Nick Cave performs ‘Conversations’ inside an empty Ally Pally

14 July 2020: London’s Alexandra Palace is hosting its first post-lockdown performance, opening up its empty rooms to musician Nick Cave.

Fans will be able to stream his Idiot Prayer concert film, captured inside the venue’s eerily quiet spaces, on 23 July, provided they’ve bought a ticket. It features Cave performing deconstructed versions of his songs, reimagining them as spoken word pieces. He describes this format as ‘Conversations’.

Cave had to tread carefully while filming, relying on plenty of masks and hand sanitiser, and on-set ‘COVID officers’ that kept an eye on the crew’s temperatures and social distancing. The musician describes the resulting film as ‘something very strange and very beautiful that spoke into this uncertain moment, but was in no way bowed by it.’