churchs

Charlotte Church struts on to the stage, wearing a baseball cap and a silver fringe-trimmed dress, and growls: “I wanna fuck you like an animal.” The crowd howls: “Yaass!” The feral Nine Inch Nails cover has become a staple opener for Church’s Pop Dungeon – an event that, for the past six years, has filled sticky-floored venues and festival tents around the UK.Described as “a genre-fluid jukebox of anthems”, Pop Dungeon sees the Welsh legend front what is essentially the world’s greatest covers band. “Think a pool party…

When asked to choose their favourite story in The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Deesha Philyaw’s acclaimed debut collection, most people, the author tells me, say Peach Cobbler. This simultaneously funny and punch-in-the-guts-devastating tale focuses on Olivia, a young girl in the American south who believes the local pastor to be God, because when he visits she overhears her mother screaming “Oh, God!” from the bedroom.Central to the story is the “best cobbler in the world” – a fruit pie that Olivia’s mother bakes for…