/ archive / april 3rd
Special guests: Nick Dodds and Cliff Wright
A great evening and certainly one of the best space events so far. Hayley interviewed Director of the Brighton Dome & the Brighton Festival Nick Dodd, and childrens illustrator Cliff Wright. Also in attendance were Jessica Freeman from Career Moves media recruitment agency, and live music from Chris Simmons.
Raffle ticket prizes were: tickets to one of the Brighton Festival highlights and a print of the cover illustration of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, specially framed and signed by Cliff Wright.
Nick Dodds
Nick recollected his career from Top of the Pops to the Edinburgh Festival and highlights of the Brighton Festival over the years. Nick has been overseeing the prestigious festival for five years now, and finds the position most rewarding and a challenge to book a popular selection of shows, performers and events for the Brighton Dome and the Brighton Festival. He enthused about some of his personal highlights for this year's programme, including King Naat Veliov & the Original Kocani Orkestar with A Hawk and a Hacksaw.
Nick will discuss how the Brighton Dome is committed to bringing the very best in international arts to the south east, involving all sectors of our community through innovative programming and education outreach initiatives. He will also look ahead to May’s Brighton Festival, the largest event of its kind in England. Now in its fifth decade, it has become one of the major milestones in the cultural calendar, bringing an international mix of exclusive events, world and UK premieres, special one-off commissions and endless hours of entertainment to the city by the sea.
Cliff Wright
Cliff Wright described how he eventually made it from his early struggle and 100 rejection letters to become one of Britain's leading illustrators. Best known for the Harry Potter adventures, The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Chamber of Secrets, he described his problems with the best selling books' publishers, and how the Azkaban original artwork apparently went missing. Cliff also told us of his new and exciting sculpture In Our Hands, which is now on display by St Peters Church. This was a fascinating and inspirational guest.
Cliff Wright has over 17 years experience as a childrens illustrator. He is best known for producing two of the Harry Potter book covers (The Chamber of Secrets and The Prisoner of Azkaban). Cliff has also produced many successful childrens books titles, inspired by his love of animals and the countryside, as well as high profile work for advertising and design clients. He also enjoys introducing everyone, including school children and business clients, to new ways of seeing, partly through his innovative drawing workshops, The Nature of Seeing.
Other Guests
As well as Chris Simmons with some superb original songs, the event saw appearances from Jessica Freeman of media recruitment agency C Moves, telling us about the London based company that is currently celebrating its tenth anniversary. We are pleased to later hear that a number of Space attendees have arranged candidate registrations with Jessica and she has also given career advice to others.
Children's Literature Consultant Laura Atkins informed us of the forthcoming Brighton's Children's Book Festival, which takes place on April 21. More details on this exciting event can be found on www.thesouth.org.uk
