Time is moving in mysterious ways at the moment. It's been possible over the last month or so to mark out the beginning of each week with the arrival online of a different production streaming from the Hampstead Theatre archives.

The way that theatres and other arts institutions have leapt into action over the past week, providing a wealth of material online and new ways to connect with audiences, has been truly inspirational.

St. Patrick’s Day, and socialising itself, has been all but cancelled. But turn the rickety door-handle of a bohemian pub near Brighton station, and a poignant scene is unfolding.

For those wondering if performance poet Kate Tempest would be upstaged or introduced by either pandemic panic or International Women’s Day – know that a) she’s fearless and b) she practices equality always. As such, there’s no pre-amble, other than a hope that her gig will “resonate into the night and the days to come”.

Recent politics surround the EU and nationhood, fantasies of Irish Sea bridges and trading borders more porous than limestone have revived the granular rub between Eire and Britain, and the Celtic Tiger cool of the Nineties is a history module these days.

This morning the largest annual, curated multi-arts festival in England launched and announced its programme of events. With Guest Director, British and Ethiopian poet-playwright-broadcaster Lemn Sissay, MBE, at the helm, Brighton Festival 2020 is themed as Imagine Nation and runs May 2^-24. For the seventh year running, theartsdesk will be a major media partner, showcasing preview interviews and reviewing the best of the festival.

"The deaf don’t believe in silence. Silence is the invention of the hearing." This is one of two author’s "Notes" to Ilya Kaminsky’s latest collection, Deaf Republic, which was nominated for this year’s T. S. Eliot Prize. As an afterword, the note acts as a cautionary gloss on the silences within the preceding poems: do not take these at face-value, as absences of sound. Instead, they seem to ask us to think of silence as a shorthand for ideas of courage, fortitude – silence as "a soul’s noise".

As one half of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award-winning duo with Ben Walker, Josienne Clarke released four superb albums, including 2014’s Nothing Can Bring Back The Hour and their finale, 2018’s Seedlings All. There’s an absolute clarity to her voice, as if it's some lucid if troubled body of water through which you can see to the depths, and the powerful forces unfolding down there.

Benjamin Britten died on 4 December 1976. Last night’s Wigmore Hall concert, on the 43rd anniversary of his passing, proved that his real legacy lies not in inert acts of homage but a living engagement both with his work, and the unruly energies that drove it.

We like to think of ourselves as a nation of eccentrics, but some take their patriotic duties more seriously than others. Al Alvarez – poet, critic, poker player, rock climber, old-school literary mensch, who has died at the age of 90 – took his first dip in the ponds on Hampstead Heath at 11. Sixty-five years later, he was still at it.