This funky-yet-homely waterside café/bar/ venue opened in July 2010 with a view to supporting the harbour’s cultural shift towards good-quality local food, drink, culture and enterprise. And it’s quickly established itself as a one-stop-shop of local culture, hosting the respective HQs of Bristol Ferry Boat Company and, now, of upmarket cake supremo La Dame Gateau, not to mention a nightly programme of free live music, a menu of locally sourced ingredients and a growing weekend Harbourside Market.Using regional suppliers such as Powells of Olveston, Bristol Beer Factory and Bath local and good quality. Your lunchtime menu might include Frampton lamb stew with homemade bread (£7), pan-fried Cornish mackerel or leek and Blue Vinney tart (both £6), all served with fresh seasonal sides and free soup with bread to start. “Our approach is to use the venue imaginatively and offer it up for inspiring events especially with our suppliers and Bristol city neighbours,” explains Marketing Manager Lizzie Keates. The next example of that admirable ethos is a Tasting Event (26 Mar, 5.30pm: free, but book via ahoy@ no1harbourside.co.uk), to include a tasting session by the brilliant Bristol Beer Factory and a specially designed No.1 menu to accompany the fine ales. It’s planned as a warm-up for a larger Harbourside Beer Festival, pencilled in for June.

Watershed, Bristol’s pioneering arts and multimedia venue, celebrates its 30th birthday this summer

Watershed, Bristol’s pioneering arts and multimedia venue, celebrates its 30th birthday this summer. Watershed opened its doors in 1982 in the harbour transit sheds known as V and W Sheds – one of the earliest of the Council’s initiatives to get the derelict harbour back to life again – and quickly declared itself Britain’s First Media Centre, seeking to capture the shift in media at the point when satellite TV and Channel 4 were starting up. Thirty years on, the place is very much more than a thriving arts/cinema complex and café/ bar – it’s one of the most important facilitators of multimedia art projects in the UK, a crucial resource for artists, filmmakers, animators and anyone wanting to push the boundaries of their art form. The cinema side of the business is going as strong as ever – over 13,000 people trooped in to see award-winning silent movie ‘The Artist’ (inset) during February, making it the most popular of the 7500 films screened at Watershed since ’82. The ‘shed will be celebrating its first 30 years with a public event on 7 June – see watershed.co.uk for updates or check Shipshape’s summer issue. Before then, a typically packed and eclectic spring programme includes the return of Encounters (4-25 Mar), Watershed’s short film and animation festival, with a showcase of nominated short films from the Oscars, BAFTAs, Cartoon d’Or and European Film Awards (Grant Orchard’s Oscar nominee ‘A Morning Stroll’, pictured). Around the same time, a season of films by Contemporary Japanese Auteurs (14-25 March) showcases the cream of contemporary Japanese filmmaking talent, while Wednesdays and Saturdays during April will feature a retrospective for revered Czech puppet animator Jiří Trnka, dubbed ‘the Walt Disney of the East’.
More: watershed.co.uk

Popular open studios event headlines a busy spring at Spike

Late spring brings with it an essential date in any Bristol art lover’s calendar. Spike Island, the vast former tea-packing factory turned artspace, houses some 85 artists, designers, filmmakers, animators and printmakers within its 80,000 sq ft: and on May’s first Bank Holiday, they throw open their doors and invite art-lovers and Sunday strollers in for a snoop around. With dozens of open studios (like that of irreverent conceptual artist Anton Goldenstein), not to mention open-to-all art workshops and even its very own pop-up café, the Open is always a huge hit, luring in thousands of Bristolians every year. What’s more, Spike’s neighbouring artspaces Picture This, Bristol Diving School, Works|Projects and Studio Upstairs also get in on the act with their own exhibitions and events. You’ll be able to download a full schedule for this year’s Spike Island Open (4-7 May) from the website from early April. A Bank Holiday mosey around Spike will also give you the chance to check out the artspace’s two current exhibitions, including a first major UK show by French duo Dewar & Gicquel (6 Apr-17 June). This splendidly off-kilter duo learn craft techniques from scratch and use them to create idiosyncratic works of art. Their subject matter is varied and unexpected, often making reference to forms of exoticism as filtered by European eyes – such as 19th-century Japan – as well as popular hobbies including fishing, camping and boxing. The artists plan to fill Spike Island’s central gallery with a mound of local clay, using it to sculpt a scene or tableau involving several male nudes. The figures will remain unfired, left to change throughout the course of the exhibition. This continues in the vein of recent works such as ‘Carl Cox’, a photographic work that involved a figurative, unfired clay sculpture of the iconic techno/house DJ being produced in the countryside, photographed and then abandoned and allowed to collapse back into the ground (see picture).

In bars across much of Spain, the practice is to offer a small plate of something tasty with each round of drinks bought… and now the Lido, Clifton’s brilliant restaurant, spa and pool ensemble just a short hop up Park Street from the harbour, is following suit. Buy a round of beers, sherries or wines in the elegant Lido Bar between 5.30 and 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, and the team will treat you to one of their excellent homemade tapas, which range from marinated olives or sobrassada, a Balearic, paprika-rich sausage, to a fi ne Spanish tortilla or anchovy toast. Elsewhere, the Lido team will be making the most of any spring sunshine by sparking up the poolside barbecue. £20 gets your fi rst drink, a choice of meat or fi sh and oodles of salads, dips and breads. First come first served, though Swim and Barbecue vouchers will be available on the website. Follow them on Twitter @lidobristol to get early news of future barbie plans.

City Sightseeing, operators of fun, informative bus tours of central Bristol, are looking at a busy  summer ahead. The company has enlarged its fleet, which now consists of three state-of-the-art open-top buses, and is running tours right through to the end of December this year. CS’s 75-minute circular tour of historic central Bristol allows you to hop on and off at will, visiting historic and cultural hotspots as you go. Its team of passionate, knowledgeable commentators got the company nominated,
last year, for Bristol Tourism’s Activity of the Year 2011 award. You can buy one-, two- and three-day bus tickets as well as a two-day bus/ boat combo ticket in conjunction with Bristol Ferry Boat Company.This year, CS will also be offering plenty of all-ages fun on board, working with storyteller Martin Maudsley and local pirate extraordinaire Captain Barnacle (pictured) on a variety of children’s pirate and storytelling bus trips. More info on these next issue.

When Bristol author/playwright ACH Smith penned his 1997 masterpiece ‘Up the Feeder, Down the Mouth’, he subtitled it ‘The long life and sudden death of Bristol City Docks’

And that, in a nutshell, is the story told by Smith’s brilliant play: a dramatic account, in dialogue and song, of the 1,000-year history of Bristol’s docks, zooming in on its last years and painting a picture of life for the last generation of dockers as work began to wind down during the 1970s.

First staged at Bristol Old Vic that same year, the play then made a memorable revival in 2001, staged in the Industrial Museum and along Princes Wharf outside. The most memorable moment of an extraordinary evening was the 1,000-tonne cargo ship docking outside, bang on cue, every night, not to mention a supporting cast of working cranes, steam trains, lorries and swarms of extras moving goods around.

Small wonder that the astonishingly ambitious show was a critical and audience favourite. The 2001 revival booked out its entire run before opening night, and  Bristolians had to be turned away in their droves. The Observer, in its review of 2001, called it ‘the single most magical moment of the year’.

The play also got its facts and stories bang on: Smith spent hours collecting tales from 50 exdockers and their wives. The resulting story was so true to life, and to the sad end of the working docks, that the playwright recalls seeing old men in tears after every performance.

Now, ten years on, Bristol’s Redcliffe Press have released a new edition of Smith’s celebrated play, complete with archive photographs of the docks and of that feted 2001 production. Bristol docks may have gone, but ‘Up the Feeder’ remains a moving testimony to their long life and sudden death.

More: www.redcliffepress.co.uk

While much of the spring season at the Tobacco Factory is given over to the incomparable Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory (‘King Lear’, to 24 Mar, and ‘The Cherry Orchard’, 29 Mar-5 May), its kid-sister theatre The Brewery is offering up a typically packed and enticing menu of touring fringe theatre. Our springtime pick is ‘The Vanishing Horizon’, an Edinburgh Fringe sellout show by Total Theatre Award nominees Idle Motion. Using maps, paper aeroplanes and over 40 suitcases, IM’s physical and inventive show remembers the Roaring Twenties and the pioneers of aviation, when we began to carve our way through the skies, when flight was still impossibly exotic and Croydon Airport was the gateway to the known universe. From this colourful backdrop, the play unfurls the story of a woman on a journey to discover her past – a journey that takes her from the crowded airports of our world to another, resting far above the clouds. “A little jewel of a show… propelled by real ingenuity,” enthused The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner, while The Herald noted that “the staging is a delight of hidden surprises and the ending is so heartfelt, it brings a lump to the throat.”

More: tobaccofactorytheatre.com

Bristol Ferry Boat Company are seeing in the spring with another clutch of their hugely popular Waterside Wildlife boat trips

Step on board and spend a blissful few hours cruising down the magnificent Avon Gorge in one of the Ferry Boat fleet, with brilliant Bristol naturalist Ed Drewitt on hand to point out the area’s natural marvels along the way.

So, what can you expect to see? Over to Ed: “Between the end of April and beginning of June, grey herons nest on the river near Shirehampton, offering us a glimpse into the tree-nesting habits of these usually unsociable birds. The later trips, meanwhile, often reveal the spiky ‘hairdos’ of the young herons as they stand on their stick nests. Cormorants use nearby trees for perching and you can usually spot the guano covered leaves and branches first before seeing the archaic-looking profiles of these fish-eating birds.”

Spring is also a fine time to see the Gorge’s celebrated peregrine falcons. With the peregrine chicks hatching at the end of April, the parents will be out and about catching food and bringing it back to their young. Wading birds are also very much a feature. “The early cruises may well catch redshank, lapwing and common sandpiper passing through on their way north to breed, while in June, early or failed breeding birds may be journeying back south. Songbirds such as robins, blackbirds and thrushes can often be heard over the gentle sound of the boat’s engine, and overhead we could spot anything from swifts and house martins to sparrowhawks and buzzards. Mammals are perhaps less reliable – but there’s always the chance of a deer or a fox by the water’s edge.”

It’s a good idea to bring along a pair of binoculars, especially for spotting the peregrines in their vertiginous clifftop eyries. Tree-lovers will also find plenty to beguile: during springtime, the Gorge’s varied tree species will be in leaf, from the common beech trees to the unique, endemic Bristol whitebeam.

“The Avon Gorge provides a stunning landscape and its combined habitats of limestone grassland, woodland and cliffs allow flora and fauna to thrive,” Ed enthuses. “Its microclimate is so unusual that it houses many plants and insects, such as the silky-wave moth and Bristol onion, which are either unique to the Gorge or found in very few other sites in the world.

“The spring trips are always fruitful, because birds are busy migrating or breeding, flying back and forth collecting food for young or building nests. The trees and grasses are full of insects, a crucial food source for many of the bird species. And the light and temperature make for a very pleasant a morning or afternoon sailing down the Avon, seeing a familiar landscape from a completely different angle.” Waterside Wildlife trips take place on Sun 29 Apr (9.45am-1.15pm), Sat 19 May (4-7.30pm), Sat 9 June (8.15am-11.45am) and Sun 23 Sept (9.45am-1.15pm), departing from the City Centre landing stage (Cascade Steps). Tickets: £19/£17 concessions

Hip hop, folk, desert grooves… and classic cinema

Legend has it that Tinariwen, the Touareg collective of former guerrilla fighters from the remote southern Sahara, traded in their machine guns for electric guitars when they chanced upon
the music of Jimi Hendrix in the training camps of Colonel Gaddafi. Whatever their background, the collective’s rolling, yearning grooves and uncompromising messages of freedom have earned them two BBC World Music Award nominations, an international following and the admiration of discerning musos from Robert Plant and Santana to Thom Yorke.

The group’s newest, critically acclaimed album Tassili made album of the month in both Mojo and Uncut magazines. So it’s not just committed world music fans, but anyone with an ear for new, unusual and captivating sounds, who should make a beeline for the Colston Hall, where Tinariwen show up in all their eight-strong glory on Sat 7 Apr.

Their visit is perhaps the most eye-catching date in a packed spring at the Hall. Other dates for the diary include Breakin’ Convention (Thur 31 May), the acclaimed international festival of hip hop dance theatre now in its ninth year, and this year hosted and curated by UK hip hop theatre supremo Jonzi D. On Sat 12 May, meanwhile, you’ll need popcorn at the ready as the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra pay a live tribute to the great John Williams, whose compositions have scored the likes of ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Jaws’ and ‘Indiana Jones’.

Just a few days earlier, the May Bank Holiday sees the return, for its second year, of Bristol Folk Festival (Sat 5-Mon 7 May), bringing with it some of folk music’s biggest names including Cara Dillon, Karine Polwart and the Grammy-nominated folk/world supergroup Afro Celt Sound System. The Shipshape Folk Desk is most excited, meanwhile, about the visit of the brilliant Show of Hands, widely acknowledged as the finest acoustic roots duo in England. As well as top performers, the family-friendly festival will feature morris dancers, mummers and maypoles, ceilidhs, workshops and a market.

More: colstonhall.org / bristolfolkfestival.com

Exquisite drawings at Bristol Museum this spring

As part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year, a set of exquisite drawings by the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci, held by the Royal Collection, visits Bristol as part of a short British tour.

‘Ten Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci’, which visits the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery (one of just fi ve chosen venues) from 30 March-10 June, features a set of illustrations that reflect the striking range of da Vinci’s talents and activities.

Though trained as a painter, Leonardo dabbled in sculpture and architecture, engineering, botany, geology, mapmaking, hydraulics, optics and anatomy. His main tool of investigation was drawing (in pen and ink, chalk and metalpoint), and his hundreds of surviving illustrations help build a picture of the life and work of this archetypal Renaissance Man.

Included in the exhibition is a sketch for an enormous equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza, the father of the artist’s patron, the Duke of Milan, and a study for a painting of Leda, the mythical princess seduced by Jupiter (both pictured). More personal is a sheet of studies of apocalyptic scenes, showing Leonardo’s facination with destruction towards the end of his life.

A rare chance to see, up close and personal, work by one of the cultural titans of the last millennium.

More: bristol.gov.uk/page/museums-and-galleries