Durham Introducing

Live Music this weekend
downbytheriver9.com for 🎟

Two highly acclaimed musicians land in Durham City on Saturday 28th March. Starts at 7pm. 9pm finish.

THE TOO BAD JIMS THE TOO BAD JIMS take their name from the seminal 1994 RL Burnside album ‘Too Bad Jim’ which features R.L. Burnside fronting a small juke joint combo tearing through some greasy blues. The Too Bad Jims initially started as a casual collaboration between two veteran and multiple award-winning blu...

We work extensively with freelancer writers, creatives and artists who bring their talent and experience to a multitude of New Writing North projects. Bob Beagrie is working on a community project with Karbon Homes called Stanley Sings in County Durham and we asked him a bit more about it.

“Since September I have been working on Stanley Sings, alongside singer / songwriter Sara Dennis. The project has involved a series of workshops with children from St Joseph's Primary School and residents of Townley Court, a retirement housing complex. Drawing upon a wealth of local, oral history we have explored memories and perceptions of Stanley, Co. Durham, as well as imagining its possible future, and from that material we've co-composed a song and a spoken word poem which the children and the older people will perform together at the Stanley Christmas Market on 5 December at 5pm.

The project really connects to my own creative practice as I am interested in the untold stories of places and the layers of history within specific locations. My writing is rooted in Northern working-class culture, language, dialect and folk heritage. We worked closely with the participants in mining their memories of growing up and living in Stanley. We spoke of its transformation from a colliery town and the changes within the urban spaces and the collective stories linked to certain buildings. Whilst radical shifts in lifestyle and leisure were identified, there remained a sense of local resilience and community connection. Bringing together the different perspectives through the intergenerational nature of the project has been fascinating and inspiring.”

Bob Beagrie (PhD) is a poet, writer and performer and literary activist. He lives in Middlesbrough and has published fifteen collections of poetry, most recently: The Hand of Glory: a biography' (Yaffle 2025), Romanceros (Drunk Muse Press 2024), Eftwyrd (Smokestack Books 2023). His poetry has been translated into Finnish, Urdu, Swedish, Dutch, Spanish, Estonian, Tamil, Gaelic and Karelian. He is a founding member of the experimental music and spoken word collective Project Lono and works as a writer, performer, creative producer and workshop facilitator.

Stanley Town Council presents Street Food Market - Stanley Christmas 2025 on Friday 5 December from 3-8pm on Front Street, DH9 0HU, with the Stanley Sings performance at 5pm.

Photo of Bob by Robert Smith.

He's good, you know.

Looking forward to James Yorkston returning to Claypath Delicatessen in Durham on Wednesday 10th December!
Tickets here 👇
https://www.seetickets.com/event/james-yorkston/claypath-delicatessen/3431055