Off the back of the success of last year’s sellout, HOME has been expanded to two days this year – 24/5 June.

We’re very excited about the line up: Suzanne Vega is headlining (one of only 3 UK shows this year – the others being Glastonbury and Hyde Park!), alongside: Songlines Best Newcomer nominees Tamikrest; Alejandro Toledo and the Magic Tombolinos; Sheema Mukherjee; Max Pashm, and Perunika.
Like festivals used to be when we were nippers (well, sort of…), HOME is that all too rare chance to get up close and personal with exceptional artists, and – as an added bonue – in the beautiful the Dartington estate.

Find out more on the Dartington website.

Hope to see you there…. Hurray! It’s nearly summer!

We’ve been working with the team at WeDidThis to involve fans in the development of the piece, and raise money along the way.

£25 to spare… Why not buy a line of verse from the play?

For £75, a whole verse can be yours, read out and personalised by Murray and sent to you as a unique MP3.

Find out more about how we’re hoping to raise £4000 this way on the WeDidThisUK site , and keep up to date with all the latest news via hubster Matthew Linley’s blog.

On 15 March the hub and PRS for Music Foundation joined forces at Tate Liverpool for the closing public event of our New Music Plus… North West programme.

Panellists and audiences from across the performing and visual arts explored how collaboration between independent producers and larger arts organisations can catalyse and sustain innovation. Thanks very much to all who came along and made this such an inspired afternoon of thoughts, discussions and ideas!

We’ve recently made a couple of short films about the producers and host organisations involved, so if you couldn’t make our Tate event and want to know more, do check them out . You can also check out some video interviews filmed by PRSF trustee Michael Noonan. Happy viewing!

Rock The House is a music competition with a political twist; as well as showcasing unsigned bands and artists, it will raise political awareness of the need for copyright protection measures and inform MPs and the general public as to the importance of copyright protection within the creative industries.

We first met the MP, who worked in the music industry for a number of years himself prior to beginning his political career, at a Westminster Media Forum event, where we were presenting our research into public sector support for British music export. He’s a clearly well-informed advocate for the creative industries sector, and we’re looking forward to taking our discussions on export further at our next meeting.

Backed by industry bodies such as UK Music and Music Managers’ Forum, and by key players such as Live Nation and EMI, Rock The House is looking to showcase the newest and most talented bands and the most innovative live venues.

Bands and venues have until 31 March to put themselves forward, via their local MP, who will make nominations to a judging panel of music industry heavyweights on behalf of their own constituencies.

Winners will be announced by the end of May and all competition finalists will be invited to attend an exclusive event on the Terrace of the House of Commons on 30 June. Further information is available at the Rock The House website.

Programmed by the hub and the PRS for Music Foundation, other speakers confirmed so far include Stuart Brown (BFI Southbank), Regis Cochefort (Paul Hamlyn Foundation), Laura Ducchesci (De La Warr Pavilion), Will Dutta (Chimera Productions), David Francis (Dartington), John Kieffer (Sound and Music), Penny King (Arts Council England) David Metcalfe (Forma), Jo Ross (Oxford Contemporary Music), Andi Studer (Cenatus), Alexandra Tomkinson (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) and Andy Wood (Como No).

The event, which draws on the hub and PRSF’s learning from its New Music Plus… leadership development programme, will explore the artistic, audience and organisational development opportunities created when independent producers collaborate with arts organisations to programme new music.

Places at the event are limited, so if you’d like to attend, email us here at the hub as soon as possible.

Our compere for the evening was the fantastic poet Ross Sutherland . Click here to see him escape our tech run through to give us a sneaky reading of one of his poems from his Things to do Before you Leave Town collection.

Also featuring in the line up were Last Mango in Paris (seen here in sound check), 30birdproductions.org, poet, musician and editor of the Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets Jeet Thayil, actress and writer Pauline Melville and poet and performer Zurab Rtveliashvili.

Music in the bar for the evening was provided by the love and hate DJs Jason Phipps and Ruth Barnes. Their blog which includes a mix tape and play list is well worth checking out.

As part of the evening we asked members of the public and team members to read selections from well over 100 Mills and Boon books which we gave out to the audience at the end of the evening. You can catch Jason and Ruth’s readings in this short video here. . You can catch many more of the readings on our blip tv site here including readings by hub director Julia Payne &amp, and hub producers Jenny Harris and Matthew Linley. Contained within each Mills and Boon book was a book mark detailing the case of one of the writers being championed by International Pen, an ‘on the tube home’ reminder that even thought the Insulting Cabaret is a lot of fun the work of Pen continues to be very real and important.

You can also catch some photographs from the evening of our love / hate survey here

As ever a long evening – but a very successful one!

Insulting Cabaret was produced by the hub (www.thehubuk.com) for International Pen (www.internationalpen.org.uk) as part of Free the Word festival.

What do you love to hate? Any secret loves to confess? Where do you draw the line when speaking your mind?

After last year?s sell-out success, the irreverent and provocative Insulting Cabaret returns to Southwark Playhouse on 16th April, as part of International PEN?s Free the Word! festival of world literature, and in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the organisation Writers in Prison.

Hosted by live literature?s rising star Ross Sutherland, this year?s Insulting Cabaret takes as its theme Love and Hate and gathers together an international array of some of the most talented voices in writing and performance today, including spoken word supergroup Last Mango in Paris, Indian poet and musician Jeet Thayil, writer and actress Pauline Melville, performance company 30Bird, and Georgian surrealists Irakli Kakabadze and Zurab Rtveliashvili.

Expect a memorable evening of lyrical and surreal poetry, live music, DJs, visuals, Swizzels love-hearts and plenty of Mills and Boon!

Tickets are available from Southwark Playhouse on 0207 7407 0234 or online at southwarkplayhouse.co.uk

Do you have a guilty secret stashed on your bookshelf? Some Barbara Cartland bosom-heavers in the selection of stuff you picked up at the car boot sale? A dusty pile of Georgette Heyer in your attic that you claim came with the house? It?s time to come clean.

We need your Mills and Boon novels, your Silhouette smut, your bad romances with cheesy titles and even cheesier covers for The Insulting Cabaret at Southwark Playhouse on Friday 16th April at 9pm.

This year our compere Ross Sutherland will be hosting an intoxicating mix of music, poetry, comedy and spoken word from around the world under the banner Love vs Hate. You know us, we like to take a theme to its extreme, so your books may get read, they may get made into paperchains, who knows? But you?ll get a warm feeling knowing they?re going towards a good cause and a great evening.

So next time you?re passing a charity shop or jumble sale have a forage for us and if you do manage to acquire any, please let us know via insultingcabaret@gmail.com and we?ll arrange to collect them from you. We need as many novels as we can lay our hands on before the event on the 16th April so get searching and purging!

The Insulting Cabaret is produced by the hub. It?s part of International PEN?s Free the Word! festival of world literature, and celebrates the 50th anniversary of the organisation Writers in Prison. For more information and to buy tickets visit www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk.