Spotlight Talk | Marc Silk | The Voice of Your Imagination + meet and greet
Saturdays 1 and 29 August 2026, 11am – 12noon | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Renowned British voice actor, Marc Silk, is known for voicing numerous characters in cartoons, games and films. He specialises in character creation and performance across all media, bringing some of the world’s most celebrated characters and stories to life.
Marc was the voice of Global Defence Force agent Captain Wayne Rigby in Thunderbirds Are Go! as well as the voice of several guest characters in the show. In 2021, he played Troy Tempest in Anderson Entertainment’s Stingray audio range. Best known for his roles as Aks Moe in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Bob in the US dub Bob the Builder and Nero in Danger Mouse, Marc has collaborated with a vast array of major entertainment and gaming studios over his 30-year career. These include Lucasfilm, BBC, Cartoon Network and Warner Bros.
He’ll take you on a journey through his fascinating career, with a plethora of anecdotes as we meet the voices of our comic heroes.
The talk will be followed by a meet and greet with Marc in summer exhibition 54321FAB! where he will be signing autographs and meeting fans. There’ll even be appearances from Captain Scarlet himself and other favourite characters!
This event will take place on Saturdays 1 and 29 August.
£10 for the talk; free entry to the exhibition.
Spotlight Talk | Graham Bleathman | Master of the Cutaway + meet and greet
Saturday 18 July 2026, 11am – 12noon | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Graham Bleathman, one of the country’s leading illustrators, is well known for his work on Gerry Anderson’s TV series including Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Stingray.
He is best known for producing cross-section, ‘cutaway’ illustrations of spacecraft, vehicles and locations from these shows, as well as Dan Dare and Wallace & Gromit. He started illustrating for fan magazines in the 1980s, and since then has his illustrations have appeared in a number of books, magazines and comics. Graham’s other work includes historical subjects, alongside production art on animated releases of Doctor Who and Dad’s Army episodes.
A master of the technical illustration, join Graham for a fascinating insight as he talks about his experiences working on these amazing projects and his fantastic new work Worcester: 2066, specially commissioned for our summer exhibition 54321FAB!
The talk will be followed by a meet and greet with Graham in the exhibition, where he will be autographing, sketching and meeting fans. There’ll even be appearances from Captain Scarlet himself and other favourite characters!
£10 for the talk; free entry to the exhibition.
The High Dosage Tour of Steward’s Chemist Shop
The High Dosage Tour of Steward’s Chemist Shop
First Friday of the month, 11 – 11.30am | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Step inside the fantastic Steward’s Chemist Shop at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum and discover its history…
Take the High Dosage tour – with the chance to see items that are not usually on display – in the hidden realm behind the Dispensing Screen.
What secrets does the Victorian Chemist’s Shop hold? Come and find out!
The display was set up after the closure of Steward’s Chemist Shop at 27 High Street, when the entire shop along with the fixtures and fittings were purchased in 1974 and transported to the museum to be redisplayed.
£4.50 for the talk; book via the link below. Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit.
Please note there is no High Dosage tour on Friday 4 December 2026, but the chemist shop will be open (free to visit) to have a look around!
Or call the telephone box office on 0333 666 3366.
Your Worcester: Gallery Tour
Saturdays (dates below), 11 – 11.30am | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Enjoy a guided tour of permanent display, Your Worcester, an exciting exhibition which opened in 2025. Find out about the city, its astonishing history and changing traditions, and what this all means to the people who live here now.
Your Worcester features favourites from the museum collection together with new objects added to the collection by the community, all with a link to Worcester’s long and rich heritage.
Covering everything from the teeth of King John to Lea & Perrins, Worcester City Football Club, and the clothes of Windrush arrivals to the city, the exhibition is designed by the community, for the community.
This tour will take you on a journey through Your Worcester – bring along your questions and see what you’ll discover!
Talk dates 2026
- Saturdays 4 and 18 April
- Saturdays 2, 16 and 30 May
- Saturday 27 June
- Saturdays 8 and 22 August
- Saturday 19 September
- Saturdays 3 and 17 October
- Saturdays 14 and 28 November
- Saturday 12 December
£4.50 for the talk (free entry to the Art Gallery and Museum).
Or call the telephone box office on 0333 666 3366.
Bite-size Talk | All Dug Up!
Tuesday 8th September, 2 – 2.30pm | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Each year thousands of finds, excavated across Worcestershire, come into the care of the Museums Service. Join our Curator to hear about significant discoveries and recent highlights.
£4.95 for the talk. Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit.
Talk | Ghosts and Apparitions in the English Civil War – with Professor Darren Oldridge
Saturday 24 October 2026, 2 – 3pm | The Commandery
The English Civil War was haunted by spirits. This presentation considers some of the spookiest episodes in the conflict, including reports of “fearful visions” and spectral armies in the sky.
Professor Darren Oldridge will place these tales in the larger context of supernatural beliefs in the age.
£10. Book your place below. If you’d like to look around The Commandery, you can get half-price general admission from the shop on the day of the workshop.
This talk is part of a commemorative programme of events for the 375th anniversary of the Battle of Worcester, 1651.
The Last Battle: 375th Anniversary
Saturday 5 September 2026, 10am – 4pm | The Commandery
Commemorate the final battle of the English Civil War – the Battle of Worcester – with an exciting day of talks, displays and crafts, in the former Royalist headquarters.
Discover Civil War weaponry, with musket and pike drills from Worcester Reenactors, delve into the brutal world of 17th-century battlefield surgery with medical historian Kevin Goodman, and hear from the Battle of Worcester Society.
Younger visitors can decorate their very own wooden standard (flag) to take home!
Plan your visit
General admission applies (children’s crafts included); free admission to those with a season or residents’ pass. Find out more.
Book day tickets to The Commandery. Advance booking is not essential, you can just turn up, pay in the shop, and get stuck in!
Talk | English Civil War fiction – with author Charles Cordell
Sunday 30 August 2026, 1 – 2pm | The Commandery
Author Charles Cordell will be talking about writing historical fiction and Divided Kingdom book #2 – The Keys of Hell and Death. He will describe his journey from ‘Army to Author’ and writing historical fiction set within the English Civil War. The talk will discuss how and why 17th Century historical fiction can feel so relevant today. Q&A and a book signing will follow the talk.
Charles Cordell is the author of English Civil War historical fiction series Divided Kingdom. His writing has received media praise and editorial reviews, including in The Times. His novels have been endorsed by the likes of Ben Kane (bestselling author), David Gilman (award winning author), Professor Ronald Hutton CBE (TV historian) and others.
£10. Book your place below. If you’d like to look around The Commandery, you can get half-price general admission from the shop on the day of the workshop.
This talk is part of a commemorative programme of events for the 375th anniversary of the Battle of Worcester, 1651.
Talk | The Civil Wars in 100 Objects – with Professor Andrew Hopper
Sunday 12 July 2026, 1 – 2pm | The Commandery
The civil wars between 1638 and 1651 were the most destabilising conflicts that the British and Irish peoples have ever endured. During these turbulent times ordinary people experienced a dizzying world of change. This book brings a history of objects approach to access this world of impoverishment, bereavement and suffering alongside exciting changes in religion, science, and politics. From propaganda newsbooks to household goods, through the personal possessions and weapons of the famous, to the architecture that defined religious and military change, these objects offer intimate connections with the past and shed new light on these tumultuous times.
Andrew Hopper is a historian of religion, politics and society in early modern England with research expertise on the British and Irish Civil Wars. He has two monographs ‘Black Tom’: Sir Thomas Fairfax and the English Revolution (Manchester University Press, 2007) and Turncoats and Renegadoes: Changing Sides in the English Civil Wars (Oxford University Press, 2012). He is currently working on his third monograph Widowhood and Bereavement in the English Civil Wars under contract with Oxford University Press, which is based on the AHRC-funded Civil War Petitions Project (2017-2022) for which he is Principal Investigator. Andrew is also the chair of the editorial board of Midland History, a patron of the Naseby Battlefield Project, and Academic Director of the National Civil War Centre, where he was co-curator of the Battle-Scarred exhibition.
£10. Book your place below. If you’d like to look around The Commandery, you can get half-price general admission from the shop on the day of the workshop.
This talk is part of a commemorative programme of events for the 375th anniversary of the Battle of Worcester, 1651.
Talk | Battle wound treatment during the English Civil War – with Kevin Goodman
Saturday 20 June 2026, 4 – 5pm | The Commandery
“I dressed his wound and God healed it.”
Terrible wounds were inflicted upon Royalist and Parliamentarian soldiers during the English Civil War, from swords, muskets and pikes.
Medical historian Kevin Goodman will demonstrate how surgeons treated wounds before antiseptics and antibiotics were available, with the aid of surgical instruments from the period.
£10. Book your place below.
This talk is part of a commemorative programme of events for the 375th anniversary of the Battle of Worcester, 1651.