The Dial Up LGBT Month Special is a Smash!

Thank you so much to everyone who came to the pumphouse theatre and arts centre last night to make our LGBT History Month Dial Up such a wonderful event! I'm really touched by the kind and supportive messages that have been coming in, it just shows how important nights like this really are. Here's hoping for a repeat event next February! And if you can't wait that long, there's WOM next Tuesday, Kitchen Croxley Dial Up on Friday 18th March and, courtesy of Scott Awcock, a full recording of last night's proceedings on the video above. Much love everyone and big hugs! xx

Dial Up Celebrates LGBT Month at the Pumphouse!

 

Watford Pumphouse Celebrates LGBT Month!

The Watford Pumphouse is proud to be hosting a Dial Up Open Mic in celebration of LGBT History Month! We want to throw the doors of the Pumphose wide open so this is a FREE EVENT with a suggested donation of £5 for those who are able to pay in the interval.

As ever, we will be celebrating community and creativity in all their forms, so whether you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, curious, undecided, an ally or something else entirely we welcome you to come and join us for this landmark occasion. Share you music, your poetry, your passion, your stories. The stage is yours!

Where: Pumphouse Theatre and Arts Centre

5 Local Board Road, Watford

When: Saturday 19th February 2022,

7pm doors open/ 7.30pm show starts

Happy New Year 2022!

 

The easiest way to get involved with The Dial Up is to come along! We always make new guests welcome and guarantee you a performance spot if you want one.

Our next event is:

7.30pm on Friday 14th January 2022

at The Kitchen Croxley

198 Watford Road, Croxley Green

WD3 3DB

Bring any sheet music, instruments or creativity you choose! 

Song, dance, comedy, poetry, story telling all welcome! 

Tickets: £5 donation in interval.

Then in February...

Watford Pumphouse Celebrates LGBT Month!

The Watford Pumphouse is proud to be hosting a Dial Up Open Mic in celebration of LGBT History Month! We want to throw the doors of the Pumphose wide open so this is a FREE EVENT with a suggested donation of £5 for those who are able to pay in the interval.

As ever, we will be celebrating community and creativity in all their forms, so whether you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, curious, undecided, an ally or something else entirely we welcome you to come and join us for this landmark occasion. Share you music, your poetry, your passion, your stories. The stage is yours!

Where: Pumphouse Theatre and Arts Centre

5 Local Board Road, Watford

When: Saturday 19th February 2022,

7pm doors open/ 7.30pm show starts

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from The Dial Up!

It was so lovely to return to live performance and bid 2021 farewell with music, merriment and The Dial Up Family at our Christmas Special this month! Thanks so much to everyone who came, wishing you all the very safest and happiest of festive seasons, and I look forward to seeing you again at the beautiful Kitchen Croxley in 2022! Much love, Alex xx

The easiest way to get involved with The Dial Up Open Mic is to come along! We always make new guests welcome and guarantee you a performance spot if you want one.

Our next event is:

7.30pm on Friday 14th January 2022

at The Kitchen Croxley

198 Watford Road, Croxley Green

WD3 3DB

Bring any sheet music, instruments or creativity you choose! 

Song, dance, comedy, poetry, story telling all welcome! 

Tickets: £5 donation in interval.

The Dial Up Returns!

What a wonderful first event back! Thank you everyone who came and made it such a memorable event. I'm delighted to announce that we will now be at the Amanartis Studio every month, with our next event beinga Christmas Special 2pm on Saturday 4th December! Looking forward to seeing you there, bring your Santa hats!

The photos are from our November Dial Up, some amazing performances and a great time was had by all!

The Dial Up Returns! & Secular Verses published

After a year and a half in mothballs, The Dial Up is finally back! We've found a beautiful and unique new venue in the Amanartis Studios, a converted chapel in the centre of Vicarage Road cemetery. The moment I first visited I knew it would make a perfect home for our much loved celebration of community and creativity. So dust off your instruments, warm up your vocal chords and carve out a space in your diary for The Dial Up Open Mic!

The easiest way to get involved with The Dial Up is to come along! We always make new guests welcome and guarantee you a performance spot if you want one.

Our next event is:

2 - 4pm on Saturday 6th November 2021

at the Amanartis Studios

The Chapel in the Cemetery

Vicarage Road

Watford, WD18 0EJ

Bring any sheet music, instruments or creativity you choose! 

Song, dance, comedy, poetry, story telling all welcome! 

Tickets: £5 donation in interval.

Secular Verses, my new collection of poetry now available to buy on Amazon, explores my experiences as a secularist, atheist and humanist. With poems ranging from the thoughtful and lyrical to the comic and polemic, there's something to inspire every reader's interest and imagination. If you want a sneak peek, two of the poems are copied below, and you can also subscribe to the superb e-magazine Humanistically Speaking were I have a regular spot in Poet's Corner.

What’s a Humanist?

 

They trust in methodologies objective and specific

They describe observed phenomena in a manner scientific

They reject all explanations couched in ghosts or ghouls or spirits

They circumscribe their arguments with naturalistic limits

They ask to see the evidence before they reach conclusions

They prefer to confess ignorance than make up false solutions

They try to meet all human beings with kindness and compassion

And to treat all other animals in corresponding fashion

They’ve no evidence of afterlife, so reasonably deduce

That this is the one life that we have of any earthly use

They put aside the magical claims of many an ancient text

And instead use moral judgement to decide what to do next.

So, in answer to your question, having thought the whole thing through

I’d say it sounds a lot like me. Would you say it’s like you?

Hummingbird

What on Earth more wondrous 

Than a hummingbird exists?

Nature’s glory

Floating sharp, a sliver 

Silver in a liquid air

Purple-dash flash-blue of slicing 

Vibration, mocking gravity

Drinking deep the lees

Of floral nectar hidden

From less specialised imbibers.

Bobbing wonder

Flit of beauty

Pinnacle of process

Evolutionary

Cousin of

All life.

My play Thyestes is now available on Kindle!

THYESTES

Seneca's great Roman Tragedy

in a new version by Alexander Williams

First performed at London's Battersea Arts Centre in 2008, this play script is a gory and gripping reimagining of the notorious revenge myth in which Atreus, father of Agamemnon, avenges himself against his brother Thyestes by murdering his children and serving them up for dinner. Favourably reviewed by The Guardian's legendary theatre critic Michael Billington, this adaptation preserves the bare bones of Seneca's original meaty saga while bringing the horror dramatically forward by ditching the traditional messenger and placing the spine-chilling bloodlust of deranged King Atreus centre stage.

"The Elizabethans may have ransacked Seneca's works, but his Roman tragedies languish in the shade: only Caryl Churchill had been bold enough to translate this classic horror story. Now, Alexander Williams has come up with a radical version that, while spelling out the story's cruelty, ensures we understand the cyclical nature of revenge." - Michael Billington, The Guardian

Thyestes is available here through Amazon Kindle.