Published: 08 July 2010
by DAN CARRIER

ON Monday night I was fortunate enough to be at the Bull and Gate in Kentish Town to catch a performance by the band Sound of Rum. Fronting this extraordinary three-piece, playing to celebrate Camden music company Key Production’s 20th birthday party, was the poet Kate Tempest – and after the gig she gave me a copy of a DVD showing her at work. Tempest is seriously good, and on the verge, I reckon, of being a household name. I thoroughly recommend you check her out so you can then turn to your mates in the next few months and say: “Didn’t I warn you about this rapper?” Much of her brilliance is captured in the DVD, showing her and her band at work in their studio. Go to www.soundofrum.com and have a look. It’s awesome.

Meanwhile, I have word that one of the best and strangely little-known museums in London has been hosting a film-making workshop for people at the nearby Mary Ward centre. The Hunterian Museum, at the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, is a veritable celebration of the Victorian biological quirk. It’s packed with odd-shaped skeletons and other medical curios, and the film catalogues the Mary Ward people’s responses to  the museum. Called Encounters: 10 Words to John Hunter, it runs from July 13 through to September.  See www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums/exhibitions for more details.