OUR CITY, WARTS AND WALLS
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Most of us see a derelict factory and wonder when someoneâs going to turn it into flats. Cola wonders whether he can fit through the gap. This difference in outlook has produced some extraordinary photographs of Birmingham, a broken camera and at least one situation in which his shoulders became a serious architectural problem.
Colatron on Instagram, Andy on official paperwork, Cola to those who know him: the photographer has built a following by pointing his lens towards the Birmingham that rarely gets invited into regeneration brochures. Empty factories. Lonely streets. Concrete with a complicated past. Places where âconcierge serviceâ means someoneâs left a hole in the fence.
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Now, an exhibition at Seventh Circle brings that Birmingham onto gallery walls, drawing from an archive of more than 58,000 photographs. Selecting them involved several evenings of hard-drive archaeology. Meticulous at work, Cola admits his personal filing system is less exemplary. Somewhere, presumably, sits a folder called FINAL_FINAL_Digbeth_7.
His interest in cameras began on childhood holidays in Sandy Bay, with a cheap film camera and the fortnight-long wait to discover heâd photographed the ground. Later came digital snapshots of university nights out: evidence of where heâd been, who with and, occasionally, how heâd got home.
But moving to Digbeth around 2005 changed the subject. Art was appearing on the walls around him, and his point-and-click couldnât capture the detail he felt it deserved. Around 2015 he bought a DSLR, inhaled tutorials and taught himself. SoundCloud had recently booted him off over infringements in his mixes. Birminghamâs walls offered a new creative outlet with fewer copyright emails.
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Instagram, then rather more interested in photographs, connected him with the people behind the paint. Those relationships opened up a culture, and the camera opened up a city heâd lived in for most of his life.
These days, a walk can mean 25 to 30 kilometres. He estimates heâs covered 70 to 80 per cent of Birmingham, its suburbs and beyond, although finding fresh ground becomes harder with every outing. Sometimes thereâs new graffiti to seek out; sometimes a camera joins a night out for the tipsy journey home.
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"MOST OF US SEE A DERELICT FACTORY AND WONDER WHEN SOMEONEâS GOING TO TURN IT INTO FLATS. COLA WONDERS WHETHER HE CAN FIT THROUGH THE GAP."
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His eye goes towards places weâve trained ourselves to overlook. A brick wall, with its textures, imperfections and history, can offer as much as a busy street scene. Saltley, Handsworth, Soho, Bordesley, Tyseley: there are entire chapters of Birmingham out there while weâre all photographing the same tower.
âI guess more than anything, any scene that represents the underdog would be what Iâm drawn to most.â
That affection comes with curiosity. Discovering an interesting facade can lead to a lunchtime spent investigating its history. The photograph starts a conversation with a building; Cola likes to hear the rest.
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Occasionally, the building makes him work for it. He once waited essentially 20 years for the opportunity to explore one. Elsewhere, an early-morning return to a former mop-polishing factory, following five hoursâ sleep and an enjoyable bottle of red, went rather less smoothly.
He missed a step inside a narrow entrance and hit concrete, sending glasses and camera in opposite directions. The glasses survived. The cameraâs mode dial remains broken. Having secured his pictures, he then became wedged while leaving, shoulders stuck and body dangling. Eventually he wriggled free, retrieved his bag and departed as a police car rounded the corner.
âDonât drink and urbex, kids.â
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Two days later he rolled his ankle getting into a cooling tower and landed on his ribs again. An unusually comprehensive week of professional development.
But the stories behind the photographs can carry considerably more weight. In November 2020, Cola accompanied graffiti writers creating a âJustice for the 21â piece for the 46th anniversary of the Birmingham pub bombings. The night brought horizontal rain, security, police and unhappy business owners. The wall got painted.
Returning the next morning to photograph it, they watched a smartly dressed woman pull up, begin taking pictures and become visibly emotional. It was campaign founder Julie Hambleton. They talked; Cola supplied photographs. A wall, some paint and a camera had reached someone in a way no engagement statistic could adequately describe.
Access to that world rests on trust built over years. Cola is shy, dislikes bothering strangers and generally photographs people as distant, anonymous figures giving scale to the city. Graffiti writers are different: friends who understand what heâs doing, and whose confidence he protects.
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Birminghamâs disappearing buildings make that documentation increasingly urgent. He remembers the old Kingfield Heath site, its vast warehouse and Art Deco reception.
The loss that particularly stung was Edgbastonâs Warwickshire Masonic Temple, also known as the Clarendon Suites. He photographed its skylit atrium but left before exploring fully because something felt wrong. A fire followed days later; demolition eventually followed too.
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For Cola, it was an imposingly beautiful building with another possible life as a gallery or cultural space. His frustration is easy to understand. Birmingham can be alarmingly efficient at making its own photographic archives indispensable.
Seventh Circle offers a happier example of an industrial building finding fresh purpose. Its former life as a spring factory appeals enormously, as does the support founders Marie and Chez give local artists. Cola has exhibited before, including a memorable pop-up in a breakfast cafe, but this feels like another step: photographs escaping the smeared smartphone screen and getting room to breathe.
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For all the losses, he remains optimistic. Bearwoodâs restaurants and community, Stirchleyâs energy, the suburbsâ thriving multicultural life: Birmingham keeps rewarding the miles he puts in.
Beneath the changing buildings, he sees something enduring. âAt the heart of everything remains that unique, tangible Brummie-ness.â
His exhibition is described as a love letter to Birmingham. I ask what its opening line would be.
âSnobs?â
One word. A question mark. The man has taken 58,000 photographs and still found the most economical portrait of this city imaginable.
COLA is exhibiting at Seventh Circle until Dec 6. Details
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THE MAN WHO GAVE BRUM CHRISTMAS TURNS 100
A hundred candles would be a lot to ask of a cake, so Birmingham Royal Ballet is going with a 30-foot Christmas tree. Sir Peter Wrightâs The Nutcracker returns to Birmingham Hippodrome from Friday, November 20 to Saturday, December 12, rounding off a year of celebrations for the companyâs Founding Director Laureate. Wednesday, November 25 is Sir Peterâs actual 100th birthday, if youâre picking the best night to raise a glass.
Sir Peter created this staging as a gift to Birmingham, and weâve been unwrapping it for more than three decades. You can see why. There are swordfights, falling snow and John Macfarlaneâs sets, which make most of our efforts with a string of fairy lights look frankly apologetic. Tchaikovskyâs score comes courtesy of the 60-strong Royal Ballet Sinfonia, playing live in the pit.
Itâs the story of Clara, whose Christmas Eve goes considerably further off-script than most, taking in a battle with the Rat King and an encounter with the Sugar Plum Fairy. If this is your first time, the moment that tree starts growing is worth keeping an eye on. If youâve been before, youâll know exactly when to look. Tickets
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FOX HAS LOST HIS SOCKS. CHRISTMAS CAN WAIT.
Fox has lost his socks, Rabbit canât get any kip and Postman Bear is up to something. A fairly standard December, then, except this one comes with puppets. Julia Donaldson and Axel Schefflerâs Tales from Acorn Wood at Christmas brings the lift-the-flap books to the stage at MAC from December 1 to 27.
There are songs to tap along to, a game of hide-and-seek with Pig and Hen, and a festive outing for Squirrel, who needs a hand finding everything to build her snowman. Fox, meanwhile, is checking the kitchen and the inside of the clock. Anyone whoâs ever helped a toddler look for something they were holding thirty seconds ago will recognise the method.
The show is aimed at ages 18 months to six years, so itâs a good shout for a first trip to the theatre. And if youâve been reading these books at bedtime for what feels like several years, thereâs the small luxury of hearing somebody else do the voices. Bring the grandparents, bring the older siblings and see whoâs first to shout where the socks are. Our moneyâs on someone who pays council tax.
Tickets
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WEâRE HAVING A CURRY AND A BURGER. KEEP UP.
The great advantage of a food hall is that nobody can tell you a cheeseburger and a side of Broccoli 65 is an unreasonable lunch. Original Patty Men and Indian Cafe Racer have both opened at Saint Paulâs Market in the Jewellery Quarter, so we intend to put that to the test.
OPM has spent more than a decade making a very good case for eating a burger with both hands. The Classic Cheeseburger and Louisiana Slammer are on the opening menu, alongside chilli cheese fries, fried chicken nuggets and specials exclusive to the market.
Indian Cafe Racer brings the aforementioned Broccoli 65, Chilli Chicken and slow-cooked Butter Chicken, but the dish we keep hearing about is the Mutton Kosha. Word on the street is that itâs worth ordering before youâve even taken your coat off. Weâll be getting one for the table and sitting very close to it. Dishes cooked over fire on the robata grill are coming soon, too.
The market is taking large bookings for Christmas, with a choice of food and drink packages. Handy if youâve been put in charge of the office night out and the group chat has so far produced eleven opinions and no booking. Thereâll be festive specials from every trader, Christmas cocktails and decorations, plus live music, artisan markets and live sport throughout the season.
You could just as happily turn up with a few mates for a beer, a glass of wine or a boozy slushie. A slushie in December? Youâre indoors, thereâs a curry coming and somebody else is doing the washing up. Get one. Follow
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A CENTURY OF BRUM IN BRUSHSTROKES
In 2001, Arthur Lockwood painted Selfridges while it was still going up. Itâs a lovely thought now that the buildingâs silver discs are shorthand for Birmingham. Back then it was another building site in a city thatâs given anyone with a sketchbook and a soft spot for scaffolding plenty to get on with.
Arthur and his dad Frank spent the best part of a century between them drawing and painting Birmingham, from the 1920s to the 2010s. Their work is now on show in the Bridge Gallery at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, where Illustrating Birmingham: 100 years through the eyes of the Lockwoods opened on November 3.
Frank trained as a technical artist and went on to run Cadburyâs design studio. Arthur started painting alongside him as a kid and later worked in graphic design for Penguin Books. The exhibition brings together paintings, sketchbooks and advertising work, taking in farms, factories and shopping centres, plus the people who lived and worked around them.
The museumâs visitor experience team has put the work alongside present-day perspectives from people who live and work here. Half the fun will be spotting a corner you know by heart and working out what used to be there. More
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HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE BIN STRIKE
Finally, a festive jumper that answers the question nobody thought to ask. What if the bins still hadnât been collected by Christmas? Tim Hodgsonâs charitable âMerry Wintervalâ knit gives uncollected wheelie bins, still waiting for their big day, their place alongside Mr Egg, King Kong and a flurry of snowflakes.
Itâs a tribute to Birminghamâs late-â90s festive season, which still has the power to wind people up a quarter of a century later. âIâm not a particularly festive person but any holiday which makes the Daily Mail furious is fine by me,â says Tim.
The jumper comes from Fox & Grapes, his company that celebrates forgotten bits of Brum. It takes its name from the pub lost to HS2 and the Aesop fable about a fox who decides the grapes he canât reach probably taste awful anyway. If nobody wants his Birmingham merch, he plans to pretend he never cared in the first place.
Heâs produced a limited edition of just 60 jumpers, each individually numbered and gloriously daft to boot, with all profits going to SIFA Fireside, the Birmingham charity supporting people experiencing homelessness or living in insecure accommodation.
Shop
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ON WEDNESDAYS WE WEAR PINK. EVEN IN DECEMBER.
The Plastics are coming to Brum. Mean Girls The Musical lands at The Alexandra on Monday, December 14 and sticks around until Saturday, January 2. If youâre after a Christmas theatre trip with fewer elves and considerably more psychological warfare, congratulations. Youâve found it.
Tina Feyâs musical sends previously homeschooled Cady Heron (Emily Lane) into North Shore High, where Regina George (Vivian Panka) runs the place with Gretchen and Karen at her side. Cady reckons growing up with zoologist parents has taught her a thing or two about survival of the fittest. Then she eats lunch with The Plastics. Her plan to topple Regina goes about as smoothly as youâd expect from someone trying to stage a coup in a school cafeteria.
Jennifer Ellison, who went from Brookside to playing Roxie Hart in Chicago in the West End, joins the Birmingham run in three roles. Sheâs Cadyâs mum, maths teacher Ms Norbury and, most gloriously, Reginaâs mum Mrs George. Thatâs quite a shift.
The show won Best New Musical at the 2025 WhatsOnStage Awards. If your December diary still has a gap, get the gang together. Whether you let them sit with you is entirely your business. Book
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Venue: Dick's Smokehouse | 37 Stoke Road | Bromsgrove | B60 3EN; Instagram
Choice: Smoked short beef rib (£25) Chooser: Front of House
I took my accountant to Dickâs Smokehouse, which is a bit like taking your dentist to a pick ânâ mix. Youâre there to enjoy yourself, but youâre keenly aware that someone at the table knows exactly how much damage youâre doing.
We started with Nashville chicken tenders (standard, solid, bit forgettable, £8.75) plus sweetcorn fritters (£8.50) with firecracker mayo. Those fritters were excellent. Golden, crisp and craggier than a Broad Street bouncer, they arrive synthesising something of the cornâs sweet lusciousness and breathing just the right amount of tingly fire.
My accountant doesn't "do" meat on the bone (which made me worry his mom didn't know he'd come out for dinner), so he ordered the pulled pork bap (cob? roll? who cares?). His verdict was that it was very good, although you'd get a more animated response out of the pork itself.
On the side was some beautifully smoke-embalmed, five-hour baby back ribs (£21.50), glazed with honey and bourbon and sharpened up with pickled red onion. My problem with some barbecue joints is that they smoke everything until it tastes like the inside of a chimney. Dickâs gets the balance spot on. You can taste the time the meatâs spent in the smoker and still tell what went in there in the first place.
The smoked beef short rib (£25) was the highlight. Hefty, luscious and beguilingly supported by Kansas BBQ gravy, onion rings, fries and slaw, it packed an almost hallucinatory rip of musky intensity, again cooked with total control, meaning you don't go home feeling like you've just Frenchied Dot Cotton.
David declined afters, muttering something about gout, so I ordered in another Gunpowder Plot cocktail (£10) which gets its smoke from oak-smoked rum, with Jack Danielâs Fire, lime and ginger beer. That said it was clearly a Bonfire Night special which somehow didn't occur to me at the time, and makes this entire paragraph redundant. Still, not every plot needs a satisfying conclusion. Just ask Guy Fawkes. Menu
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NICK CAVE IN THE NAVE
The first few notes of Red Right Hand are usually your cue to expect a horse, a fistfight or a dodgy accent. This February, theyâll be your cue to look up at the ceiling of Birmingham Cathedral and think, actually, Nick Cave sounds rather good on the cello.
Candlelight is bringing the music of Peaky Blinders to the cathedral for two evenings, with a local string quartet taking on the soundtrack amid a sea of candles. Alongside Cave and the Bad Seedsâ opening theme, expect classical arrangements of tracks by Radiohead, David Bowie and Arctic Monkeys. Thatâs quite a Friday night for the violins.
The soundtrack was always a big part of the showâs swagger. You could be watching Tommy Shelby stride through a street in 1920s Birmingham and the music would make him feel like he was about to headline Glastonbury. Hearing those songs stripped back to four players in a cathedral should give them a different sort of menace. And thereâs something rather pleasing about the Shelbys finally getting an evening out on Colmore Row.
Performances take place on February 6 and 19, 2027, both at 6.30pm. Flat caps entirely at your discretion. Tickets from £21.
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Balsall Heath Second Saturday returns November 14 with pottery, textiles, bookbinding, woodwork and a local makersâ market. Free to get in.
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The Mediaeval Baebes bring soaring harmonies, ancient instruments and a torchlit procession to St Martin in the Bullring on December 16. You may feel slightly underdressed without a horse. Book
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Fokawolf and Tat Vision throw an office Christmas party from hell at Nortons Digbeth on December 10. BIZ MASS brings Barbara Nice, Black Mekon, burlesque and enough corporate misconduct to keep HR busy well into January, all for St Basils.
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Sushi Passion hands the kitchen to Full of Ramen on December 1. Expect 20-hour broth, house-made oils and a choice of ramen for one night only. Book ahead for 8pm, one sitting only.
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Winter Markets are coming thick and fast. You have Kings Norton Farmers' Market this Saturday, as well as Longbridge Artisan Market and Dock Market at the Dockworks. Bournville Artisan Market is on Sunday (Nov 15).
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Birmingham Vegan Festival will take over Aston Studentsâ Union, Saturday, with over 80 stalls offering plant-based food, products, talks and demos. Tickets from £5.
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Also on Saturday, Nov 14, An Idiotâs Guide to Wine blends comedy with a guided tasting of six international wines at Alfred Works. The evenings are created by an Australian comedian with certified wine qualifications. Prices from £34
Again, this Saturday (what a day!), The Slice is slinging giant NYC pizza slices at Chancer's in Stirchley from 4pm. Choose Marg (£6), Hot Pep with pepperoni and hot honey (£7), or fennel sausage and broccoli rabe (£8). More
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MasterChef: The Professionals winner Dan Lee joins Plonk in Cotteridge on November 18 for six Bruno Paillard Champagnes paired with six amuse bouches. £90 per person. Book
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The I Choose Birmingham shop has tees, pins and gifts for the proudly, incurably Birmingham people you know.
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