Phoenix Singers Leek

@BBC_ARoadshow this evening is a special edition to mark 100 years since the birth of Queen Elizabeth II. Fiona Bruce selected the fascinating story about Potteries-born Arnold Machin’s image of the Queen used on postage stamps as one of her favourite items and remarks: “The profile image of Her Majesty on designer Arnold Machin’s stamp is one of the most reproduced images of all time. It’s something we all know, and we’ve seen more times than we could possibly count. But it never occurred to me that these might not be the Queen’s shoulders! “Machin’s first design stopped at the neck, but the Palace said they wanted her shoulders in it too. But rather than make her sit for it again, Angela Hewens, a family friend, modelled at her mum’s house with a pair of old curtains round her shoulders. What I love about that is that it’s something entirely unexpected from something so utterly familiar.” Reposting a column I wrote back in October last year which gives a little more insight into how a local teacher became the Queen for just one day!

And it was so good to be able to watch such a superb production in the atmospheric Spode factory site. As part of the city’s centenary programme, this new ‘making of an icon’ play is a blueprint for how Stoke-on-Trent’s thriving cultural ecosystem can boost the city’s post-centenary reputation when people and organisations work together in partnership.

Staged in the atmospheric Spode factory as part of an extended BCB evening experience, The Queen’s Shoulders is unequivocally an evocative production rooted in the unique cultural heritage and everyday Potteries life of the 1960s. As part of the city’s centenary programme, this new ‘making of an icon’ play is a blueprint for how Stoke-on-Trent’s thriving cultural ecosystem can boost the city’s post-centenary reputation when people and organisations work together in partnership.