50 YEARS OF ASKING ONE SIMPLE QUESTION...
|
|
For half a century, the University of Birmingham has been asking what makes us happy. We’d have said 'getting out of a social engagement without upsetting anyone', but apparently there’s funding for a more thorough investigation.
The Baggs Memorial Happiness Lecture has been tackling it since 1976, when violinist Yehudi Menuhin delivered the inaugural instalment. Since then, David Attenborough, Jung Chang, Benjamin Zephaniah, Chris Addison, Bernardine Evaristo, Michael Rosen and Clive Myrie have all offered their thoughts on how individuals — and entire nations — might achieve happiness. Quite the dinner party, that.
|
|
Behind it all is Birmingham-born journalist Thomas Baggs. Born in 1889, he studied at the University before a career spanning teaching, journalism and war correspondence, eventually finding success in advertising and publicity for the American automotive industry. A CV that makes our one-shift stint at Wagamama look a little thin.
When he died in 1973, Baggs left a bequest to establish an annual public lecture on happiness. Some people leave a bench. Thomas left Birmingham something to think about.
Now, marking its 50th anniversary, the lecture’s central question is getting a whole week to stretch its legs. From November 9 to 13, the University hosts Happiness Week, with talks, exhibitions, performances, competitions and events bringing together students, staff, alumni and contributors from its international community.
Fifty years on, there’s still plenty to discuss. But a Brummie funding half a century of conversations about making life better? That’s a fairly cheering place to start.
|
|
|
Monday, November 9
At the heart of it all is the Baggs Memorial Happiness Lecture, with economist, broadcaster and bestselling author Tim Harford taking on happiness. No pressure, Tim. The University’s Great Hall, on its Edgbaston campus, has hosted the series since 1976. A handful of extra tickets have just been released, but this free event always books up entirely. Hesitate and you’ll be attending the memorial sulk instead. Register
|
|
|
Tuesday, November 10
The Search for Happiness – In Conversation gathers University researchers at The Exchange to tackle happiness from the angles of social science, health and literature. University alumna and BBC presenter Kathryn Stanczyszyn keeps proceedings in order, with drinks beforehand beneath the specially extended Helios installation (pictured). All the happiness of a drink in the sun, with considerably less sweating and no wasp in your pint. Entry is free; booking is required. Register
|
|
|
Wednesday, November 11
The Lapworth Museum of Geology hosts a quiz night covering geography, music, film and general knowledge, all beneath the menacing gaze of an Allosaurus skeleton. Brum’s hardly short of quizzes, but this one offers the rare chance to be judged by something even older than the bloke who insists on marking everyone’s answers. Tickets
|
|
Friday, November 13
Friday the 13th gets a surprisingly cheerful outing, with young musicians from The Purcell School providing a free lunchtime concert at the Bramall Music Building, before Ha-Ha-Happiness Night brings a Birmingham-focused comedy line-up to the Elgar Concert Hall. Its acoustics were designed by the same team behind Symphony Hall, so even your slightly weird laugh should sound booming.
Hosted by Barbara Nice (above), the much-loved Kings Heath housewife, star of BGT and Phoenix Nights, the evening also features Birmingham-born comedian Shazia Mirza and Halesowen improviser Jon Hipkiss, rising to fame with the sell-out Star Wars Improvised Parody Show. At only £5 (or a mere £2.50 for students) it’s got to be one of the best value comedy nights in town. Tickets
|
|
Throughout the week...
...visitors will also have extra opportunities to experience both Helios and Unlocking the Vaults, which have been extended specially for the celebrations. Hosted at The Exchange in the heart of the city, Unlocking the Vaults explores the history of the former Birmingham Municipal Bank through archives, objects, photography and oral histories. Among the highlights is Thrift Radiates Happiness, a community photography project developed with local participants.
The programme also includes Happiness Now, a creative writing competition inviting staff, students, alumni and the public to capture happiness in exactly 50 words. Poems, short stories, anecdotes and reflections are all welcome. Finally, a word count your uncle’s Facebook updates could benefit from. Entries are open throughout October, with winners announced during Happiness Week.
|
|
Final Thought!
The remarkable thing about the Baggs Memorial Happiness Lecture isn’t just its guest list. It’s that, after 50 years of writers, broadcasters, scientists, campaigners and performers having a crack at the same question, nobody’s quite settled it. Normally, by this point, someone would have suggested forming a WhatsApp group.
Perhaps that’s the point. Happiness gives us plenty to talk about precisely because there’s no single answer.
Thomas Baggs left Birmingham a question that’s still going strong half a century later. We’ll check back in another 50 years. In the meantime, a room full of people thinking about how to make life happier feels like a decent start.
|
|
|
Happiness Week 2026 runs from November 9 to November 13. Tickets
|
|
|
BOOK NOW: COMEDY AT THE HALLS
There are two types of people: those who watch Fin Taylor’s videos and those whose partners keep making them watch Fin Taylor’s videos. Both should probably clear November 26.
The gloriously provocative comic brings The Pre-emptive Comeback Special to Town Hall, stepping out of your phone and onto an actual stage.
Following the runaway success of Fin vs History and Fin vs the Internet, this is his biggest tour yet, with a title neatly acknowledging the occupational hazards of being professionally outrageous. Book far enough ahead and who knows whether you’re buying tickets to a victory lap or an apology? Either way, £31.50 gets you an evening with a comedian whose instinct for finding the line, then doing something inadvisable near it, makes him essential viewing.
|
|
Elsewhere, Town Hall and Symphony Hall’s comedy diary is looking dangerously capable of replacing your entire social life. Legend of the game and one of the greatest observational comedians ever, seriously, Jimeoin brings Ballyhoo! to Town Hall on October 25, followed by Australian export Thomas Green on November 14 and Dylan Moran’s beautifully dishevelled worldview on November 17.
Josh Pugh (above) plays Symphony Hall on November 29, with only Grand Tier tickets remaining. Consider it an elevated evening of very grounded, Cov-powered laughter. Josh is at the top of his game.
Into 2027, Town Hall welcomes Susan Calman’s Tall Tales on February 12, Aurie Styla’s Maverick on February 18 and Lucy Beaumont on February 24. Having cost a quiz contestant £79,000, Beaumont should at least make your ticket feel fiscally responsible.
Finally, Mike Wozniak (April 16, Town Hall) brings The Bench: a show requiring absolutely no existing bench expertise. Woz is long beloved on the comedy circuit – think Terry-Thomas meets David Tomlinson with a dash of David Niven.
|
|
|
THINK OUTSIDE THE CARTON
Most of us look at an empty carton and see a trip to the recycling bin. Lorraine Loveland-Armour sees a printing plate. Her new exhibition, A Body of Work, turns recycled Tetra Pak packaging into intricate prints exploring women’s health, grief, identity and recovery.
Opening at Stirchley Library’s Open Page Gallery on October 9, the exhibition traces a deeply personal journey, with hope and legacy woven through the harder chapters. Originally from California, Lorraine began recording her medical milestones through collage and fountain pen inks, discovering Tetrapak printing at Stirchley Art Club.
After losing both parents and her mother-in-law during the pandemic, she wanted to celebrate her mum’s nursing career and preserve her own story for her son, Lukas. The resulting work is a way of reclaiming her identity beyond a list of diagnoses, while encouraging conversations about our bodies and how we’re heard by health professionals.
The exhibition runs until November 21, with a launch on October 9, 6.30pm to 8.30pm. Entry is free during library opening hours and Stirchley Art Room sessions.
Fancy giving that carton a second career? Lorraine leads a Tetrapak printing workshop on November 22, 2pm to 5pm. It’s £10, materials included. Book here. Your recycling has rarely looked so promising.
|
|
VERVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM
Poetry funding applications: apparently harder to get over the line than a rhyme for orange. After numerous knockbacks, VERVE, Birmingham’s only dedicated poetry festival for almost a decade, found a rather lovely ally in Birmingham Literature Festival. The result is their first collaboration: a full Sunday of verse at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire this Sunday, October 11.
And it's a helluva line-up. T.S. Eliot Prize winners Joelle Taylor (above) and Sarah Howe join Forward Prize winner Mona Arshi and Rachel Long, with Taylor performing from Maryville and the latter three sharing the headline billing, hosted by Jo Bell.
Earlier, Young Poets Takeover hands the mic to writers aged 25 and under, alongside Hala Qamar and Scarlet Timlett. VERVE Debutants introduces Roma Havers, Ellora Sutton and Rupinder Kaur Waraich, while Long’s workshop explores portals, time travel and disrupting narrative. Finally, CRATE Poetry Live brings a Jools Holland-ish evening of spoken word, featuring Tyrone Houghton, Nafeesa Hamid and Bradley Taylor, plus an open mic.
There’s a happy ending to the funding saga, too: Arts Council England support has now landed for VERVE’s tenth anniversary festival in February 2027. October’s gathering is your chance to help keep Birmingham’s poetry scene making noise. Preferably between the readings.
Tickets
|
|
|
THE NIGHT HAS EYES
If Hieronymus Bosch had discovered psychedelics, developed an anxiety about climate change and moved to Kashmir, he might have produced something approaching Raqib Shaw.
Night Sonnets, at Compton Verney until February 21, is a wonderfully trippy collection of eight paintings and one tapestry by the Kashmir-raised artist, whose fantastical worlds reward the sort of staring that eventually makes you forget where you are.
Shaw has worked at night since childhood, finding the darkness gives him the solitude and concentration his extraordinarily detailed work requires. Five paintings were completed this year, including The Scryer, made specifically for Compton Verney and featuring the Warwickshire mansion under moonlight — although its lake reflects a rather more troubled alternative reality.
But the image that stopped us is The Pragmatic Pessimist (pictured), a vast Jacquard tapestry in which polar bears congregate amid melting ice while a solitary figure burns art books to keep warm. So, you know, fairly breezy stuff.
Elsewhere expect mountains, fires, strange creatures, reflections, dreamlike architecture and enough symbolism to keep an art history student awake until Christmas.
It's beautiful, unsettling and magnificently bonkers.
Basically, don't operate heavy machinery immediately afterwards. More
|
|
|
Venue: Dishoom, One Chamberlain Sq, B3 3AX; website
Choice: Butter Pepper Crab (£26.90) Chooser: New Menu Dictates
Dishoom’s Birmingham arrival was a masterclass in woeful timing: years of planning, a gorgeous restaurant ready to go, and then the entire planet called in sick. Lockdown scuppered the grand launch, prompting fears they might pack up the biryani and write Brum off as an admin error. Thankfully, they stuck around giving us one very good post-COVID reason to put proper trousers on.
Fast forward six years and, at least, two dozen visits from me, and I'm on hand — God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers — to try out one of the biggest menu updates in the company's history.
The Mixed Seafood Fry (£12.20) is a crunchy little maritime convention of soft-shell crab, squid, bream and prawns in a lively chilli-mustard masala. They're fun, bitesize and decadent, with a crunch and moreishness that suggests they've been sizzled in the kind of fats your GP always warned you about.
The Homestyle Lamb Curry (£19.90), meanwhile, is rich, warming and reassuringly unfussy, with tender lamb and potatoes in a deeply savoury gravy. This is the kind of comfort food you mistakenly think you might be able to knock up yourself, if you didn’t lack patience, the right pans and any of the culinary talent.
And then, ah... and then, we have the Butter Pepper Crab, which may seem punchy at £26.90, but it's not. It's honestly not. It is, however, without hesitation, my dish of 2026 so far. And I've eaten quite a lot of dishes.
Sweet white crab meat comes in vigorously applied garlic, black pepper, chilli and oyster sauce providing a riptide of umami only added to by, I'm sure of it, some brown meat and shell roasting in the cookery, somewhere along the way.
The crab comes with pillowy toasted pau buns. The good lady opposite suggested it would make for an excellent lunch shared between two and, by Christ, I think she's bob on. Although sharing it would be an extraordinary act of love. I'd sooner lend someone my toothbrush.
We also tried two salads that I should probably document, but up against that crab have vanished almost entirely from memory. The Keralan Chicken Salad, I think, brought black pepper chicken, coconut and tamarind to the party, but the sweet, sharp Pineapple Chaat Salad was the winner of the pair.
To drink, my icy Blood-Orange Lagerita was unseasonably refreshing but was floor-wiped by Victoria's Chai Caffè Martini. Combining coffee and, well, chai, obviously, it came with enough rum to drown an enemy, which is just how she likes it.
But that crab? Mother of God and all her neighbours! I didn't order their 24-hour House Black Daal for the first time ever and I didn't miss it, and there's no compliment higher. Truly outstanding.
Dishoom open their first US restaurant in Manhattan next year and, given — and I say this with absolute confidence — it's now up there with Britain’s best-loved group restaurants, it will utterly fly with the bald eagle brigade, crab in beak and pau in claw. Menu
|
|
FROM CURRY HOUSES TO CLUEDO:
THE CITY THAT GAVE US EVERYTHING
There's something wonderfully Birmingham about this photograph of Jesson's Sweet Shop. The jars, the weighing scales, the chap behind the counter about to sort you out with a quarter of pear drops and absolutely no nonsense. It's a lovely little snapshot of a city that's changed beyond recognition, but somehow remains unmistakably itself.
The photograph is part of A City That Can, a new gallery that opened at Birmingham Museum on Tuesday, celebrating the people, places and peculiarities that have shaped Brum since the 50s.
And there's some cracking stuff in there.
An original booth from the Koh-I-Noor, one of Birmingham's earliest curry houses, which opened on Horse Fair in the 1960s. Memorabilia from the city's extraordinary musical history. Vintage Chad Valley toys. A 1960s Cluedo set – invented in Birmingham, incidentally, so we've been accusing relatives of murder in the conservatory for longer than most.
There are sporting treasures, stories of activism and memories of ordinary Brummies doing extraordinary things.
Developed following recommendations from a pioneering Citizens' Jury, the exhibition also invites visitors to contribute their own memories.
Because Birmingham's history isn't just about famous faces, grand buildings and industrial achievements. It's about the little things, too.
Like buying a quarter of sweets from a bloke called Jesson. More
|
|
|
A BRUSH WITH SCANDAL
If your art history education involved a bored teacher and a bowl of fruit, Coco The Time-Travelling Tart's got you.
The award-winning comedian takes over BMAG this Saturday, Oct 10, with an Art History Comedy Gallery Tour that promises to drag culture cheerfully through the gutter.
Part of Brum Comedy Festival, the tour gets intimate with the Pre-Raphs, uncovering historical gossip, scandal, death and the sort of questionable decisions that make your own seem sensible. Tickets are £35, with a drink included.
|
|
LYFE ON THE STREETS
Birmingham streetwear label LYFE has put Digbeth on its chest. And its back. Thorough, that.
DIGBETH4LYFE brings tees, crewneck sweats and hoodies inspired by the clubs, raves, graffiti and indy businesses that helped shape the brand. The front design borrows its arch from Digbeth’s railway architecture.
Founded in 2015, LYFE has previously worked with Mike Skinner and Jaykae. This collection is release ten of a planned 300 numbered batches. An actual finish line in fashion. Imagine.
|
|
We'll be at Kings Heath Artisan Market this Sunday (Oct 11, 10am to 3pm) with all of this merch.
—
Following a hugely successful run in Birmingham earlier this year, Operation Mincemeat will return to The Alexandra in August 2027. Tickets
—
The Button Factory’s dog festival brings canine couture and doggie roasts to the JQ, Oct 11, noon onwards. The £2 show entry supports Birmingham Dogs Home.
—
Working Clasp’s Halloween jewellery workshop hits the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Oct 17. Make something spooky; a themed cocktail comes as standard. £65
—
Dave’s Hot Chicken is celebrating Dave’s Day (Tuesday, Oct 13), with free chicken for anyone in Brum called Dave. Anyone named Dave, David, Dafydd, Davide or another recognised variation can head into Dave’s (there's one on New Street and one at Resorts World) on that day, show their ID and get a free slider.
—
Dinnerladies serves up Les Dennis (Only Fools) as Stan, Sue Cleaver (Corrers) as Jean, Karen Henthorn (Enders) as Dolly and Amy Drake (Brassic) as Bren at Wolverhampton Grand, July 6 to 10. Sean Foley directs Beth and Emma Kilcoyne’s adaptation of Victoria Wood’s much-loved canteen comedy. Tickets
—
Waxfactory returns to Royal Birmingham Conservatoire October 9, 11am–4pm. Free entry, live music and 10+ tables of vinyl classics, rarities and bargains. Your record collection called. Apparently it’s feeling neglected. More
—
Aara is now open on Icknield Street, bringing tandoor smoke, slow-cooked biryanis and home comforts. Follow
—
Sara Pascoe heads to Just the Tonic at Rosie's (Broad St) on Nov 28, joined by Kazeem Jamal and Dave Twentyman. £21. Club entry included. Brave.
—
Fifty-five quid. Adam’s. Lunch. I’m listening.
|
|
|
|
|
|
