A disruption, disrupted

Along with my fine colleague Matt Morrison, I have been working on a project to Disrupt your Everyday This has been an ongoing adventure, the catalyst for which was Matt's rediscovery of the Soho Poly Basement in 2012 much of which is charted in his brilliant book. There is more here on the Soho Poly Project. Since 2017 we have curated more than 20 events in the basement and beyond, including plays, poetry, readings, gigs, fanzine workshops and 'ghost gigs'. Before the buildings of the University were shut we had planned a whole series of disruptive events for March and April under the banner of the Soho Poly Arts Club, see the University News Item here.

The lockdown has had a brutal effect on live performance and culture. Even before the formal restrictions were announced venues and galleries began closing, and it almost immediately became apparent that how we consume culture was to change for the foreseeable future, and perhaps forever.
I left my office at Westminster Law School for the last time on Wednesday 18th March. That evening I tuned into the Cafe Oto website where they promised a live stream of a gig, from an empty room, as their response to  dealing with the pandemic. It was eerie, but curiously engaging, and I tuned in again the next night to watch another. Conscious of their struggle to manage during this difficult period I paid to join for the next three months, and will perhaps continue beyond. I started to see other imaginative responses to the situation. Luke Wright, a poet i much admire started performing nightly 30 minute sets at 8.00pm via twitter and I highly recommend you catch one. Tim Burgess, the lead singer of the Charlatans started twitter listening parties, where you are encouraged to play the designated album at 10.00pm and follow a key player in the recording as they take you through the tracks and stories behind the album. A quite brilliant idea. This is the tip of the creative online iceberg.

Whilst its disappointing to not be able to welcome visitors to the Soho Poly for the events we had planned we are aiming to embrace the technology and stream some of the events we had planned, and perhaps offer some other treats. We have in fact already used streaming for some of our earlier events. The original idea of the project was that the events would be at lunchtime to 'disrupt your day with culture', drawing on the original ethos of the Soho Poly with its lunchtime theatre model. Of course, fifty years on not only do atypical workforms mean that the 1-2 lunchtime slot is no longer appropriate for everyone, but also the impact of globalisation is that what is lunchtime in London may be breakfast time in Chicago and teatime in Mumbai. We have previously streamed events such as a performance of Dunnematt's 'One Autumn Evening' and Martin Stephenson playing live. We are starting our online Soho Poly Arts club experiment with two ghost gigs. The concept of ghost gigs is simple, we source recordings of concerts that took place at the University of Westminster and play these in the space the performance originally took place, on the anniversary of it happening. These have so far been successful, see the short video relating to our New Order event above and some more details here.

Our first event takes place on 8th April at 1.00pm and will be a Ralph McTell ghost gig. You may have seen Ralph on the BBC last week, as he has updated his classic song 'Streets of London' for the coronavirus era. You will be able to hear this ghost gig, accompanied by various images and a fanzine specially created for the event by our Design team, here and here. Following this we will have a Fleetwood Mac ghost gig on 27th April at 1.00pm, details here. We hope to have more and recommend you follow @theshohopoly on twitter for updates.