Having run The Stay At Home Festival successfully for over month, Robin Ince and the guys at The Cosmic Shambles Network have decided to up the online ante. They have invited some of their regular contributors and friends to put together a Stay At Home Festival curriculum – one show every weekday on a different subject to inspire – and hopefully impart a little knowledge to – anyone starting to feel a little flat during the ongoing lockdown.

“After 4 weeks of Shambles Stay at Home Fest – with guests from Mark Gatiss to Tim Minchin via Jo Brand and Stewart Lee, plus plenty of science including a COVID-19 special with virologists and statisticians and cosmology Q&As with Jim Al-Khalili, Brian Greene and Helen Czerski, we have decided that now term time is upon us it is time to come in line with the curriculum. From Tuesday, each morning’s live show will be themed from leaning about the classics with Natalie Haynes, art with David McAlmont and particle physics with Brian Cox. This technically means we are home schooling you so you have an alibi to switch on every day. You can also put you hand up by asking questions in our live feed. Come join our Shambles College with the finest teachers that is open to all. No fees apply. (though we do have a collection plate at the end)”

The programme of shows for this week is as follows –

Tuesday – 10:00am
The Classics with Natalie Haynes
Wednesday – 10:00am
English Literature with AL Kennedy
Thursday – 10:00am
Particle Physics with Professor Brian Cox
Friday – 10:00am
Crime and Pop Music with Author, Ian Rankin

Each episode will also include guest performances from various musicians and performers including David McAlmont, Grace Petrie, Haruka Kikuchi, Pictish Trail, Steve Pretty and more.

Information about future topics and guests can be found at cosmicshambles.com/stayathome where it is also possible to find the regularly updated list of other forthcoming shows and events on The Network.

As with all the other events that are a part of The Stay At Home Festival each show will be free to watch but with a pay what you can option with any profits going to help performers and venues that are in the most need in these difficult times.
Tuesday
10:00 am

The Classics with Natalie Haynes

Natalie Haynes is a regular contributor to the BBC and The Guardian, reviewing for Front Row and Saturday Review, appearing as a team captain on three seasons of Wordaholics. Her books include The Amber Fury, and The Ancient Guide to Modern Life. Her most recent work, A Thousand Ships, was published in 2019.

Wednesday
10:00 am

English Literature with AL Kennedy

A.L.Kennedy has won a variety of UK and international book awards, including a Lannan Award, the Costa Prize, The Heinrich Heine Preis, the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rees Prize. She has twice been included on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list. She has written 9 novels, 6 short story collections, 3 books of non-fiction and 3 books for children. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the Akademie der Kunst. She also writes for the stage, screen, TV and has created an extensive body of radio work including documentaries, monologues, dramas and essays. She also performs occasionally in one person shows and as a stand up comic.

Thursday
10:00 am

Particle Physics with Prof Brian Cox

Brian Cox OBEFRS is an English physicist who serves as professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester. He is best known to the public as the Co-Presenter (with Robin Ince) of Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage  and of science programmes, especially the Wonders of… series and for popular science books, such as Why Does E=mc²? and The Quantum Universe. He has been the author or co-author of over 950 scientific publications. His children’s web series with Robin Ince, The Quest for Wonder, is available on the Cosmic Shambles Network now.

Friday
10:00 am

Crime with Author, Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin’s first novel, The Flood, was published in 1986, while his first Rebus novel, Knots & Crosses, was published in 1987. The Rebus series is now translated into twenty-two languages and the books are bestsellers on several continents. In addition to his Rebus and Malcolm Fox novels, he has also written standalone novels, short stories, a graphic novel and a play (with Mark Thomson, the Royal Lyceum Theatre’s Artistic Director). His non-fiction book Rebus’s Scotland was published in 2005.

He has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. 

Ian has received an OBE for services to literature.

Exit mobile version