The Late Shows

Newcastle at night

Saturday night in a rain-drenched Newcastle. Less than a mile away, local hero Mark Knopfler is playing, erm, Local Hero to a crowd of thousands at the Metro Arena. Meanwhile, as per usual, hordes of inappropriately dressed drinkers are flocking to the bars in the Haymarket, the Bigg Market or on the Quayside. At the same time, those who don't fancy pulling on their waterproofs to venture outside can stay in and watch Denmark bring home the bacon in the Eurovision Song Contest. But not me. I'm stood in the Cathedral Church of St Nicholas watching a contemporary dance performance while handing out stickers and luminous yellow rods to complete strangers. As you do. Now you might argue this is strange behaviour for an uncultured factory monkey like myself, and you'd probably be right. After all, I'm the sort of person who thinks the best thing about The Baltic art gallery is the view out of the window. But I make an exception for this, because this is The Late Shows.

My Location for The Late Shows, 2013

The Late Shows, a 'culture crawl' around Newcastle and Gateshead, has been around since 2007 though it's only come to my attention in the last couple of years. It's part of a greater, UK wide initiative called Museums At Night, itself linked to a European campaign called La Nuit de Musees. The essence of the scheme is getting cultural venues that are usually closed in the evening to open at night to provide a different experience and hopefully attract new visitors. In Newcastle in the first year, 14 events took part and the number has grown over the years to it's present total of around 60.

My involvement began in 2012 when I received an email asking for volunteer stewards at the various venues. The idea intrigued me but, not being an arty type, I was a bit wary so opted for venues I would be already interested in, namely the cathedrals and castle (as part of the recruitment, you're asked to select three venues you'd like to steward, and they try to match you to one of your choices).

The uniform- glowstick, t-shirt, and id

Your main task as a steward is to describe what event or attraction will be happening at your venue to the vistors. You also hand out literature, keep a track on visitor numbers, and hand out the aforementioned luminous rods. Luminous rods? Yes, luminous rods, also known as glowsticks. These have become a very popular part of the programme, and are a good way of fostering camaraderie, as people trekking between different venues can easily spot fellow LateShowers by the bright yellow wands dangling round their necks.

So popular has The Late Shows become that it's spawned an offshoot, The Late-Late Shows. These are venues such as The Sage and The Tyneside Cinema that already open in the evening, so couldn't be part of the standard event. Instead, they put on attractions even later, hence the name.

High-art in a beautiful setting (note the glowsticks!)

Anyway, I enjoyed myself so much in 2012 that I volunteered again this year at the same location, the Cathedral Church of St Nicholas, where a dance performance took place, proving very popular. The location of the Cathedral, just off the bottom of Newcastle's notorious drinking spot, The Bigg Market, guarantees no shortage of interesting passers-by, some of whom will drop in on the way to their next bar. This year for instance, we had the scantily dressed young lady who tried to shelter in the doorway but inadvertently lent on the door itself and came tumbling inside, legs akimbo. She righted herself with all the dignity she could muster and, with a quick 'bless me father for I have sinned', was off again, into the night. We also had a slightly-the-worse-for-wear man who came in, faced the wall, and crossed himself. He then turned through ninety degrees and repeated the action, then again, then once more until he had saluted all four corners of the building, all at breakneck speed. This wasn't quite as amusing as last year's (hen party?) incident where a giant inflatable penis bobbed slowly back and forth outside the stained glass windows but it came pretty close.

Late-night classical performance at The Sage

After my spot of volunteering finished, I crossed the river to the Gateshead side, where The Sage was staging a free classical music concert on the concourse while visitors were given access to the viewing galleries of the main halls. All in all, a  thoroughly enjoyable experience which I would recommend to anyone,


If you'd like to find out more about The Late Shows, visit their website at 
http://www.thelateshows.org.uk/home.html