What's On Walsall - March 2025

HIGHLIGHT

World Book Day: Peacocks & Peahens

Saturday 8 March, 12-4pm. Free, drop-in. All welcome.
The New Art Gallery Walsall invites families for a celebration of books, stories, art and poetry inspired by peacocks. Enjoy special performances of Mughal Miniatures: The Peacock & The Princess by Sonia Sabri Company (11.30am, 1pm & 2.30pm), and join Pep the Poet for funny, interactive performances of his poem The Funky Peacock. (12.15pm, 1.45pm & 3.15pm).
•    Make Perfect Peacock Bookmarks with illustrator Bec Tonks
•    Grab your free book from National Literacy Trust
•    Pick up your own signed copy of The Funky Peacock

March events at The New Art Gallery Walsall

Gallery Square, Walsall, WS2 8LG. Free admission.

Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, Sundays 12 noon to 4pm. Closed on Mondays and Bank Holidays. www.thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk

The Peacock’s Feather Sensory sessions with Fantastic Journeys

Saturday 1 March 2025, 11am-12pm & 1-2pm. Free, booking essential as places are limited.
To book, please all the Gallery on 01922 654400 or visit our reception.
Join Peter and Nicola from Fantastic Journeys on a feathery adventure, exploring the wonder of one of the world’s most beautiful birds. During this multi-sensory session participants will explore different textures, use a range of props, sing, vocalise and play instruments.
These sessions are designed to deliver a life-affirming, empowering and creative experience for children with Additional Needs.

• 11am – 12pm: A lively session for children with Additional Needs
• 1-2pm: A quieter session for children with PMLD and/or Complex Support Needs

REFLECTOR Exhibition Tour

Saturday 1 March 2025, 1-2pm. Free. Booking essential as places are limited.
Join Jodi Kwok and Anu Gamanagari for a gallery tour of REFLECTOR, a group exhibition featuring new work by nineteen Artists of Colour.  The artists address a wide range of themes, with ideas about family, home, community and belonging, interwoven throughout the exhibition, shining a light on ideas about race, relationships, identity, heritage, gender and personal histories. Photography becomes a tool whereby memories, emotions, guilt and intimacy are visceral in a range of narratives and documentaries that explore lived experiences, black histories and representation.

Sunday Art Club

Sundays, 12-3pm. Age 4+. Free, drop-in.
The Gallery’s weekly art club for children and young people. Meet artists and creatives and learn to paint, print, sculpt, craft, make films and more!

• Sunday 2 March – Parrot Prints – Print cardboard relief birds onto paper inspired by Yinka Shonibare CBE’s Dutch wax fabric
• Sunday 9 March – Power Badges – Make a badge for a special family member, or a badge to celebrate your own greatness!
• Sunday 16 March – Clay Coil Pots – Learn to model pots inspired by Otobong Nkanga’s raku vessels.
• Sunday 23 March – Plaster Cast Plants - Make a unique cast of flowers, herbs and leaves inspired by artist Jodie Carey.
• Sunday 30 March – Flower Collagraph Cards – Print Mother’s Day cards inspired by Tania Kovats’ artwork Last of My Summer Blooms.

Baby & Me

Wednesday 12 March 10.30am-12noon and 12.30-2pm. Every second Wednesday of the month. Suitable for 0-24 months. £3 per child, places are limited, booking essential. Book at Reception or call 01922 654400.
Multi-sensory sessions for parents, carers and their babies. Explore colours and light projections, discover new smells, feel new textures in our touchy-feely books and relax in our comfy cushions whilst you listen to a short story and meet other new parents.

Holi 25 Festival of Colours: Community Day

Saturday 15 March, 12-4pm. Free, drop in. All welcome.
Join us to celebrate the Festival of Colours with Bharatanatyam* dance performances from Jnan Deep Kundu, and Kathak dance performances from Roshni Pink.
•    Bharatanatyam dance performances from Jnan Deep Kundu (12.30pm & 2pm)
•    Kathak dance performances from Roshni Pink (1pm & 2.30pm).
•    Spray paint mandalas onto fabric with artist Haseebah Ali
•    Make banana leaf parrots with artist Ahalya SP
•    Get your Mendhi from Mrs Bedi
•    Enjoy authentic food from Hargun Sweet Centre
* Bharatanatyam is an Indian classical dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Tamil Nadu in southern India, and Kathak is a form of North Indian classical dance that uses intricate footwork, hand gestures and facial expressions to tell stories.

Bundle Dye Workshop

Saturday 22 March, 11am-3pm. £40 (£36 concs.)
Workshop with award-winning textile artist, Alice Burnhope. To compliment current exhibition Earthbound, learn the basics of natural dyeing in this fun and interactive workshop. Create a dye bath using food waste and mordants, then create beautiful botanical patterns on fabric and paper using the bundle dye & Hapa Zome techniques. Take home three swatches including a small painting on card made with natural dye inks.

In this workshop Alice will share her expertise on sustainable practices and the therapeutic benefits of working with natural materials. It’s a hands-on experience that combines creativity with environmental awareness.

All materials provided. Please note this workshop is for adults only.

Current exhibitions at The New Art Gallery Walsall (Free admission) 

• Earthbound. Until 8 June 2025
• REFLECTOR. Until 9 March 2025
• Equal + Able = Not a Label. Until 18 May 2025.
• The Joy Project. 21 February – 6 July 2025

March events at Walsall Arena & Arts Centre

Hawbush Road, Bloxwich, Walsall, WS3 1AG. 
Box Office: 0300 555 2898. Box Office opening hours: Monday to Friday, 10am to 2pm. 
Online booking available 24 hours at www.walsallarena.com

21st Century Tennessee

Saturday 1 March, 7.30pm. £26
Get ready to experience the passion of 21st-century country music as we pay homage to the genre’s biggest stars. Join us for a night of incredible tunes, authentic Nashville vibes, and a whole lot of boot-stomping fun. Featuring songs such as "When It Rains It Pours," "Before He Cheats," "Chicken Fried," "Need You Now," "Wagon Wheel," "Last Night," "Tennessee Whiskey," and many, many more.

SOLD OUT - Al Murray - Guv Island

Friday 7 March, 7.30pm
The people have spoken! Not only do we have a new Government, but by popular demand The Pub Landlord is back for another round of Guv Island in 2025, with some freshly brewed material on the menu.

Rock 'n' Pop meets Jazz

Wednesday 12 March, 7pm. £8
A new event by Walsall Music Education Service combining both Rock 'n' Pop and Jazz. This will include a selection of Rock 'n' Pop bands and the Jazz Combo from Walsall Music Education Service. They will be joined by the professional and award-winning group, Walsall Jazz Orchestra.

Taylormania

Thursday 13 March, 7.30pm. £29.50
An award-winning extravaganza that plays tribute to one of the leading contemporary recording artists of our time. Katy Ellis, a self-obsessed ‘Swiftie’ with an incredible live band and dancers, promises to deliver the most authentic recreation of a Taylor Swift show you will ever see!

Ireland The Show

Friday 14 March, 7.30pm. £27.50
This unmissable production will take you on a journey through the decades of a globally loved culture and will showcase songs from the legendary Dubliners, Makem and Clancy, and The Pogues, to name but a few. If it's all things Irish you like, then this is certainly the show for you.

Streisand – The Greatest Star

Friday 21 March, 7.30pm. £27.50
Starring Kearra Bethany, as seen on ITV’s STARSTRUCK, ‘The Greatest Star - Barbra Streisand Tribute Show’ takes you on a magical musical journey through time. As you sit back and relax, enjoy the sounds of this fabulous ‘concert-style’ production. Backed by a fabulous LIVE band and joined on stage by guest artistes for the iconic duets, it’ll bring back all the ‘Mem’ries’.

Sing The Musicals

Saturday 22 March, 7.30pm. £27.50
Direct from London's West End, experience the first national tour of the greatest musicals of all time. Featuring a sensational live band and talented character singers, accompanied by a giant screen with sing-along lyrics, this is the must-see show of 2024/25!

Walsall XL Comedy Club with Andy Parsons, Mike Gunn, John Robertson & Esther Manito

Wednesday 26 March, 7.30pm. £26.50
Get ready for the very best in comedy. All of the acts at Walsall XL Comedy Club (including the ‘support acts’) are the very best in the business. Many of which have TV credits, including Live at the Apollo, so you can be rest assured that you’ll have the very best comedy club experience.

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Friday 28 March, 7.30pm. Tickets from £21
Expect a night of high energy and feel-good rock and-roll, performed by an all-live band. This joyous show features all the hits including Proud Mary, River Deep, Simply The Best, Private Dancer, and many more!

March events at Walsall Leather Museum

Littleton Street West, Walsall, WS2 8EW
Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm. Closed on Sundays and Mondays. 
Free admission. 
01922 652288 | www.walsall.gov.uk/leathermuseum

Stitchers & Skivers Adult Craft sessions

Wednesday 5 March, 10am-1pm & 1.30-4.30pm.
£6.50 (inc. materials, tea and biscuits). Booking essential.
An opportunity to try your hand at new crafts.  Each month we try something different and participants are encouraged to have a go and experiment!  We supply support, starter ideas, materials, chat and tea and biscuits. So if you are looking for a friendly creative environment where you can meet people and try your hand at different things - Stitchers and Skivers is the place for you. March’s session will explore making Victorian puzzle cards.

LAST FEW TICKETS - The Real Peaky Blinders: An Illustrated Talk with Professor Carl Chinn MBE

Friday 7 March 2025, 11am. £5.
Stylish and dark, the BBC series the ‘Peaky Blinders’ recounts the exploits of the charismatic Thomas Shelby and his violent Birmingham criminal gang in the aftermath of the First World War. Named after the real peaky blinder gangs that blighted the lives of the respectable poor and police in the 1890s and early twentieth century, the dramatised gangsters are well-dressed, captivating, and powerful. By contrast, the real peaky blinders were petty criminals and back-street bullies whose reign of ruffianism was ended before 1914 thanks largely to strong policing directed by Charles Haughton Rafter, a Protestant Irishman. Appointed chief constable in 1899, his recruits took the fight to the peaky blinders and had to fulfil three criteria: Can they read, Can they write, Can they fight.

However, a former peaky blinder, Billy Kimber, went on to lead a vicious throng of rogues known as the Birmingham Gang, which plagued the racegoers of the Midlands and North of England, pickpocketing and blackmailing bookmakers for protection money. By 1921, they had also taken control of the highly profitable rackets on the racecourses of Southern England. Kimber’s rich pickings aroused covetous eyes, leading to Britain’s first major gangland war with London’s Sabini Gang headed by the Anglo-Italian Darby Sabini and including the Anglo-Jewish Alfie Solomon. The lives of these gangsters were as bloody and compelling as their fictionalised counterparts.

This, then, is the story of the Real Peaky Blinders, an illustrated talk with Professor Carl Chinn MBE. A great grandson of a real peaky blinder, he interviewed the younger brother of Alfie Solomon in 1987, along with others connected to the real gangs, and is the author of the Sunday Times number one bestseller, 'Peaky Blinders. The Real Story' (2019) and was the historical consultant for the BBC documentaries, ‘The Real Peaky Blinders’.

Patchwork Cushion Workshop (for adults)

Saturday 22 March 2025, 10.30am – 3.30pm. £35 inc. all materials.  No experience necessary. Booking and pre-payment essential.
Join Kate from Stitchety who will help you to create your own beautiful hand-stitched cushion cover. Choose from a variety of fabrics to make your own unique cushion cover.

ENDS.