CULTURE EDITION
TALK
Millers Music has hosted a giveaway of second-hand pianos to schools Local schools, including Queen Edith Primary School, The Netherhall School and Sawston Village College, have reserved a free, reconditioned piano through Miller Music’s Piano Equals initiative. Through the scheme, piano owners can donate used, good-quality instruments that would otherwise go to waste. “Every child deserves the opportunity to experience the joy and benefits of music education,” says Simon Pollard of Millers Music. “Yet, with schools and charities facing budget constraints, access to music is declining: GCSE music entries have declined 36% since 2010. With initiatives such as ours, we breathe new life into unwanted pianos, restoring and donating them to organisations that need them most.” RETAILER DONATES 30 PIANOS CHARITY
Award-winning former children’s laureate Michael Rosen takes to the road with his new one-man show Life after loss Interview IAN MCMILLAN F ormer children’s laureate Michael Getting Through It . The talk delves deep into themes of trauma, grief and mortality. “It’s not really a family show full of laughs, although I guess older children can come along with their parents,” he muses. There are two halves to the event; in Rosen is touring the UK with a powerful personal monologue and poetry event, the first half Michael reads poems about the death of his stepson Eddie at the age of 18 from meningitis. The second half is all about his own experience with Covid-19, of his 42 days in a coma and eventual recovery. The link between the two halves is language. “When Eddie died, I felt I had no voice,” says Michael. “I couldn’t write anything and I was in a kind of miasma of thought, but I couldn’t get anything down.” Miraculously, it was a poem that unlocked the poetry in him again. “I read a poem by US writer Raymond Carver. It was just a simple one about locking yourself out and getting back in the house, and it unlocked something in me. I was able to write, fragments at first, but then poems and things that I felt able to share with people.” After the intermission, Michael will talk about his own terrifying descent into a coma as a result of Covid-19. “They were scary times,” he says. “Once I came out of the coma I kept forgetting that I’d been in one. My brain was scrambled, completely scrambled.” But as it had before, language began to return. This time, it wasn’t a poem that
unlocked the words door, but simply being around people and listening to them. “Nurses and doctors would tell me ‘you’ve been very poorly’. If somebody’s ‘very poorly’, I’d think they’ve got a cold or runny nose, they haven’t nearly died! So, I wrote a poem with ‘you’ve been very poorly’ as a repeating line.” Michael wondered if he would ever be able to walk again, or stand up and perform his poetry. His physiotherapist was adamant he shouldn’t give up and, sure enough, a few months later he was doing a show for a huge audience at Royal Festival Hall. “Thanks to Covid-19 we still had to sit behind a Perspex screen,” he says. “I looked up and a woman said: ‘Do you remember me?’ And, of course, it was the physiotherapist. She was right, never say you can’t do something.” Michael Rosen will be at the Corn Exchange on 7 April. See cornex.co.uk
FESTIVAL
Bier in the big top
The city’s latest beer festival is inspired by a Munich folk tradition of oompah bands and seeing in spring A new beer festival is to arrive in Cambridge on 26 April. “Frühlingsfest translates to spring festival,” explains event promoter Tom Martinez. “It has been celebrated in Munich since 1964 and, historically, marks the beginning of the planting season for farmers, while the rest of the community joins in to celebrate the end of winter.” The marquee-based event will transform Jesus Green into a Bavarian wunderland, offering Munich-brewed bier, bratwurst and pretzels. Oompah bands will entertain the revellers, with prizes for fancy dress. “All of the German classics will be sung, from Ein Prosit to Hände zum Himmel ,” says Tom. “But the song the crowd love most is Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond, that’s always a goosebumps moment for everyone in the big top!” For tickets (over 18s only) visit oktoberfests.uk/tickets
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