repugs were hoping for crowds of masked, Molotov cocktail-throwing youth clad in black, calling for anarchy, they were bitterly disappointed. The millions who took to the streets for "No Kings" could not have been a more peaceful, far-from-radical, everyday representation of America.

Start next week with a gig! The Engine Room, near North Shields Fish Quay.

Taking its stylistic cues from the movement, Richard Linklater’s ‘Nouvelle Vague’ charts the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Breathless’. Newcomer Guillaume Marbeck is an uncanny Godard, given to dispensing epigrams, but brittle & uncertain too, & pic fizzes with that era’s playfulness & mischief