Before the Flurry - and something at The Clubhouse

As our end-of-February deadline approaches we anticipate a flurry of entries for Buxton Fringe 2015. So our loins are girded in anticipation. Next week we'll be updating you on the new entries.

Meanwhile it is already obvious that the recently refurbished Old Clubhouse is going to be a hot Fringe venue this year. The Basin Street Jazz and Blues Band is doing two gigs there; they are fronted by the soulful Jules M Scott. Listen to Sugar in my bowl for a taster!

One of last delights of Fringe 2014 was Sam Slide's Trombone Tales. Well the bashful Sam was so moved by the response of two full houses he is back at the Clubhouse for 2015. 

Clubhouse regulars Club Acoustic are putting on a special session for the Fringe on July 15th. More Clubhouse jazz is on the way we are reliably informed - so watch this space.

In the meantime there is much going on in towns and villages all over Derbyshire thanks to Live and Local. Soonest, in the High Peak, is Mambo Jambo - an acoustic roots duo - playing in Chinley on 28 February. Blair Dunlop is at Wormhill Village Hall on 16 May. Fringe favourite Ginny Davis is in Alfreton on 20 March with a couple of plays from her Ruth Rich saga. The brilliant Lady Maisery - if you like The Unthanks then this is for you - are at Great Longstone on 26 Feb and Repton two days later. There is much, much more. Do check out the Live and Local site.


Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

This thing gets serious now.

Today is February 9. That means that if you plan to enter Buxton Fringe 2015 you have a little over 2 weeks to take advantage of our lowest-priced fee. Enter before February 28th for just £50 - and get maximum exposure on our website. A good number of shows are there already basking in the sunshine with plenty of space to spread out. If you can't finalise your show before the end of the month there is still plenty of time to get your entry in before our closing date of April 19th.

If you want to put your show on at Underground Venues - back at the Fringe for the 10th year - then check out their website. Underground Venues runs the two performance spaces in the cellars of the Old Hall Hotel and has some spaces at the Pavilion Arts Centre. UV will be accepting entries up until 23 March before deciding on their full programme for 2015.

The Buxton Festival programme looks to be pretty much complete: see a summary here. Tickets go on general sale for the Festival on April 1st - but become a Friend of the Festival to get first pick.

Previously we've encouraged you to get out to Arbor Low and New Mills; this time we suggest you spend a bit more time in Buxton. The town is surrounded by woodland - much of which is cared by for by a local charity, the Buxton Civic Association. There is a splendid 10 mile walk which links up the woodland. The Ring of Trees route is shown on the map linked here. The walk is worth doing at any time of the year. The BCA also maintains Poole's Cavern - usually a Fringe venue - and you can pick up a copy of the Ring of Trees route from the information office at the Cavern.


Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

Seeing the Bigger Picture at Buxton Fringe

Grinlow Art winners (credit: Ian J. Parkes)

This is an exciting time of year as events start rolling in to the Fringe, the list of upcoming shows becoming longer every week. Here at Fringe Towers we also get to hear about events in the pipeline and we’ve recently had some exciting Visual Arts news.

I’m happy to tell you that last year’s Fringe Award-winning Grinlow Art and Storytelling Trail, a magical experience in Grinlow woods, will be back for 2015, a crowd-funding exercise having proved particularly successful. Organiser Ruby Moon tells me they will be running some creative workshops both before and during the Trail. They are also on the look out for storytellers for the event. If you would like more information, think you can help or would like to put an installation on the trail, please contact Ruby on rubyblossom@hotmail.com

More great news comes from artist Linda Rolland who is helping the Buxton Art Trail get going again for this year. A Fringe Award-winning sensation back in 2012, it involved a host of exhibitions around town and in artists’ own houses. In a few weeks time BAT will be making the call for entries with the event set to run from Friday July 24 to Sunday July 26. Anyone wanting to be included on the mailing list or to offer help with organisation is welcome to email Linda on LindaRollandArt@gmail.com with a subject heading of BAT 2015.

As ever with the Fringe, anyone can do anything – I am hoping to have some of my own paintings exhibited as part of BAT and will certainly have some at the Burbage Art Group’s annual exhibition which is already listed on our website. The Group, of which I am a member, meets weekly at the Burbage Institute and has had several artist nominations at the Fringe Awards. Last year’s nominee Laura Critchlow has gone on to have one of her mini paintings selected by the Royal Society of Miniature Painters for an international art exhibition in the Mall Galleries, London.

So the one listing we have in Visual Arts only hints at the bigger picture, as it were. It is fun to hear what our artists and performers are getting up to. If you have some behind the scenes stories you would like to share with myself or Keith please get in touch via the Contacts page on our website.

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

Made in Derbyshire

Derbyshire poet laureate 2013-2015: Helen Mort

Made in Derbyshire

Rarer than Blue John and ten times as bright,
wild as the rain over Burbage at night,

stronger than leather from Lennon’s at Stoney,
clear as Mam Tor when the sky thins slowly,

sweet as the tarts that Bakewell refines,
older than the spirits of Magpie Mine,

lively as summer: a first well-dressing,
the streets all ribboned, the sun’s blessing,

more eloquent than a poem could be…
I can’t make the hills, but these hills made me.

© Helen Mort, Derbyshire Poet Laureate 2013-15

If you want to know what is happening in Derbyshire then Arts Derbyshire has a good calendar of events. If you are looking beyond the arts world then try Made in Derbyshire

If your Derbyshire event is not listed on either of these sites then write to:
editor@madeinderbyshire.org or
editor@artsderbyshire.org.uk

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

Calendar of UK Fringes - 2015

We don't claim that this list is complete or 100% accurate. If you know of omissions or inaccuracies tell us and we'll happily correct it. But as it stands this is the best list we can put together of Fringes that are actually happening in the UK in 2015. In one or two cases websites need updating. To get details of these events - either as a would-be performer or as audience - the World Fringe Network directory is a good starting point. You may need to do a bit of googling to find websites if the WFN links don't work.

March: Folkestone - a series of mini-festivals starting in March
April: Mayfield, E Sussex (30 April-3May)
May: Brighton (1-31 May)
        Pink Fringe (part of Brighton Festival and Fringe)
        Wandsworth (1-17 May)
        Chelsea (16 May-7 June)
        Bath (22 May-7 June)
        Oxford (22 May-7 June)
        Pulse, Ipswich (28 May-6 June)
        Maidstone
June: Grassington (12-27 June)
         Ludlow (13 June-5 July)
         Glastonbury (19-30 June)
         Barnstaple (25-28 June)
July: Greater Manchester (1-31 July)
        Buxton (8-26 July)
        Reading (15-19 July)
        Henley (20-26 July)
        Harrogate
        Llangollen
        Milton Keynes
        Oundle
August: Sidmouth (1-5 August)
            Camden (3-30 August)
            Edinburgh (7-31 August)
            Free Fringe Festival (Edinburgh, 7-31 August)
            Stroud (Bank Holiday weekend)
            Ventnor (11-16 August)
            Brackley, Northants
            Brecon
            North Berwick Fringe By The Sea
September:
October: Canterbury (17-31 October)
             Ilkley
             South Devon
             Windsor
November: Fringe! (London film festival)

Surprisingly there appear to be no UK Fringes in September.


Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

A UK Fringe Tour

Take a look at this link if you will: list of UK Fringes

This shows that there are around 60 UK Fringes. Edinburgh is in a class of its own in terms of size and reputation, of course. Second biggest is probably Brighton. Buxton may well be third. Our simple point is that you are never far away from a Fringe festival (not between May-September anyway). For those of you that do Facebook you might find the UK Fringe Festivals site helpful. If you visit the page please 'like' and 'share' it.

Chrome Hill - www.jamespictures.co.uk

Apparently it is going to snow an awful lot in Derbyshire over the next 24 hours. I'll try and put together a UK Fringe calendar for 2015 and post it here. It could be like the Observer Book of Fringes. It could encourage you to attend or perform in all manner of unlikely places.

Once you've done the UK you can get a bigger map and tackle Delft, Prague, the Azores, Reykjavik, Washington, Melbourne and Hong Kong.


Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe

Magic and New Mills

This is the last Blog post I'm doing before attending a social media seminar organised by our esteemed friends at Arts Derbyshire. So look out for something even more exciting next week!

In last week's post we encouraged you to visit Arbor Low. This week we urge - is this much stronger than 'encourage'? - you to make your way to New Mills and its splendid Millennium Walkway (see picture above). Now New Mills is much more than a walkway: it is easily reached by bus or train from Buxton and has an interesting heritage centre as well as good walking by the River Goyt and the Peak Forest canal. Home to Swizzels-Matlow the sweet manufacturer and the current Mayor of the High Peak, Councillor Alan Barrow (see below for Alan in all his finery).

However, I hear you say, what news is there of the 'biggest summer open access arts festival in England'? Well, you may have come across copies of our brand new flyer (which doubles as an A6 poster - the side with the Belly Dance Flames pictured in all their gorgeousness).

Or if you've been keeping an eye on our website you'll see some much-loved friends are coming back to Buxton for Fringe 2015. The High Peak Orchestra is playing at St John's Church on Sunday July 12th.  So you'll be able to go straight from Fringe Sunday in the Pavilion Gardens to hear another whopping HPO programme. This year the programme includes Bruckner's Symphony No 6 and Rachmaninov's Paganini Variations for Piano and Orchestra with RNCM soloist Ryan Drucker. Dvorak's Festival Overture happily and appropriately completes the programme.  [Please note the date of this concert was changed after this Blog was first posted and this paragraph has been amended to reflect that - just to confirm, for your diaries, Sunday July 12th].

The ever-popular High Peak Magic Society are at the Palace Hotel on the 22/23 July. Close-up magic will be performed at your tables. It is always amazing and it always sells out.

Buxton Fringe

Website: www.buxtonfringe.org.uk
Facebook: buxtonfringe
Twitter: @buxtonfringe