Bowes Museum, credit Wikipedia
Tricoteurs Occupy Bowes Museum
by Bill Hartley
Barnard Castle has an earlier claim to fame. It’s the home of the Bowes Museum, incongruously perched on a valley side in what looks like a huge French chateau. In the nineteenth century, local landowner John Bowes and his wife used their great wealth to amass a large collection of paintings, furniture and fine art. A significant amount of the Bowes wealth came from Durham coal mining royalties.
Exhibitions and events can be the lifeblood of a museum and the Bowes currently has two. It might be expected that this venerable institution would stage exhibitions which dovetail with its role as the repository of so many artistic treasures. These days though the Bowes is prepared to take in some peculiar lodgers. Perhaps in a building groaning with artistic treasures, many originally designed to fit the grandest rooms, there is a need to dispel any notion of elitism and ensure a connection with modern society. Imagine then entering one of the museum’s galleries, the walls adorned with 18th and 19th century pictures, many hung in massive gilt frames. In the midst of this, a collection of female mannequins have been placed, each wearing a denim jacket onto which have been sewn numerous identical patches. An awful realisation strikes the visitor. He must forget the quiet contemplation of artworks painted in an age when draughtsmanship was prized. Now he is confronted by an attempt to be relevant. Continue reading
Ganging up on London
Ganging up on London
Gangs of London, Sky Atlantic, series one, directed by Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery, 2020, reviewed by AR Kneen
‘You could build an empire; you could be a king’ – so Finn Wallace (Colm Meaney) informs his young son Sean during a ‘hands on tutorial’. Finn is trying to get Sean to shoot a man buried up to his neck in the ground. This formative episode haunted Sean throughout his life; perhaps not least because he could not pull the trigger, and instead his younger brother Billy shot the man dead. But if a king does not inherit his title, then he has to obtain it via conquest – conquest of a land and of its people.
Gangs of London tells the story of the various immigrant groups who have come to London and of their struggles to attain power, profit and glory – largely through the heroin trade. The plot revolves around the Wallace family – headed by Finn Wallace, who immigrated to London from Ireland, aged 12. A major part of Finn’s crime business is laundering the profits from heroin, through property and construction, for a number of drug lords. There are the Albanians, headed by ruthless and murdering Luan. Mosi leads the Nigerians who specialise in machete attacks. Asif is the Pakistani crime boss and heroin-importer, the father of Nasir – Nasir eventually becoming the Mayor of London, after his father bankrolls his political campaign. Lale is a female Kurdish PKK member who imports heroin and runs the Kurdish criminal gang. The elderly, reserved and bespectacled Li runs the Chinese. There are also the Welsh travellers, the leader of whom is Kinney Edwards, father of Danny, although the travellers are the one group not involved with the heroin trade. Continue reading →
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