Out today: our June issue!
Before we dive in, we want to address the concrete elephant in the room: UEA. If you follow local or national news, you will know that Norwich is currently in the spotlight due to the multiple system failures at the University of East Anglia. It's now been confirmed that over 100 jobs are at risk, and they have clearly been selected on an ideological basis, as a disproportionate number of them come from the university's cleaners and the Humanities faculty. We have not dedicated another full article to this in this issue, but you can read more on the series of ridiculous, callous, and plain incompetent steps that led UEA to this point in our April issue here.
Since the beginning, The Norwich Radical has had a dual focus on politics and the arts as two equally important arenas for change, struggle and progress. Our June collection of articles reflects that, spanning local and international artistic projects across music, theatre, poetry and animation, with an eye to the political and social contexts they spring from, plus another heavy-hitting long read about Europe's 'last acceptable racism' and joyous reflections from attendees of Norwich's second annual Trans Pride picnic.
You can support our work financially by visiting our Steady page to set up a recurring donation. If you'd like to volunteer with us as a writer, editor or artist, or to pitch a one-off piece, you can reach us at thenorwichradical@gmail.com.
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JUST GIVE ME THE PILLS, BY KORALY DIMITRIADIS – REVIEW
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‘NO JUSTICE, NO RIGHTS’ FOR ROMA IN EUROPE’S CRIMINAL LEGAL SYSTEMS
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TELLING CHAOS TO FUCK OFF – AN INTERVIEW WITH THE PEARL HARTS
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THIS WORLD CAN’T TEAR ME DOWN, BY ZEROCALCARE – A REVIEW
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WHAT TRANS PRIDE MEANS TO NORWICH
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A VERY QUEER KING LEAR – AN INTERVIEW WITH VINCE LAWS
by Rowan Gavin
Beloved Norwich band Bag of Cans have come a long way since we recommended them as a top local act to look out for back in 2019. Ahead of the June release of their debut album We Are A Band and the accompanying Norwich Arts Centre show, I spent a couple of hours down the pub with lead singer and trumpet player George Baker and guitarist and former Radical contributor Tom McGhie.
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by Carmina Masoliver
In the six years between her latest collection ‘just give me the pills’ and the previous ‘love & fuck poems’, Koraly Dimitriadis has matured into a voice that comes through the page as well as from the stage. She reintroduces herself, divorcing herself from the expectations of womanhood with a literal ‘slice’ in the title of the second poem of the preface, commanding ‘slice my belly like bread’, beginning with a double meaning, alluding to the birth of the book itself, as well as the baby described in the following poem. What follows are seven sections of poetry, described as a ‘novel in verse’. It is best read with this description in mind, with the language at times more prosaic than poetic, but would be more appropriately described as a memoir in verse, given the autobiographical nature of the text and apparent chronology.
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by Jonathan Lee
Content Warning: description of police brutality, racist violence, institutional racism.
On a bright, Istanbul morning in January 2023, two Romani men – 43-year-old Resül Bayır and his 25-year-old son Hüseyin – stood trial at the Anadolu 31st Criminal Court of First Instance. They had dared to file a complaint against police officers who had racially abused and tortured them for hours in a police station in the Ataşehir neighbourhood of Istanbul on 31st May 2022. As a result, they now faced criminal charges themselves, in a warped reversal of the so-called ‘justice system’.
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The Pearl Harts, based in East London, have been creating impassioned DIY punk-rock since 2014. Their Norwich gig at Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom in late May was the last stop on the UK leg of their tour before continuing to Belgium and France. Before the show, I spoke to lead vocalist and guitarist Kirsty and drummer and backing vocalist Sara about the music-making process, what inspires them and their hopes for the future.
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A year and a half after Tear Along the Dotted Line, Italian comics author Zerocalcare returns to streaming screens with a second series that is not a sequel, but also not not a sequel. Questo Mondo Non Mi Renderà Cattivo (This World Can’t Tear Me Down) is available as of 9th June 2023, and confirms that Zero and his 300-strong team have something worth showing and telling.
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Norwich's second annual Trans Pride picnic took place on June 17th in Eaton Park. The event was a roaring success, with over two hundred people participating, including dozens of performers and storeholders. In collaboration with the event's organisers, I collected written responses from attendees around the question 'What does Norwich Trans Pride mean to you?' (although not all respondents chose to address the question directly). We present a selection of them here, as testimony to one of the most joyful community events in the Norwich queer calendar and to the tireless work of its organisers.
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We sat down once again with prolific local artist and performer Vince Laws; this time to talk about A Very Queer King Lear, his contribution to 1623 Theatre Company’s Queer Folio - a ‘celebration of LGBTQ+ creativity in response to the First Folio; Shakespeare’s complete(ish) works first published 400 years ago this year’.
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In Solidarity,
The Norwich Radical Team
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