ARTS & entertainment By Nicky Sweetland
The great wall of Eltham 2017 HAS been another busy and hugely successful year for the team at Eltham Arts. But 2018 promises to be even more exciting with the launch of their multifaceted Wall Project.
The group - which aims to connect the community through the arts - has gone a long way to establishing the town as a haven for virtuosos within South East London, with a multitude of projects and festivals over the last few years, attracting attention from all over the world. Next year however, they have decided to facilitate a community multimedia project, which will include elements from almost every aspect of the arts world, while engaging local people of all ages. From creative writing to film, murals and even a garden, the project will incorporate a vast range of mediums, but all with the theme of ‘Walls’ at their core and will include local community groups, performers and schools. The first initiative to add to your diaries will be the Writing On the Wall, a short story and poetry creative writing challenge. This will be on the theme of Walls around you to encourage people to think about the walls around them and become inspired to express
themselves creatively in prose or poetry. It may be a wall on a house or historic building, a wall dividing cultures or a personal wall within
COMEDY/THEATRE Until 7 January 2018 SE10 CINDERELLA Greenwich Theatre, Crooms Hill. SE10 8ES, UK Phone: 020 8858 7755 This festive season watch Cinderella go from rags to riches in the theatre's latest all-singing, alldancing magical pantomime. Until 21 January 2018 SE9 CINDERELLA
Bob Hope Theatre, Eltham SE9 5TG Phone: 020 8850 3702 A traditional family pantomime performed by local stage stars. Filled with slapstick fun, sensational singing and delightful dance. 23rd December SE10 SATURDAY NIGHT COMEDY Up the Creek, 302 Creek Road. SE10 9SW Phone: 0208 858 4581 The regular Saturday night fun featuring Kevin
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which inspires you to write. Workshops are being planned to support this project and encourage creative writing. It’s planned there
McCarthy, Mike Wilmot, Chris McCauseland and Ian Stone ART Throughout December & January SE9 RICHARD REES EXHIBITION The Long Pond, Westmount Road, Eltham SE9 1UT An exhibition by by local artist Richard Rees for Dec/Jan depicting many local scenes. MUSIC 22nd December SE10 Tommy Jules All Stars Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, SE10 9LS The TJ All-stars deliver a spell binding set of Club classics and floor fillers accompanied with breath taking live vocals and sax. 26th December SE10 UNCLE FUNK & THE BOOGIE WONDERLAND Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, SE10 9LS Uncle Funk & The Boogie Wonderband are an amazing 70s disco band available to hire for weddings, parties, corporate shows and festivals. Their set list has been geared to keep people on the dance floor, all night long. FILM 20th December SE10 STAR WARS THE LAST JEDI 3D Greenwich Picture House, 180 Greenwich High
will be an exhibition/awards/ celebratory event on World Book Night 23rd April 2018 at Eltham library. It’s also planned that a
Rd. SE10 8NN Tel: 0871 902 5732 The next in the series following The Force Awakens – a film that raked in two billion dollars at the box office. Plot details are scarce, but the late Carrie Fisher plays a major role, and Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro join the cast. The film’s beating heart, however, is the relationship between Rey and Luke. Rey finally comes face to face with the Jedi master on the island of Ahch-To, but he’s not the man she was expecting to find. 21st December SE10 ROH ENCORE: THE NUTCRACKER
Greenwich Picture House, 180 Greenwich High Rd. SE10 8NN Tel: 0871 902 5732 Peter Wright’s nigh-on definitive production for The Royal Ballet ranks as one of the most enduring and enchanting versions of 'The Nutcracker'. With its festive period setting, dancing snowflakes and enchanting stage magic, Lev Ivanov’s 1892 ballet
selection will be published in a book of the same name. Several schools are busy planning their creative writing entries but any schools which want to participate and send in entries, are asked to get in touch. The challenge has been launched with a closing date of thr end of February 2018. There are leaflets in Eltham Centre and New Eltham libraries and elsewhere. Other events to keep a look out for are Songs Across a Wall, a challenge to write and perform songs around the wall theme; Over the Wall and Far Away , which will involve a mural being painted on a vacant shop front commissioned by NEBA (New Eltham Business Association) and a special screening of The Acting Class at Bob Hope Theatre on 21st Feb 2018 at 7.30pm. The film is about Tom Stocks, a young man from Bolton, who has to turn down a chance to study at the East 15 drama school because he cannot afford the fees. He sets up a campaign to highlight socioeconomic exclusion in the arts. The film will be followed by a Q&A with the Directors. For more information on Wall and all of the events you can visit the website www.elthamarts.org.
has become the perfect Christmas entertainment, with Tchaikovsky’s sumptuous, sugar-spun music the most recognizable of all ballet scores. 22nd December SE10 DESPICABLE ME 3 Odeon, Bugsby Way, London SE10 0QJ Tel: 0333 006 7777 Gru meets his long-lost charming, cheerful, and more successful twin brother Dru who wants to team up with him for one last criminal heist. 24th December SE10 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE Greenwich Picture House, 180 Greenwich High Rd. SE10 8NN Tel: 0871 902 5732 One of the most popular and enduring films ever made, Frank Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is a gloriously sentimental testament to homely small-town moral values. Masterfully crafted, the film opens with angels discussing George Bailey (James Stewart), a man so beset with problems that he contemplates a Christmas-time suicide. As George prepares to jump from a bridge his guardian angel Clarence Oddbody intervenes and shows him how badly Bedford Falls would have turned out without his good deeds. Filled with a renewed joy of life George returns to his family for Christmas. James Stewart gives one of his finest, most affecting performances and the film looks better than ever in its new restoration.
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