Jane Claire Bradley

Autumn Equinox is coming, and so is a special performance... Queer Amusements writer-in-residence Jane Claire Bradley is sharing brand new material developed during her residency. Once upon a pre-pandemic time, I did a lot of live performing. I hosted a monthly spoken word night, I performed at Edinburgh Fringe every year, and I headlined some incredible events and arts festivals all across the UK. Then we had a global pandemic and... in the three years between 2020 and 2023, I barely performed at all. My relationship with performing has changed a lot in the decade-plus that I’ve been doing it,…

In the medieval world’s heart of darkness, did the Vikings go to Fleetwood market? Queer Amusements writer-in-residence Jane Claire Bradley returns to explore Norse underworlds, death goddesses and more. Last time I shared an update on my research for my Queer Amusements residency, I explored the Norse history of Blackpool and the surrounding areas. Since then, I’ve been continuing to dive deeper into that research, and there’s been a recurrent theme in it I’ve found fascinating: the idea of the North as a portal to hell.  Of all the compass points from which terror might emanate, there was one which…

Investigating Viking history and myth, local lore and Norse sorcery, Queer Amusements writer-in-residence Jane Claire Bradley returns to share some of her research so far Hot tip: researching material about the Viking heritage of Blackpool and the surrounding area will initially turn up tons of search results about the Viking Hotel and Valhalla, the Pleasure Beach’s award-winning dark ride log flume, named for the great hall in Norse mythology where the warrior dead congregate after being killed in battle. I’m no expert, and until now I’ve never explored the Norse myths in depth, but a few concepts like Valhalla are…

Queer Amusements writer-in-residence Jane Claire Bradley returns with her latest column A collection of obsessive thoughts about Travis Alabanza and David Hoyle, who’ve both been recent tonics to my soul... Legendary Blackpool-born performance artist David Hoyle has had a special place in my heart since my teenage years, when I saw 1998 cult classic Velvet Goldmine for the first time. David’s character Freddi was one of many in the film’s assemblage of ridiculous, flawed, flamboyantly-attired and over-the-top personalities that over the course of countless repeat viewings burrowed deep into my imagination and brain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE7rV9EvRhA I didn’t know it at the…

Award-winning writer and performer Jane Claire Bradley introduces a new regular column as part of her residency at this year's Queer Amusements festival I'm here, queer and excited to share more on what I'll be exploring as writer-in-residence for Queer Amusements and Blackpool Social Club this summer... Hiya! I’m Jane Claire Bradley, the first ever writer-in-residence for the first ever Queer Amusements. I’m a queer, working-class writer, performer, educator and mental health practitioner, and I write both fiction and non-fiction in the form of short stories, novels, essays and performance poetry. My debut novel came out last year, and I’m…