Happy New Year Everyone!
So here we are again, another end to another year and as ever, I always love to share what I achieved over the past 12 months, especially as sometimes I completely forget what I've done until I go back over diaries and posts.
Often I barely believe I've done anything at all through out the year then I begin writing and researching and discover that 365 days of life I've been gifted again did indeed get filled with some amazing moments and good news, when often it's just the failures I'll recall.
January 2021
The year started brilliantly, we were still in lockdown and I pretty much had London all to myself, a far cry from the end of the year, this year, with hacking tourist jammed into tube trains and buses cheek by jowl... Ew!
But January 2021 I'm centre attention for the campaign to save the Crobar in Central London as I appear in the documentary film alongside rock legends like, but it's the trailer that gets everyone excited... as it's just me!
https://totalrock.com/documentary-to-save-soho-venue-crobar-announced/
My first appearance on Eddie Nestor's Drivetime Radio Show on BBC London discussing why Westminster Housing is utterly failing at it's job.
https://twitter.com/londonerslondon/status/1354016320963174401?lang=bg
February 2021
The Kings Fund Podcast comes out with me, Dame Louise Casey former Government Tsar for Rough Sleeping discussing what went wrong with the Everyone In Scheme and how the Government are both the cause of the problem and the block to solving it.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/podcast/sleeping-rough-covid-19-public-health
March 2021
My first ever virtual Birthday Party which meant I could unite friends from all over the world including dear friend Patrcik Savage, from London first violinist for the Musical Hamilton who gave me the absolute pleasure of watching the show sat next to him in the pit last year. Rob Schwimmer who played the Theramin for Paul Simon in New York and Logan Sparks in Los Angeles, who co-wrote the last script for Harry Dean-Stanton's last ever film, the best send off an actor could ever ask before shaking off their mortal coils – Lucky. All hosted in a virtual Phoenix Artist's Club built in SpatialChat.
It was also awards month. I was part of the pitching team that secured the Museum of Homelessness the Gulbenkian Prize for Civic Arts Organisation.
https://gulbenkian.pt/uk-branch/recipients-announced-for-the-first-150000-award-for-civic-arts-organisations/
My performance, along with Peter Tatchell & others was nominated for an Offie (Off West End) Award as part of Jeremy Goldstein's Truth To Power Cafe at Conway Hall and achieved a commendation.
https://offies.london/oncomm-awardees-2020/
April 2021
Make my 4th appearance on Men's Radio this time with Russ Kane & the fabulous Phil Dave having already been selected as their Emotional Well Being Champion in 2019.
https://mensradiostation.com/november-2019-paul-atherton/
May 2021
My & Private Eye Cartoonist Mike Stokoe unveil our first collaboration and my first ever cartoon strip with the 2 part serial of The Best of Times... The Worst of Times... a Hogarthian inspired journey to what really happened during Everyone In against what should have happened.
Outside In, the Theatre piece by the Malvern Reaction Theatre company that I was commissioned to write a workshop play for and that was inspired by my story, is premiered to sell out audiences in the Malvern Cube.
https://www.slapmag.co.uk/theatre-review-outside-in-at-malvern-cube/
Make the 5th of our 10 subjects for my and Chris Harvey's Paul Atherton's Greatest Londoners, Black Female Talent now scheduled to take place in 2022. The follow up to the show we did at the Oxo Gallery last year.
https://coinstreet.org/whats-on/paul-athertons-greatest-londoners
https://twitter.com/LondonersLondon/status/1398195387274563584?s=20
My Arts Council England grant funding was issued for the first round for Displaced, but because of bureaucratic incompetence it remains unpaid.
https://www.thersa.org/blog/2019/09/a-societal-shift-in-thinking-to-solve-homelessness
Planet Radio – my 1st appearance, this one talking about the rise in homelessness expected later in the year.
https://planetradio.co.uk/hits-radio/london/news/calls-for-law-which-criminalises-homelessness-to-be-scrapped/
June 2021
Over the moon to be able announce that I'd secured the British Library as producer for Amy Kingsmill's fabulous memorial and performance piece Lighstource, to host an entire day's event as the finale to 12 months of lectures.
http://www.light-source.co.uk/contact/
July 2021
My Letter from Lockdown is accompanied by Paul McCartney's, Ed Sheeran, Nicola Adam's in a compilation by former news anchor, Natascha Kaplinsky's bbok, published to raise funds for Barnardo's Children'ts charity.
https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/natasha-kaplinsky/letters-from-lockdown/9781526364555/
My film review of Nick Broomfileds latest documentary Last Man Standing is published in Tortoise Media's Sensemaker.
And I make my second appearance in Nouvara Media talking about the time I was given the choice between having my disability benefits stopped or going to my mother's funeral.
https://novaramedia.com/2021/07/13/jobcentre-staff-were-taught-to-inflict-psychological-harm-on-the-unemployed/
Meet Bianca Nugent-Smith.
August 2021
September 2021
I'm invited to be one of the main speakers the Museum of The Home's first ever Festival Of Home having only been open for (this used to the Geffrye Museum and exploted the history of the room before closing in 2018 for a majoy refit.
https://www.museumofthehome.org.uk/explore/museum-in-action/festival-of-home-2021-all-about-belonging/
October 2021
Massively overjoyed to be asked to be a part of the Museum of Homelessness, immersive, verbatim theatre, the Secret Museum an event that last just 11 days, with 3 shows each day and reached an audience of over 1,200 we also made Time Out's Top Ten Things To Do in London that week.
https://tinctureofmuseum.wordpress.com/2021/11/08/the-secret-museum-museum-of-homelessness-nov-2021/
November 2021
My first ever academic work gets published by Oxford University Press in the British Academy's “Representing Homelessness†index, a 10,000 word chapter entitled The Power of One: The media and homeless stereotypes.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/representing-homelessness-9780197267240?lang=en&cc=us
I was incredibly fortuitous to be the only person able to collect my copy from the venerable British Academy building
December 2021
On the 1st December I premiered my & Owain Aistle's documentary 90 Days of Hope: Why Britain Chose NOT To End Homelessness at the Genesis Cinema on the Mile End Road in London. This was a fundraiser for the Museum of Homelessness and as ever we surrounded it wtth an afterparty where friends Paul Wiffen played keyboard and Julia Sterland painted Prima Verta portraits to all raise money.
The coverage came in The Big Issue Magazine & Times Radio and we were even listed on the online Radio Times.
https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/this-man-was-sleeping-at-heathrows-terminal-5-when-covid-hit-now-hes-made-a-film-about-it/
https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-3rbxkn/90-days-of-hope-why-britain-chose-not-to-end-homelessness/
This was followed up by some local coverage when the National Lottery talked about its successes and included the Museum of Homelessness,
So by no means great, but by no means a disaster.
Happy New Year Everyone.
Much Love.
P.
