London's Southbank Centre is to present (B)old in May, a new festival celebrating age and creativity.
Featuring new and established creatives of 65 years and over, the festival incorporates dance, music, theatre, visual art and literature in its look at age and society, challenging common assumptions.
Amongst those taking part are Drag Queen Lavinia Co-op in Up Yours!, which looks at queer life over the last 50 years, and BAFTA-winning actress Cheryl Campbell in a new monologue by Juliet Ace, Moving The Goalposts, about surviving cancer after having said goodbye.
Outdoors, older performers from Entelechy Arts give street performance Bed.
In dance, there is Valda Setterfield who performs a personal interpretation of Shakespeare’s King Lear choreographed by John Scott, and Germaine Acogny with her new work Mon elue noir (My Black Chosen One): Sacre #2 and music events include West London's Rhythm Kings.
In conversation are reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, poet and playwright Tony Harrison who reads his elegy Polygons, choreographer Richard Alston and writer Nawal El Saadawi.
In addition to live performances there are workshops, talks and debates and Ida Barr, alter-ego of writer and performer Christopher Green, will host a 21st century tea dance party including a wedding outfit catwalk, circus acts and tea-trolley dance troop to celebrate Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding.
Olivier-award winning Green also sets the ball rolling on experimental theatre piece Welcome to the Home which sees small groups attend a welcome meeting at a fictional residential care home. The full project, being developed in association with Entelechy Arts and The Albany, will be staged next year.
(B)old festival runs from 14 to 20 May. A number of the events are free.