Did you ever move into a new neighbourhood as a kid? Remember how all the local kids came out of their houses, sat on their walls, folded their arms and, well, checked you out? -What you got?- they’d be suggesting. Then you maybe bust a new dance move, or wore some clothes like they hadn’t seen before (my kid fashion claim to fame? I broke the sweat band in my area) and after the initial response (usually, ‘Huh, that all? Watch this!’ from the locals), you were soon running in and out of each other’s other’s houses, swapping clothes and moves… till the next new kids arrived. Remember?
That’s how this ‘meet the cultural partners day’ thing I signed up for feels like. It takes place Tuesday 19 May 2015 at Manchester Museum. For us NWCDTP PhD 2105 cohort students, the cultural partners are BBC, FACT, FutureEverything, Home, MOSI, Opera North Staff & Stoke Archives and Tate Liverpool. There is a suggestion that the National Football Museum may join them ( NFM appear to be in a slightly off-side position here, neither in nor out, kinda lurking, or ‘goal-hanging’ as we used to say as kids!!) These prestigious partners have got moves of course, plenty moves. And the day is a look at what we got, what they got, and whether/how we as students might add to (and gain something from) a residency or collaboration of some kind with them or similar organisations. Students and organisations do a 10-15 minute presentation.
How have I prepared? I’ve checked out the organisations’ websites, some of their twitter feeds and asked people – artists, academics and producers – what they know about the organisations’ ethos and interests. It so happens that, in one incarnation or another, I have worked with a few of them already: I’ve won two BBC playwriting awards, there are some videos on youtube of work I’ve done with MOSI and… My PhD is on Crime Fiction and I can see a way of taking that forward with almost every partner in one way or another. Except with NFM.  There’s the rub. The National Football Museum piques my curiosity. As a kid I was football crazy. I’ve written two football based novels for Young Adults that are going to be published soon. I can tell a Cruyff Turn from a Ronaldinho Flick Up. And I’d love to bring a bit of PhD Brazil to the NFM!

*Photo is of me in fur coat, ready for my £100,000 a month football contract!

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