PUTTING THE BRUM IN, ERM, BRUM
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Cancel whatever your dad was doing. Brum Transport Fest, organised by the sterling team at Colmore Life, is motoring our way.
On September 18 and 19, Birmingham city centre becomes a glorious playground of cool classic cars, retro heritage buses and things people will rightly describe as “proper engineering”.
The free festival runs from 11am to 5pm across some of Brum’s best-known public spaces many with links to the region, alongside transport talks, live entertainment and plenty for families.
Expect nostalgia, horsepower and plenty of hot carburettor chat. 🥵
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CARS
Centenary Square and Hippodrome Square will host an impressive display of heritage vehicles from organisations including the British Motor Museum, Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust, Aldridge Transport Museum, Reflective Car Care, Raw Rides and over 100 heritage vehicles owned by individual enthusiasts including the Gay Classic Car Group.
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Daimler 4.2 Series (1984)
Included will be this Daimler 4.2 series saloon from 1984 — a big, elegant British luxury saloon from an era when a dashboard was expected to contain enough walnut to furnish a small dining room.
Daimler had been part of Jaguar since 1960, and these cars were built at Jaguar’s Browns Lane plant in Cov. So for a West Midlands transport event, it's absolutely on home turf.
If it looks vaguely familiar, there’s good reason: a Daimler Sovereign 4.2 Series III later became one of Arthur Daley’s cars in Minder. This particular one was first owned by the 6th Duke of Westminster, don'tchaknow?
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Austin Allegro 1300 SDL (1979)
From the sublime to the ridiculous, few cars have been bullied quite as relentlessly as the Austin Allegro.
Launched in 1973 and built at Longbridge, it became a poster child for everything supposedly wrong with 1970s British Leyland: awkward looks, questionable build quality and, most famously, early versions with an almost-square “quartic” steering wheel...
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This 1979 1300 SDL came later, by which point conventional steering wheels had returned, but the reputation stuck. Nearly 650,000 Allegros were built before production ended in 1982.
Today, surviving Allegros have achieved genuine cult status. Turns out being routinely called one of Britain’s worst cars does wonders for collectability.
Its cultural impact was considerable, too: Allegros have cropped up everywhere from The Sweeney and Doctor Who to Little Britain — usually when television required an instant visual shorthand for Britain in beige.
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Rover 2000 SC (P6, 1972)
Then there's the 1972 Rover 2000 SC — a true product of the West Midlands, built at Rover’s Lode Lane factory in Solihull.
The P6 helped transform Rover’s image from a maker of traditional, rather formal cars into a modern British brand, winning the first-ever European Car of the Year award in 1964.
For many local families, Rover was more than a car company — it was a major part of the region’s industrial identity and provided generations with skilled jobs. The P6 also became something of a ‘young executive’ car, reflecting the changing Britain of the 1960s and 70s.
Even today, its distinctive styling makes it instantly recognisable as a classic piece of Birmingham’s motoring heritage. The Rover P6 became a familiar face on 1970s television, appearing in The Professionals, where it added a distinctly British touch to the show’s world of action and undercover crime.
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Austin A30
The Austin A30 (pictured above and top) was one of Britain’s most important small cars of the 1950s, helping put affordable motoring within reach of ordinary families.
Built from 1951, it was designed as a practical, economical alternative to larger cars and became a familiar sight on Britain’s roads. Its distinctive rounded shape and small size earned it the affectionate nickname “Baby Austin”.
The A30 also has a strong West Midlands connection, with production taking place at Austin’s Longbridge factory in Birmingham. Longbridge was at the heart of the region’s motor industry, employing thousands of local people. Today, the A30 is remembered as a charming symbol of post-war Britain.
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BUSES
Victoria Square will feature heritage buses courtesy of Transport Museum Wythall, including the beautifully restored 1931 Birmingham Corporation AEC Regent 661 with Metro-Cammell bodywork.
There’s a particularly lovely detail to its story: its Birmingham Corporation fleet number was 486, and its body is believed to be the oldest surviving steel-framed double-decker bus body in the world.
The 1931 AEC Regent, registration OV 4486, entered service from Harborne garage on December 4, 1931, and even spent a brief period working in London during the Second World War.
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SUPER PRIX
Ratcliff Passage (which is here) will also host a special exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Birmingham Super Prix and the festival entertainment stage, with guests including The Gadget Show’s Jon Bentley, Practical Classics magazine editor Danny Hopkins and television personality and engineer Fuzz Townshend.
The exhibition will feature photos, nostalgia, posters, memories and stories of the Super Prix contributed by the public while stage highlights include: Introduction to Classic Cars, Building Cars in Birmingham, Classic Buses, From Bikes to Cars and Back Again, Pride of Longbridge, 40 Years Since the First Birmingham Super Prix, Champion Tinkerers: The People Who Keep Classics Going and Trams, No Trams and Now More Trams.
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Brum Transport Fest is on 18 and 19 September in Victoria Sq, Chamberlain Sq, Centenary Sq and Hippodrome Sq. For more details, head here
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HALF PRICE, FULL KIBOU
In the iconic words of the Street Fighter II ring announcer: "Here comes a new challenger!" Birmingham’s Japanese food scene is about to gain a sizeable new player – and, even better, you can eat your way through half the menu without paying for the other half.
Award-winning Japanese Kitchen & Bar KIBOU opens in soft launch mode on October 10 at 61-63 Temple Row, taking over the current Riva Blu site overlooking Pigeon Park. It’ll be the group’s seventh restaurant – joining the likes of Solihull, Oxford and Bristol – and this one’s no tiddler, with room for 200 diners across a bar and lounge, open sushi kitchen, main restaurant and private dining space.
Food-wise, expect the full Japanese greatest hits: chicken karaage, spiced pork gyoza, tempura, sushi and sashimi, ramen, katsu curry and teriyaki, right up to the fractionally more wallet-testing A5 Joshu wagyu. There’ll also be Japanese-inspired cocktails, whisky, sake and umeshu for anyone who thinks dinner should occasionally require a taxi home.
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The interiors promise to be suitably maximalist, with bold Japanese-inspired design and original murals from artist Martyna Sabadasz, whose work features across KIBOU’s other restaurants.
But here’s the bit you really need to know.
Ahead of the official opening, KIBOU is offering 50% off food during its Birmingham soft launch, which includes October 10 and 11. Join the KIBOU Club mailing list here and full details will wing their way into your inbox tomorrow, September 4, giving you 24 hours to secure your spot.
On top of all that KIBOU is giving free sushi platters to 100 people outside its Temple Row restaurant on Tuesday (September 8), from 12.30pm. Scan-to-win cards offer further prizes, including vouchers, drinks and a £100 restaurant tab.
Consider THIS your starting gun.
The restaurant opens to the public from October 12. Follow KIBOU on Instagram
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HYDE, BALDING AND A BLOODY BUSY BOOKSHOP
The Heath Bookshop continues its frankly rather showing-off run of author events with two very different national treasures heading to Birmingham stages.
First up is Guardian columnist and professional cutter-through-of-nonsense Marina Hyde, bringing What a Time to Be Alive! to The Alexandra, September 23. Hyde will be in conversation with comedian, author and Infinite Monkey Cage co-host Robin Ince, picking through the political and celebrity fever dream of recent years – from Liz Truss and Starmer to Trump, Bezos and the Gwyneth Paltrow ski trial. There’ll be audience questions and a signing afterwards.
Then broadcaster Clare Balding heads to The Crescent Theatre, September 24, to discuss her debut novel Pastures New, newly out in paperback. Best known for everything from Wimbledon and the Olympics to Ramblings and, more recently, The Traitors, Balding turns novelist with the story of Alex, an almost-40 responsibility-dodger who unexpectedly inherits a crumbling Welsh sheep farm.
Balding will be in conversation before an audience Q&A and book signing.
Both events are organised by brilliant Kings Heath indie The Heath Bookshop, both will be BSL interpreted and tickets are on sale now. Birmingham’s bookshelves are having quite the year.
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BOOK NOW:
SWANS FLY BACK TO BRUM
One of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s biggest hitters is heading home this autumn, with Sir Peter Wright and Galina Samsova’s spectacular Swan Lake returning to Hippodrome from September 23 to October 3. And if you fancy going, now would be a very sensible time to get it booked.
One of the world’s best-loved ballets – and one of BRB’s most popular productions – Swan Lake follows Prince Siegfried’s encounter with Odette, a woman condemned by the evil Baron von Rothbart to live as a swan from dawn until dusk. We've all been there. Cue love, sorcery, heartbreak and enough extraordinary dancing to make walking to the bar at the interval feel deeply pedestrian.
The production returns as BRB continues its celebrations marking 100 years since the birth of Founding Director Laureate Sir Peter Wright, whose version of Swan Lake has introduced generations of audiences to ballet.
Principal casting has now also been confirmed, with Céline Gittens, Momoko Hirata, Yu Kurihara, Miki Mizutani, Beatrice Parma and Yaoqian Shang among those sharing the role of Odette/Odile.
Performances run for just 11 days before the production heads to that there London.
Tickets
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EXCLUSIVE:
NEW NEW NEW SNOBS
Birmingham nightclub GOD Snobs is making a £4 million move along Broad Street, opening its new, new, new forever home on Thursday, September 17.
The club will occupy three rooms across two floors at 240 Broad Street, sharing the former Sports Café and Players building with Éimear’s Irish Pub, also operated by the Snobs owner.
Players closed in 2022 and the site has since sat derelict. It is now undergoing a multimillion-pound resurrection, giving Snobs certainty after the threat of redevelopment continued to hang over its current home. And the home before that, and the one before that.
Crucially, the new incarnation won’t forget where it came from. Clubbers will enter at street level before descending past the familiar wall of faces (above) into a low-ceilinged main room devoted to Snobs’ classic indie soundtrack. Original signs from the Paradise Circus venue will also make the journey.
Upstairs, two further rooms will cover pop and club bangers, house and R&B, backed by Funktion-One and Martin Audio sound systems. A new lift will make every floor accessible, while Mr Murals — the artist behind Navigation Street’s Black Sabbath artwork — will once again be let loose on the walls.
Student-night juggernaut Vodbull will christen the club on opening night, handily timed for Freshers’ Week, before returning every Thursday. Rehab and Loaded follow on Fridays and Saturdays respectively.
Snobs owner Wayne Tracey said buying the entire building means the club finally has a permanent home. Éimear’s will handle daytime drinks and live sport; Snobs can get back to its specialist subject: late nights and sticky floors.
Follow Snobs immediately
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Venue: Indian Café Racer, 88-90 Bristol St, B5 7AH; Instagram
Choice: South Indian fish curry (£16.70) Chooser: James
I'm back here again, aren't I? Do I live here now? A friend and one-time Brummie is visiting from Taiwan and I want to show off. Not in a “my raw charisma should cover it” sort of way. More: “Look at the food you turned your back on in the name of mountain temples, bubble tea and bullet trains.”
Indian Café Racer's menu rhapsodises the cuisine of the subcontinent, in all its sprawling, regionally diverse glory, well beyond the Westerner-friendly greatest hits. Sure, there’s a degree of familiarity to the parade of spatter-painted chaats, smouldering meats and tandoor-bubbled breads, but the execution boasts an acute specialness that places ICR near the top of the city's list.
The chilli chicken (£9.20) is a boisterous little pile of golden-fried cubes, peppers and spring onions lacquered in a sauce that is sweet, sticky and hot enough to straighten the posture. It has the gleeful vulgarity of decent takeaway, only cooked with considerably more care. You could order it for the table, but this would involve sharing and sharing should always be discouraged. James, a professional athlete, pretends he's saving himself for mains as I finish the lot.
The spice lamb chops (£14.25) — two big blackened commas of tender heat — arrive carrying the fragrance and beauty of the tandoor. Marinated overnight with fiery ginger, herbs and mixed spices, they are juicy, adroitly seasoned and gnawably fine. Dignity enters, witnesses the uncivilised spectacle of me tearing the flesh from the bone, and decides to slip away without saying hi.
I reluctantly let James have the second chop.
Best of all is the South Indian fish curry (£16.70), signifying a melding of Indian food cultures and exemplifying the way ICR roams the subcontinent with judicious adventurousness. The fish sits in a coconut-milk gravy stained gold by turmeric and deepened by roasted spices, tomato and red chilli. There is the presence of a ravishing dribble of mustard and sufficient heat to richen rather than mug the palate off, wholesale. Light and enlivening, it's the key to walking out of Indian Café Racer, rather than waddling.
I love this place like Joanie loves Chachi. It shows distinct proto-boujeeness — the beginnings of an upmarket, fashionable sensibility: polished presentation, ambitious cooking and cocktails, without yet becoming painfully pretentious. At a time when much is being fretted over the future of Brum’s beloved, predominantly Pakistani-run curry houses, it offers both a path forward and a glimpse of what those faded Seventies-era businesses are up against.
There must, surely, remain space in Birmingham for both? The old-school curry houses that helped make the city and forward-looking places like this, busy imagining what Indian dining might become. Perhaps combined they'll represent a new-wave curry pincer movement, plying Brummies with thick-carpeted, flock-wallpapered balti houses from one angle and hyper-specific forms of spiced deliciousness from the other.
The bill comes to just under £100 with cocktails and beer. I ate it all, so, reluctantly, I pay it all. James goes back to Taiwan hungry. That'll show him.
Menu
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SORRY, BUT WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT CHRISTMAS
We know, we know. We've barely kissed goodbye to August. Nobody needs to hear sleigh bells while they’re still applying factor 30. But this one’s worth the frankly offensive levels of festive forward planning because it’s exactly the sort of event that sells out.
On December 13, Millennium Point is putting The Polar Express on Birmingham’s biggest screen, accompanied by an actual visit from the big dog, Santa, himself. And, presumably, several dozen extremely excited children.
Proceedings start at 2pm with the big fella's meet-and-greets, early presents for the kids, Christmas activities and a children’s disco, while a DJ deploys the festive bombs with absolutely no regard for anyone who thinks December 13 is still too early for Mariah.
Then, at 3.45pm, it’s movie time. The much-loved 2004 animation follows a young boy who boards a mysterious train on Christmas Eve, bound for the North Pole. It’s basically Christmas concentrated into 100 minutes.
Tickets are £22.92 for children, including their Santa visit and present, and £11.76 for adults, with everything wrapping up around 5.30pm.
All aboard?
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REVIEW:
MRS DOUBTFIRE ★★★★
This new musical rendition of the famous film, which starred all-round genius Robin Williams, has taken up residency at the Hipp for the next few weeks, and its family-friendly nostalgic vibes are a triumph.
Critically acclaimed Gabriel Vick embodies the dual characters of out-of-work actor Daniel and Scottish nanny Mrs Doubtfire perfectly, and whenever he is on stage (which is most of the time) the show gleams. The musical cleverly showcases the transformation on stage as well as off, with a particularly funny scene where a social worker comes to visit and he has to interchange rapidly between Daniel and Mrs Doubtfire within the same apartment.
Two of the best scenes in the show also feature Daniel going through a variety of characters and impressions, and then creating a brilliant beat box rap on a loop. The rest of the cast support the main man well, especially the three kids who earn extra points for cuteness without being twee.
Outside of the cast the production was sound, although some of the staging was not quite as impressive as we have seen in other big touring shows recently. It races along at pace with laughs aplenty, keeping the multi-generational audience hooked. Book
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"ONE OF BRITAIN’S FINEST CROWD-WORK COMICS"
Chris Rock once said: “You can never be discovered too late. You can be discovered too soon.” After 19 years of excellence, hugely respected circuit stalwart Kane Brown is finally getting his dues – helped, in part, by the success of his Rated 18 podcast.
Fresh from a sold-out UK tour, Brown brings an hour of entirely unscripted comedy to Herbert’s Yard, Longbridge, on November 25, followed by Dockworks Waterfront in Brierley Hill on November 26. There are no prepared routines and no safety net: every joke, tangent and glorious confrontation will be shaped by the audience in the room.
It’s an ideal showcase for one of Britain’s finest crowd-work comics, whose quickness allows him to dismantle hecklers without ever losing his essential likeability. Brown has opened for Guz Khan, appeared in Man Like Mobeen and performed everywhere from The Glee Club to Indigo at The O2. Nobody knows what’s coming – least of all him. More
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Former WWE star Nikki Cross brings Progress Wrestling to Birmingham’s O2 Academy on September 13, part of a UK-wide tour from one of Europe’s biggest independent wrestling companies. Tickets
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Birmingham’s Museum Collection Centre throws open its doors September 12, revealing everything from steam engines to giant spider crabs, with family trails, expert talks and a free vintage bus. Only £6
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Crafts market, Rebel Market, is taking place at Assay Studios in the JQ, this Saturday, Sept 5. Details
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Comedian, cartoonist and Three Bean Salad podcaster Henry Paker brings Pencil Case to Birmingham Town Hall, September 23, mixing razor-sharp stand-up with live illustration in one genre-bending show. £26.20
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Also at Town Hall, comedy legend John Cleese is in Brum, September 20, for a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, followed by conversation, audience Q&A and assorted absurdity. Book
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The aforementioned Polar Express steams into Moor Street this Christmas, transforming the historic station into a festive departure point for magical journeys towards the North Pole, November 22 to December 23. More
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Dave Durkan, one half of comedy duo Durk & Ski and a man who's inevitably all over your Insta, is bringing his character comedy to the Glee, Oct 10. Only £8.
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It's Kings Heath Farmer's Market this weekend, don'tchaknow?
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