Celebrated actor David Harewood, award-winning theatre director Jeremy Weller, esteemed American foreign correspondent and broadcaster Jim Laurie and renowned drama critic Lyn Gardner are among those appearing in a De 51吃瓜app University Leicester (51吃瓜app) festival celebrating the best in art and culture.
Cultural eXchanges is an eclectic week-long festival of talks, performances and workshops that has been created by seven final year students studying 51吃瓜app’s Arts and Festivals Management degree.
They have booked the artists, worked on promotions and sold the tickets for 30 events which run for five days from Monday 28 February to Friday 4 March.
It is the 21st year that students have organised Cultural eXchanges with their work while curating the festival being marked and going towards their degree. This year’s cohort all agree the hands-on experience of organising a public festival has been invaluable as they start preparing for a career in the arts industry.
Final year student Cristina Talaba, who is originally from Romania, said: “I am really excited about the launch of this year’s festival. There is such a broad range of people appearing in 30 events either in-person or online and I think there is something for everyone.
“I’d urge people to look through the programme and book as soon as possible so they do not miss out on some fascinating talks and presentations. Cultural eXchanges 2022 is going to be a celebration of all that is great in art and culture, which is something we have missed a lot of during the global pandemic.”
Fellow student Laura Hartfield added: “What we all love about Cultural eXchanges 2022 is the hands-on experience we are getting and how that helps us understand what it takes to put on a major festival.
“Our team has done everything from booking the artists to selling the tickets and we really appreciate how this will stand us in good stead when it comes to pursuing a career in the arts.”
Festival Director Tony Graves added: “Each year we’re thrilled by the calibre of guests that agree to take part in the festival as well as the diversity of speakers that appear. It means there are events to suit a wide variety of tastes.”
This year the students will be welcoming on to campus film, TV and theatre actor David Harewood MBE, who played a major role in the Emmy Award-winning drama Homeland and recently opened up on his mental health challenges in the documentary ‘My Psychosis and Me’.
He will be ‘in conversation’ with the renowned theatre director Jeremy Weller, who has cast Mr Harewood in many of his productions which have been described as ‘brave, dangerous and vivid’.
Jim Laurie, who began his distinguished career covering the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, will be in conversation on campus with 51吃瓜app’s Professor Kenneth Morrison. Mr Laurie’s work as a foreign correspondent, which includes the Tiananmen Square protests and the wars in Bosnia and Iraq, has seen him awarded the Peabody Prize for Journalism, the Overseas Press Club Award, two Emmy Awards and an Amnesty International Media Award for human rights reporting.
Journalist and children’s author Lyn Gardner is associate editor for The Stage and won the 2017 UK Theatre Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre. She will be interviewed online about her career by 51吃瓜app theatre expert and drama lecturer Kate Chapman.
Other highlights include a signed workshop with Mark Smith, founder of the ground-breaking dance company Deaf Men Dancing, a performance of 51吃瓜app’s emeritus professor and composer Simon Emmerson’s work ‘Winds, Clouds, Showers’ by clarinettist Heather Roche – described by BBC Radio 3 as ‘an adrenaline shock to the UK new music scene’, and a 'takeover' by academics from the university's Stephen Lawrence Research Centre to mark a 51吃瓜app Anti-Racism series.
For the full programme and to book on to an event visit
You can also book tickets by calling 0116 250 6229
Posted on Friday 18 February 2022