WHEN former Emmerdale actor Tanya Vital found herself jobless and homeless in 2020 she left London, moved in with her mum in Bradford, and started turning her passion to promote creative northern talent into a business.

She taught herself, via YouTube to live-stream performances and, after more than 40 shows, featuring more than 80 local artists, with thousands of views, she set up Vital Culture UK, a platform championing under-represented artists in the North.

“I have advocated for more opportunities for northern artists throughout my career,” said Tanya. “When Covid hit I knew many arts organisations would make drastic cuts, and under-represented northern artists would become even more marginalised.”

Tanya, an actor and producer who has been in TV's Emmerdale, Happy Valley and Red Sparrow, said: "When lockdown hit last year, everyone turned to the arts. Musicians live-streamed sets. Theatres live-streamed previous productions. But along with this often overwhelming amount of content, the deterioration of the live arts scene developed at a rapid rate and has yet to fully recover.

"I was determined to create a platform where I could scream from the rafters about the world-class talent that is right here; I wanted to create opportunities, a community and a culture for Northern artists to know that they're appreciated, their work is valid and that we can have a healthy career in the arts with the right support.

"I came home and for two weeks I watched YouTube videos on how to livestream then began to get to work. Bradford Council was one of my earliest supporters, giving me a small grant."

Added Tanya: "In March 2020 I live-streamed my first show from my mum’s front room - and it was awful! My laptop wasn’t strong enough. Eight artists, all on a shoddy video call. The stream kept crashing, it was a mess. But it taught me what I needed to learn - I had an audience and had started a community. I paid artists and they got to share their work."

A digital music event she produced last year, called How Covid Stole Christmas, attracted over 1,000 viewers. In September Vital Culture was announced as one of the top 100 CreaTech Ones to Watch companies by the Creative Industries Council.

Tomorrow night Tanya presents A Not So Silent Night at The Mill Studios in Bradford, bringing together pop, urban and dance artists from across the North, including Bradford’s Haze Da Martian, Shantelle King, DJ JLud and Tonia, Leeds rapper S1lva and DJ Abi Whistance.

“Last year’s event was such a success, I’m excited to build on that and encourage new audiences around the world to experience these great artists. Call me Bradford’s own Jools Holland!” said Tanya.

* A Not So Silent Night! is Saturday, December 18 from 8pm. Tickets to join the studio audience or live stream are at vitalculture.com.

Read Tanya's story here:

After an incredible year of delivering high quality digital arts and culture events, being dubbed a ‘northern impresario’, and a ‘one woman arts festival’, I’m back this month with another festive event to knock your Christmas socks off!

A Not So Silent Night brings you an evening of soulful house, r&b, bassline, and Bradford-born rap that you can watch online or join us live in The Mill.tv studios right here in Bradford.

I’m an actor and a producer and the past 18 months have been a whirlwind for my arts practice. We’ve seen the arts and culture sector simultaneously decimated and become one of the only things that kept us all together.

When lockdown hit last year and live venues closed, absolutely everyone turned to the arts to cope. People headed to Netflix to binge their feel good shows. Musicians flocked to Facebook and to livestream their sets. Books sales hit an eight year high. Even theatres wanted in on the action, live-streaming their previous productions. Dream by the Royal Shakespeare Company was viewed over 65,000 times by viewers across 92 countries. There seemed to be something for everyone but along with this, often overwhelming, amount of content to consume, the deterioration of the live arts scene developed at such a rapid rate and has yet to fully recover.

Unconventionally for me, I thought I had 2020 all planned. I was leaving my far too expensive London flat, to come back up north to work for the year at a beautiful Theatre. It sounds like something from a drama, but I kid you not, as we are packing the van with my belongings ready to store at my mum’s here in Bradford for a few days, we get the call to lockdown.

It’s fine, I thought, it won’t last - a few weeks tops. A few days later I get the call that the job is also gone; I find myself homeless, jobless and in a pit of despair not knowing what to do but knowing that I wasn’t going down without a fight.

An innovative drag artist I follow by the name of Biqtch Puddin was one of the first people I saw to make the digital exodus. The drag community being as affected as theatre performers because of the closures, Biqtch decided to take their community to the digital platform Twitch and create digital shows where artists could still perform and audiences could still watch and support.

Unsurprisingly these shows were a huge success. Truly eye opening to me, as I’d never seen Twitch until that point but it got me thinking; ‘How can I take inspiration from this and do something for performers in our city?’

I’ve been advocating for better representation my entire career, particularly for marginalised artists in our region and with this accent! Artists who have all the talent in the world but never get a look in. The workforce cuts were coming in swathes and I knew that it was going to become even harder for the talent in our region, so I had to do something about it.

I was determined to create a platform where I could scream from the rafters about the world class talent that is right here and isn’t going anywhere; I wanted to create opportunities, a community and a culture for our Northern artists to know that they are appreciated, their work is valid and that we can have a healthy career in the arts with the right support.

I came home and for two weeks straight I watched YouTube videos on how to livestream then began to get to work. Bradford Council was one of my earliest supporters giving me a small grant.

In March 2021 I live-streamed my first show from my mum’s front room - and it was awful! My poor laptop wasn’t strong enough. Eight artists all on a shoddy video call. We weren’t even using Zoom the way we do now, it was Skype. The stream kept crashing, it was a mess! But! It taught me what I needed to learn - I had an audience and had started a community. I paid artists and they got to share their work. A name change later, 40+ live shows streamed, 80+ artists featured, declared one of the UK’s top 100 CreaTech companies to watch by the Creative Industries Council in 2021, Vital Culture UK was well and truly born.

‘A Not So Silent Night’ is my second festive event and I’m really excited an honoured to team up with James Guy from urban media brand King of da Hillz to bring the world some great Yorkshire artists including Haze Da Martian, Shantelle King, DJ JLud, and Becky Rhodes among others.

The party is on Saturday, December 18 from 8pm. To join us in the studio costs £7 plus booking fee and to join us online is Pay As You Feel which means nobody is excluded but donations are very welcome to help me support more artists and bring you more parties!

See you there!