A month to go

Today, amongst other things, we had a teaser press conference for 50 press & TV people to announce the UK Now festival which will be upon us in exactly one month. The Ambassador and Joanna gave some introductory speeches and then I talked about just the first two months of events, partly so as not to reveal everything all at once, and partly because there's still so much to confirm. Anyway, it went well and there were no awkward questions about China's upcoming big splash at London Book Fair, or Ai Wei Wei designing this year's Serpentine Pavilion or how can we afford all this given public sector cuts etc, for which we had perfectly good answers. The press are quite tame here.

So, here's what's happening in the first couple of months in several cities across China: Philharmonia Orchestra, Olympic Posters exhibition, Menuhin Violin Competition, English National Ballet, Akram Khan Dance Company and Candoco Dance Company; four separate  photographic exhibitions (Rankin, Rockarchive, Clive Barda & Andy Gotts), The Scottish Ensemble and Academy of St Martin's-in-the-Fields; 1927's The Animals Took to the Streets (from Edinburgh Festival) and Propeller's Henry V and A Winter's Tale; films, concerts & talks at Beijing International Film Festival; Re-rite: Be the Orchestra! interactive installation; the British Museum and V&A's big ceramics exhibition at the National Museum of China; three or four things at Macau Arts Festival etc. Check out http://www.uknow.org.cn/ which is a bit rough & ready still so bear with us...