I’ve not had a lot of time to draw or write a great deal recently, it’s been a very busy couple of weeks. We had a brilliant time this weekend though, and here is my sketch of seeing Blindboy Boatclub interview Carl Chinn at Sheffield’s Crossed Wires podcast festival, in the fabulous Sheffield City Hall (not to be confused with Sheffield Town Hall). I’ve been a long-time but not constant Blindboy listener, and his podcast has ignited plenty of inspiration and delight in the depths of my brain over time. A digression: I saw another live podcast of his in the past, too, with my wee sister in Belfast. I was ecstatic then to see him interviewing Array Studios just after they’d won the Turner prize in 2021 at the Ulster Hall, but I’m feeling a bit mental just now cos I’ve been scouring the internet for a good 30 mins trying to find any trace of that interview, and cannot for the life of me find the episode. Ah well, I won’t have to cringingly listen out for any snippets of me screaming away in the background as I was so d-r-u-n-k, anxious and excited.
Fast forward to the fifth of July 2026, and I am having some gentler pints in the afternoon, far less anxiety from being in a theatre-setting, and also just generally a bit bettter settled in myself. So I could actually listen to this meandering and thoroughly enjoyable chat between these two working-class-and-little-known-history enthusiasts. I have caught another chat between these two online, and found Carl Chinn to be a very entertaining and generous font of knowledge. Thanks to all involved in putting the event together, and thanks to Frannie and Lydia for travelling all the way up to Sheffield to meet us half-way for a gorgeous South Yorkshire afternoon.
This wasn’t the only cultural success of the weekend just past. Me and Joe also had a really flipping great time watching a production of Romeo & Juliet on Friday night.
I think this was my first ever experience of a Shakespeare play irl, and it really couldn’t have been better for me. It was outside, within the central courtyard of Kirkstall Abbey, with picnicking encouraged. I really flippin loved it.
The company, The Duke’s Theatre Company, put on an amazingly good show. There were only 6 players, but they swapped in and out of a few different roles each (aside from the two titular characters I think), so much that when they were coming out to bow for us, I really was expecting more people to pop out from behind the scenery.
I made this silly sketch the following day – with extremely exaggerated physical difference between these two – playing Friar Laurence and Lady Capulet. These were two of my favourite performances of the show.
By the end, I had such a large lump in my throat I couldn’t even really shout “yeeeoooooo!!!!”