Wansteadium

Residents campaigning against Redbridge’s plan to close Wanstead Youth Centre have stepped up their action and are planning a demonstration outside the Ilford Town Hall next week while the council makes its decision.

Campaigners took to the street over the weekend to make their case that youth centres play a vital role for the community.

The campaign says: “The Council’s Cabinet will make its decision on the future of Wanstead Youth Centre on Thursday 14 September.   Before that, on Thursday 7 September, the Council’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee will be carrying out ‘pre-decision scrutiny’. Despite the Council’s own Constitution stating that reports for this purpose should be available five working days before Committee meetings, the ‘Wanstead Youth Centre Recommendations’ paper has not been made available to the public via the Committee agenda page.  As of Tuesday 5 September this is not available.”

The campaign has submitted a paper to be considered alongside the Council’s recommendations paper, outlining its concerns about the consultation process which it says has been flawed, questions about how the centre has been run in the past, and challenges to the council on how it plans to meet its obligations to run youth services.

The campaign website is here.

This year’s Wanstead Fringe has hugely increased the amount of music on offer, with eight recitals and concerts, many featuring local performers or composers.

It starts with the annual celebration of local acoustic singers upstairs in the Bull, featuring Ali MacQueen, Thomas Caulfield, Chloe Juliette, Jane Lowery and Zac Hurst.

The Freak Flag Flying

It then takes a different turn with international opera star Lucy Crowe and husband Joe Walters curating an evening of classical, folk and experimental music with a range of local musicians.

To a Skylark: Classical, folk and experimental music

Events continue right up until the end of September, concluding with a concert by local composer Simone Spagnolo with Low Strings Drama, a combination of “chamber music and mystery drama soundtrack”, and then on the last day of the Fringe, Dark Isle – a new musical written by Wanstead actor and writer Katherine Tripp.

Free relaxed Songhaven concert

A Journey into the World of Guitar – with Peter Black

Jazz Vespers

The Dukebox presents Adam English – Hospitality special

Showtime – with Redbridge Brass plus guests

Theatre classics and more, with Lydia Gerrard

Concert: Low Strings Drama

Dark Isle: a new musical

This year’s Wanstead Fringe will be featuring FOUR plays – more than it has ever had before. It’s part of the Fringe’s attempt to bring regular theatre to Wanstead, even outside the normal September dates.

The four plays are:

Breakfast With Jonny Wilkinson, a revival of Chris England’s comedy – itself the sequel to the smash hit An Evening With Gary Lineker. The Wanstead Theatre Co, which has previously performed Two, and Bazaar & Rummage will be staging the play at Eton Manor RFC – again finding the right location for the right play.

Catapult Theatre’s All Girl Band will be a celebration of “feeling fun, flirty and fabulous” as the evening celebrates musical theatre hits from the last 50 years. It will be upstairs at the Bull.

The Room Upstairs – appropriately named since it too will be at the Bull – will be an atmospheric show which features on the relationship between and mother and daughter, and highlights the ‘invisible illness’ ME. It’s brought to the Fringe by the Baloney Theatre Company which last year staged A Non-Emergency.

Robot Penguin is a bizarre, irreverent comedy through the lens of an undercover robotic penguin. It too will be in the Bull. Double bill tickets – no pun intended – are available with The Room Upstairs.

Giles Wilson, chair of the Wanstead Fringe, said: “Regular Fringe supporters will know how much we pride ourselves on being able to bring theatre to Wanstead, and for the tenth Fringe we’re going further than we’ve ever been able to before.

“And thanks to the support of our ticket-buyers and sponsors over the years, this year we have been able to invest in new lighting which we hope will be in use for many years to come as we continue our mission to bring more cultural activities to Wanstead.”

Tickets for all the plays are available via the Wanstead Fringe website or directly here on Wansteadium.

A. K. Turner, the author formerly known as Anya Lipska, and unofficially Wanstead’s favourite crime writer, is flavour of the month in the crime world. The third book in her Cassie Raven series has just been published and has been highlighted by several newspapers as being top notch. Most recently the Guardian has this:

• To order the book with free delivery from Wanstead Bookshop, click here.

The Leyton highstone – the obelisk which sits at the corner of Hollybush Hill and New Wanstead at Snaresbrook which was damaged last week in a car crash – will be back, Redbridge Council has told Wansteadium.

A spokesman said: “The monument is currently being repaired off-site and will be reinstated soon.”

The stone was refurbished in 2014 with money from English Heritage and the late, lamented, Area 2 committee of Redbridge Council. It has stood for a couple of hundred years and originally marked the distance from central London to Epping. It’s apparently the origin of the name Leytonstone. More details here.

Wansteadium reader Susi said: “The spot where it used to be is now empty and cordoned off with plastic barriers.  It looks very sad.” Hopefully not long until it’s put right.