Here in the North East, the word ‘canny’ can mean so much. You may have heard it in Geordie phrases like ‘canny lad’. Fundamentally it means good, nice, kind or careful, but it can also mean clever or cute. ‘Gan canny’ might suggest you are going too fast…calm doon! So, to be uncanny, well… those familiar with Freud might recognise the word to mean something like ‘unhomely’ (it translates from the German as unheimlich), pertaining to bad dreams or uneasy feelings, but by Seymour Mace and the rest of the NewBridge Programming Committee, it’s used a little jokingly, in a way that’s more akin to ‘queering’. The Uncanny Carnival is an event for the community that is homely and caring and safe, but also a bit weird, fun and daft. The small, festival-like spectacle is being held on a public sports field known as the City Stadium, just over the road from the Star and Shadow cinema, and round the corner from the NewBridge Project studios and art space in Shieldfield.
The Programme Committee is a group selected every couple of years to work together on projects and exhibitions as a kind of hands-on development programme for artists, curators and organisers who want experience in commissioning or managing projects within the boundaries of an established organisation. Uncanny Carnival is artist and comedian Seymour Mace’s project. His squad of facilitators, helpers and other NewBridge members (including myself) spend the day stewarding, clowning and, well, mucking about. We wear bright pink high vis jackets – mine has a fancy trim and a big shiny ‘Y’ on the back. Before we begin at 11am, we stand in a line so our jackets spell ‘UNCANNY CARNIVAL’, a warm-up for the collaborative effort to come…
‘We are in a big circle of joy,’ says Dan Russell (Artist Development Programmer at The NewBridge Project), as we chat over a packed lunch of sandwiches and a satsuma. The ‘circle of joy’ is a ring of marquees connected by bunting made up of scraps of black, white, red and green patterned fabric, a subtle nod to solidarity with Palestine. When I ask him what it means to have Uncanny Carnival here, in this place, he says, ‘Well it’s a big grass bowl, why not have it here? And it’s near enough that loads of people who we know from Shieldfield can cross the road and come.’
This is important for understanding events like Uncanny Carnival and The NewBridge Project more broadly. Those friends from Shieldfield include crowds of kids chasing bubbles and older folk sitting on folding chairs in front of the stage. There are families from the coast and locals from across the road, which is a rare mixing at an art event. NewBridge has genuinely made the crossover into a community-oriented art organisation. They have real people involved in almost everything they do; real people not being used as material, or to tick diversity boxes, but who come because they like it. And they are properly encouraged to make whatever art they like. Today they are up on stage, rapping and acting out skits. Who of us will ever forget ‘The Bumblebee Song’? Improvised by a small girl (at the encouragement of comedian Elaine Robertson, hosting the tiny stage) it is allowed to reach, via many encores, its (un)natural end – meaning it went on, and on, and on, but had all of us singing along in a kind of trance. This is the spirit of Uncanny Carnival. When they say they want to encourage your creativity, they mean it.
It is a day of pouring rain and extreme sunshine, interspersed with almost gale force winds. Everything is tied or taped down. We are on a grass field surrounded by wildflowers, weeds and urban jungle. Dan points out Heather from Wild Intrigue who planted the wildflower meadow, which has been attracting local species of sand martins back to the Ouseburn. I scan the stadium and see Elvis impersonator David Hall taking photos with the help of his assistant Toby Madison. There’s the bubbleologist Jesse Ward, keeping upwind, music and bubbles emanating from their machine. Mace has worked with a number of other organisations who regularly collaborate with The NewBridge Project, some of whom have set up marquees here, such as The Comfrey Project, a charity from Gateshead that works with refugees, who are making tea bags. Alternative comedy act the Silly Billies are doing Punch and Judy, and as it begins, many of us hold our breath – is it going to be an old school Punch? No, they swerve that – but he’s still awful, because he’s meant to be, and the kids love it. Local art charities that support mental health through art are here: North Tyneside Art Studio are chucking paint balloons at a canvas with artist Beth Stead, and members of Chilli Studios are singing R.E.M. songs with a guitar on stage.
There’s dressing up in the middle, and face painting. There are games that nobody can play properly, things like diablos, spinning plates, hula hoops and boules. They lay untouched on the grass for a while, but the plucky local kids figure out their own games to play with them, chucking them about, skipping around on hoops. If you’re in costume, anything goes, right? A little kid dressed as a Lobster is encouraged to join the fashion drag parade, judged by Seymour in full clown gear pulling a tiny pram full of toys as prizes.
While stewarding the hard-to-play games, and standing innocently twirling a hula hoop, I somehow get heckled into the on-stage banter between Elaine and comedian Lee Kyle, who is wearing a pink wig and speaking in a cod French accent. It feels completely natural to shout ‘OUI’ back at them when they ask me daft questions. I miss most of the drag act Open Drag Collective – I am busy helping the face painter deal with a mile-long line of children – but afterwards I see a kid take their grown-up over to the group of Drag Queens and Kings for a chat. During the drag fashion parade, the performance group Sound Games – four people of varying ages dressed in gothic garb – run behind the stage, blowing horns and hollering gleefully.
It’s not easy organising an event of this scale. It was eighteen months in the planning and involved a number of different partnerships. I’d heard that Seymour had been resistant to the bubbleologist and the face painter, them being the most conventional aspects of the carnival, but I think it would have been a mistake not to have them. There are literally crowds of kids chasing bubbles and screaming with joy. Wearing a red nose and big clown feet, he tells me that, ‘Organisations are often time poor, staff poor, have few resources, and it’s difficult to pull time from something – but hopefully the fact that we’ve pulled this off bodes well for the future. So, people should work together more; there’s strength in numbers, solidarity, and the more that organisations come together in this way, the more support they’ll just naturally give each other. Everyone who stuck it ‘til the end has been really positive and wants it to happen again.’
It is a genuinely canny family day out. A chance for us to let off some steam and be ourselves in this mixed-up crazy world. All free, nothing to buy. There are packed lunches made up for us and any kids who need a snack or a bottle of water are welcome. The giant canvas that began as a dart-throwing-at-paint-balloons game is now completely covered and successfully expresses the theme of the day, which is ‘let go and be foolish, just for a little while’.
And at 4pm, exhausted but happy, we clear it all away. As we are filling the van, the heavens open and we get drenched, but this group of pals haul everything back to NewBridge in the pouring rain still smiling. And then we all go for a canny few pints after.
Lesley Guy is an artist and writer based in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Uncanny Carnival took place at City stadium on Saturday 28 June. Click here to find out more about The NewBridge Programming Committee.
Uncanny Carnival involved sixty artists and partners, including: Beth Stead, Chao Wang, Chilli Studios, Comfrey Projects, Dan Goodman, Dan Russell, David Hall, Dwellbeing, Edi Czarnecka, Eleanor Beck, Elaine Roberston, Ellie Armon Azoulay, Fat Cactus Films, Frances Stacey, Hannah Kirkham, Holly Argent, Izaak Gledhill, Jackie Wood, Jesse Ward, Kaltouma Hassaballah, Lee Kyle, Lesley Guy, Lib Hodes, NewBridge Project & NewBridge Books, North Tyneside Art Studio, Open Drag Collective, Rafael Baggot, ReCoCo, Seymour Mace, Shelly Knotts, Silly Billies, Sound Games, Shieldfield Youth Programme, Stu Edwards, Toby Madison, Unfolding Theatre and Wild Intrigue.
This review is supported by The NewBridge Project.
Published 08.08.2025 by Benjamin Barra in Reviews
1,505 words
