Take Me Somewhere announces 2018 programme

Back for a second year, Take Me Somewhere brings another lively lineup of contemporary theatre and performance to venues across Glasgow

Article by Jamie Dunn | 09 Mar 2018

The fearless legacy of the Arches looks to be alive and well in Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow’s newest festival of contemporary performance, which returns this year following the success of its inaugural edition in 2017. Led by artistic director LJ Findlay-Walsh, formerly the producer of Arches Arts, the festival comes to Glasgow in May and June with a programme that will use venues in every corner of the city. “Take Me Somewhere’s presence will pulsate across Glasgow with inspirational work igniting the city’s main stages, arts venues, churches, nightclubs and gardens,” says Findlay-Walsh. Venues included in the festival programme include Tramway, Platform, Tron Theatre, The Panopticon Music Hall, The Art School, The Mackintosh Cross Church, CCA and The Botanic Gardens.

The programme is nothing if not eclectic. Highlights look to be Hamnet, Dead Centre’s touching monologue by Hamnet Shakespeare, the Bard’s 11-year-old son; Museum of the Moon, Luke Jerram’s 1-to-500,000 scale sculpture of the eponymous celestial body; Diamond, which is described as “an avant-garde, angry and often hilarious journey into LGBT liberation from 1957 to present day,” which is told via the passionate biography of David Hoyle, with musical interludes from London drag four-piece The Lipsinkers; and five women tackle the neo-liberalist cult of the body in Florentina Holzinger’s Apollon Musagète.

There’s also Cora Bissett’s new work-in-progress piece What Girls are Made Of, a performance by fearless noise rap poet Mykki Blanco and Mouthpiece, a heart-warming and humorous journey into the female psyche that was a hit at last year’s Fringe. The festival comes to a close, as it riotously did last year, with party Take Me Somewhere Sticky, which is described as “a labyrinth of queer universes, melding together performance, music, cabaret and dancing.”

“The festival, which has innovative performance at its core, is driven by the talent, energy and voracity of the city’s arts community,” says Findlay-Walsh. “It’s a platform for crucial, diverse voices from here and abroad that take us somewhere on our personal and collective journeys, understanding the globalised and multicultural world we live in and envisage what a future world could be.’’


Various venues, Glasgow, 16 May-4 Jun. For the full programme and tickets, head to takemesomewhere.co.uk