Phil Redmond: Too much to do

Apr 25 2008 by Phil Redmond, Liverpool Daily Post

EVENTS. So many are now going on that people are starting to complain that they can’t get to everything. That in itself is a positive event.

On visiting one of the traditional cultural destinations like Barcelona, Florence or Boston, people do not complain of there being too much to do, only that there is never enough time in which to do it. And so it now seems in the Capital of Culture which makes me more convinced, four months in to the year, that if people say they can’t find something of interest somewhere, they are not really trying!

The recent quarterly statistics seem to support this, with over 2m people attending cultural events as diverse as Doddy to the intriguingly impressive One Step Forward, One Step Back drama tour of the Anglican Cathedra.

That’s on until May 10, and tickets can be obtained from the 08 Place which, incidentally, picked up a well-deserved award from national tourism organisation Enjoy England on Wednesday night. This annual awards ceremony was staged at St George’s Hall, the first time they had been held outside London and another success in attracting people and events to 2008.

Other events that day included the launch of Sikhs in Print, also at St George’s Hall until June 20 and Shakespeare 24. This is another annual event when countries across the world host one hour of Shakespeare at 7pm in their local time zone.

As the world turns, the Shakespearean baton is passed from country to country, starting in New Zealand and finishing 24 hours later in Hawaii. The Playhouse acted as UK host and while the National Youth Theatre performed Measure for Measure, Archbishop Beck School was chosen to represent Liverpool with an amazing abridged version of Macbeth.

The International Slavery Museum hosted an event signifying the importance of the individual in shaping, changing or challenging cultural perspectives, with the arrival of the Ken Saro-Wiwa living memorial as part of Earth Week.

The memorial is a travelling sculpture in the form of a typical Nigerian bus, while Saro-Wiwa’s story should resonate with Liverpool’s well-acknowledged characteristic for seeking social justice, for he and eight colleagues were executed in Nigeria for campaigning against the ecological devastation of the Niger Delta by international oil companies. The memorial is only here until today, but it has great resonance looking toward 2009 as the city’s Year of Environment.

You can find more details at www.remembersarowiwa.com but his stance and ultimate sacrifice remind us that, while headlines will always go to the trials and tribulations of celebrity concerts, real culture is about our shared lifestyle. Our shared values. They are formed by us all as a collective, and by individual spirits like Ken Saro-Wiwa. Culture is often more about individuals than individual events.