UB40 launches Midlands musical masterclass

Successful UK reggae practitioner UB40 is setting up a performing arts institute in its native Birmingham, with £20m of local authority and private-sector funding.

The project is being developed in tandem with South Birmingham College’s new campus. Apparently, students will be able to receive ‘masterclasses’ in music and other technical skills from the band’s members at the school, which UB40 hopes will rival Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, itself inspired by New York’s film and TV series Fame.

It doesn’t bear thinking about does it? ‘Fame. Oim ganna lif fur-ivah.’