A sold-out concert from Rag 'N' Bone Man at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on March 5 will be one of the great highlights of this year’s BRITs Week from the charity War Child.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspaper. It's really
00:06lovely to speak to Claire Sanders-Wright who is the Live Music Lead for War Child. It's
00:12a busy time at the moment and music is so interlinked with what War Child as a charity
00:18does, doesn't it? Just to set the scene first, War Child is all about, well I guess it's
00:24in the title, isn't it? What does War Child do? So War Child, we provide, we work in 14
00:33different countries and we provide emergency aid, we provide psychosocial support, so therapy
00:41for children, children that live in absolutely
00:44dire circumstances in war zones. So initially we'll provide emergency aid, provide play-based
00:55therapy and we're often the first charity there and the last to leave. And the charity's been
01:03doing that for 31 years now, hasn't it? That's right. And throughout that time, music, the music
01:09industry has been a fantastic supporter to the work you do. How do you explain that? The musicians
01:14are naturally generous, decent people, do you think? I mean, I think so. We've been working
01:22with musicians for the last 30 years and everyone from, you know, Brian Eno to Kate Bush to
01:31Joy Crooks to Kasabian to Ed Sheeran, you know, we've had, we're very lucky to work with such
01:40incredible, generous artists and not just the artists but their fans as well. We put on a lot
01:48of shows and we find, we find the artists we book have incredibly wonderful, socially conscious,
01:57engaged audiences that really support our work and really want to help. And they ask us questions.
02:04I'll be at a gig and like someone will come and ask me a question about somewhere where we work or
02:10where is the money going, etc. And it's, yeah, we love it. Fantastic. And a key part of the
02:18year for you are your Brits Weeks and they have become weeks, haven't they, getting longer?
02:24You've got three of these Brits Weeks this week in effect, haven't you?
02:28Absolutely. It used to just be one night and then it was a week and now it's sort of Brits Weeks.
02:36Brits Weeks, so it's around the Brit Awards and we book some of our favourite artists and
02:44we put them in much smaller venues than they're used to these days.
02:49And that's our reason for speaking today. You've got Ragan Bowman coming to Bexhill
02:54playing a venue probably a fifth of the size of the London ones that he would normally play.
02:58Exactly. Exactly. Which is, oh, I can't, I can't wait. When Rory, Ragan Bowman and his team said
03:08yes to playing this show, we were ecstatic. In fact, it's the third time that Rory has played,
03:15that Ragan Bowman has played Brits Week for us. He's played twice before, once in 2017 and once
03:22in 2018. And not surprisingly, looking on the website, it says sold out for Bexhill.
03:28Yeah, sold out in about 10 minutes. Of course. And the great thing is as well,
03:36what we do is we sell a bunch of the tickets and we hold a bunch of tickets back so that people can
03:41enter a prize draw to win a pair of tickets. It's just a fibre to enter the prize draw.
03:47So even though the shows do sell out quickly, of course they do, because they're much smaller
03:52venues, people do have a chance to win a pair of tickets. The worst thing that happens is,
04:00well, the best thing that happens is you win a pair of tickets. The worst thing that happens is
04:04you've just given five pounds to a wonderful charity and a brilliant cause. And your Brits
04:09Weeks have raised over the years more than seven million pounds, haven't they? Which is incredible.
04:157.4 million pounds. And I'm hoping after this year, we hit that eight million mark. That's a
04:22personal aim of mine. And I think we're on track to do it. Good luck with that.
04:30Rory's sold out gig is in Bexhill on March the 5th. Really love to speak to you and good luck
04:36with this fabulous work. Thank you. Thank you.