Piaf and Peas!

Annette Gregory will be singing at The Green Man Gallery

This year’s Buxton Festival Fringe sees a rich and varied programme of music-making. In keeping with the Fringe ethos people will be able to see and hear music in some unexpected places.

Will Hawthorne is leading something of a one-man campaign to reach out to new audiences. His band performs Poole Incarnate, a play with rock music, about the outlaw who gave his name to the local Cavern both at the caves and the Working Men’s Club. Will also leads the music at Give Peas A Chance down at the Serpentine Community Farm.

Some of the local pubs are joining in the Fringe fun hosting free music events. The Tap House - which serves a comprehensive selection of Buxton Brewery product - has six nights of live music featuring some of the best bands in the region. The Cheshire Cheese welcomes back the close harmony quartet Close Enough - which left Buxton with such lovely memories last year. Also at The Cheese is The Occasional Band with a selection of Irish jigs, reels, slides and songs. Nearby at the recently refurbished Old Sun Inn Fringe-goers can hear the Herding Catz Blues Band on part of their tour of the town.

The Catz are also playing at The Palace Hotel and on The Blues Train from Manchester to Buxton. One of last year’s Fringe favourites was the Buxton Studio Choir which goes from strength to strength and is about 50-strong these days. The Choir can be heard at The Palace as can the relaxed sounds of The Basin Street Jazz & Blues Band which will deliver a happy mixture of standards and originals.

Returning for his third Fringe is Egriega bringing a new cabaret-style show to The Hydro Restaurant. Frank Sinistra - Sex and Drugs and PR has all the Egriega hallmarks that many have come to love: his mixture of humour, satire and a compelling delivery. The Burbage Institute has become the venue of choice for classical guitarist Ed Billingham. This year he is joined by Jo Kay in a programme including a Bach Toccata and pieces from the Italian Renaissance.
One of the exciting new additions to the Buxton Festival landscape for 2018 is the Spiegeltent which will be a big attraction in the Pavilion Gardens. Brought by the Buxton International Festival, one of the events being staged there is the prize-winning Kaleidoscope Choir which rehearses and performs in the area all-year long.

The Green Man Gallery has become a regular venue for quality music throughout the year. For this year’s Fringe it has three performances. The excellent jazz singer Annette Gregory returns with her band to present some of the best-loved songs by the Iikes of Julie London and Sarah Vaughan. Cathy Rimer is a local singer and songwriter who unerringly touches on all the things that matter in our lives. She has a beautiful voice and is a charming host, making an evening with Cathy well-spent. Cenote is a duo - mixing songs with piano, fiddle, guitar and bouzouki, drawing on traditions and stories from Derbyshire, the west of Europe and Iraq. Their show Of People And Place will illuminate the lives that pass often without notice.

The team at Underground Venues presents an intriguing mix. French countertenor Adrien Mastrosimone tells of the life of Edith Piaf. Une Vie En Rose is both poignant and memorable. Also upstairs at The Clubhouse is the now traditional evening of songs and music from local performers, Club Acoustic, always relaxing and entertaining with the occasional surprise not far away. Much the same might be said of The Good Ole Boys who draw on a collective history that includes swing and skiffle.

Johnny Dysfunctional & Sounds Bizarre have been gigging in London recently, polishing up some new songs with expert Specials guidance. They are back at The Arts Centre: hear the result.

For details of many more music events at Buxton Fringe see buxtonfringe.org.uk

Buxton Fringe

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

Comedy troupes on parade

The Kagools - Claire Ford & Nicola Wilkinson

This year’s Fringe boasts a massive comedy section bursting with originality.
Last year’s Comedy Show Award-winners, The Kagools, are back with their family-friendly, non-verbal comedy, a hoot from start to finish, and one half of The Kagools, Claire Ford will be doing some clowning of her own in her new show Unboxed. The other Kagool, Nicola Wilkinson, will also be stepping out as a solo act, her show Happy offering stand-up, party games, and, intriguingly, pies.

Fringe comics routinely cross genre boundaries with Nathan & Ida’s Hot Dog Stand offering clowning, mime and dance from the stars of The Dead Secrets, and The Big Fat Running Show using live music, songs and comedy to look at running culture. The Shrimps: Prawn Stars will meanwhile use audience suggestions to come up with lively improvisation, fun and games.
The spirit of farce can be felt in KinkyBoot Institute’s Cheaters: A Play about Infidelity while storytelling is at the heart of TMT’s My Friend Tony and the Tiny Circle of Love.

Comedy does not have to be frivolous. Steve Day: Adventures in Dementia is a bittersweet exploration of his father’s Alzheimer’s while Mandy Toothill’s Twin Peaks finds the comic laughing in the face of breast cancer. Professional gambling is the subject of Ross Brierley’s Accumulator, with Steve Vertigo looking at the power of data and AI in his topical show As Far As I Can See.

Aidan Goatley’s The Vicar’s Husband explores what happens when an atheist’s wife trains as a vicar, causing him to question his true purpose. There is more mental turmoil in the fast-paced and visual Id Ego Superego from Col Howarth.
Whole worlds can be evoked in comedy shows, whether it is a Welsh village fete in Karen Sherrard’s warm-hearted A Fete Worse Than Death or something altogether more extra-terrestrial in Gemma Arrowsmith’s Earthling, pondering what aliens did with the earth mementos sent up by NASA in 1977.

The comedy category at this year’s Buxton Festival Fringe is the biggest ever with 42 separate events. See buxtonfringe.org.uk for full details of everything in this exciting section.

The Fringe wishes to thank its sponsor The University of Derby as well as financial supporters The Trevor Osborne Charitable Trust and High Peak Borough Council, its Fringe Friends and the town’s many Fringe supporters and venues.


Buxton Fringe

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

Punbelievable stand-up at the Fringe

Last year's Fringe Comedy winner, Harriet Braine - 

back with a new show 20-22 July at Underground Venues

This year the Fringe is packed full of amazing stand-up comic talent.

Inspiration comes from many sources with family foibles being top of the list. In her preview show 10,000 Decisions, Robyn Perkins (English Comedian of the Year Finalist) marries family stories and neuroscience as she explores the nature of decision-making. Australian Adam Vincent, writer for TV’s The Last Leg, believes family demands are controlling his life. Juliet Meyers’ family includes her rescue dog Homer who appears on stage with her. High-energy comic Daniel Cook meanwhile wants to talk about his pet cat.

Comedy can be quite confessional, witness Upstart Crow’s Rob Rouse and his “journey of enforced introspection” or performer Jim Campbell who says he’s had a breakdown “so you don’t have to!” Political comic Alex Kealy considers himself to be a ball of anxiety while joke-writer and stand up Gerard Harris is a self-confessed Attention Seeker. Owen Roberts hit such severe writer’s block that his act is called: “I Let A Six Year Old Write My Show”. Meanwhile joke-merchant Phil Chapman is appearing on stage with his own personal comedy crutch that just happens to be a spatula…

Tone varies enormously with zany puns from masterly comic Richard Pulsford and punbelievable Darren Walsh and a dark edge from seasoned Fringe comedian Amadeus Martin and from Fringe Award-winning Harriet Braine whose Apocalibrary imagines a world where “Trump has literally broken the internet”. The #MeToo movement comes under scrutiny from Harriet Kemsley whilst award-winning Nathan Cassidy exposes the secrets behind - and even his involvement in - the 2008 financial crisis.

Comedy can be found in a variety of settings but particularly in managed venues, Underground and the Rotunda. Offering extra value for money is the ever popular comedy showcase Barrel of Laughs at Underground or new initiative Comedy at the Rotunda in conjunction with Off the Kerb productions.
The comedy category at this year’s Buxton Festival Fringe is the biggest ever with 42 separate events. See buxtonfringe.org.uk for full details of everything in this exciting section.

The Fringe wishes to thank its sponsor The University of Derby as well as financial supporters The Trevor Osborne Charitable Trust and High Peak Borough Council, its Fringe Friends and the town’s many Fringe supporters and venues.

Buxton Fringe

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

Fringe Family Favourites

Jay Foreman - The Rotunda, 8 July

Radio 4’s multi-award-winning musical comedian Jay Foreman offers Disgusting Songs for Revolting Children as part of Buxton Fringe’s vibrant For Families section also featuring the delightful Darling family in Peter Pan A Musical Adventure, a swashbuckling youth production from Mad Hatters Music.
These are just a few of the eagerly awaited family shows coming to the Fringe in July.

It is never too early to become a Fringe-goer; babies and young children as well as children with complex needs are given a warm welcome by Collar & Cuffs Co offering an award-winning multi-sensory musical, Little Meerkat’s Big Panic, at Underground Venues.

There is also Babbling Vagabonds with their Grinlow Woods promenade theatre piece A Wild Walk - The Golden Thief, and an interactive dragon show The Reluctant Dragon from Munchkins & Monsters Theatre. These last both include a workshop element and “have a go” is definitely the philosophy behind Stone and Water’s long-established Tiny! event in the Pavilion Gardens. This year’s theme is Underwater so be sure to join them in making a mermaid, dolphin or other creature of the deep.

Storytelling never goes out of fashion so Stone and Water will also be offering Lost Stories of Buxton at Buxton Library while Buxton Story Tellers will be offering Soup and Stories at The Cafe at The Green Pavilion.

Chelmorton Village Festival is also in the For Families section this year and with good reason - check their website chelmorton.net for details of their family-friendly dog show, scarecrow competition, Saturday stalls, tombola and more.

Keith Savage chair of the Fringe states: “We are glad that there are such interesting shows in interesting venues that will engage young children. There is no more receptive an audience and some of my most vivid Fringe memories are of performances that my own children found absorbing.”

Further Fringe events in other categories, such as Fringe Sunday in the Pavilion Gardens, are also suitable for children - look out for the handy family-friendly, smiley face symbol in the programme.

The Fringe wishes to thank its sponsor The University of Derby as well as financial supporters The Trevor Osborne Charitable Trust and High Peak Borough Council, its Fringe Friends and the town’s many Fringe supporters and venues.

Buxton Fringe

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

Speaking of ghosts, slaves and IKEA

The Glummer Twins: still Taking It Badly?

Tried and tested performers The Glummer Twins are back with their Morecambe and Wise-style comic poetry on the joys of ageing, while Fringe award-winning performers Mr Simpson’s Little Consort return with Ayres and Graces, an adults-only evening in the company of 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys.

History offers a rich source of inspiration with Michael Gibson giving a rare performance of his translation of the 14th-century romance Sir Orfeo complete with harp accompaniment from Gill Page. Trouble At T’Mill, a Discover Buxton/Buxton Fringe co-production, highlights the moving stories of child workers at Derbyshire cotton mills, while actor Paul Webster presents two contrasting one-man shows, one on the last hours of Hitler, the other focusing on author Willie (W. Somerset) Maugham. Past and present collide in Mirth of Forth’s Conflict of Interest in which stand up Richard Pulsford explores the legacy of his ancestors who fought in the First World War.

LJN Company’s Twilight and Darkness is an evening of spooky tales, some local in origin, and a new Buxton Fringe initiative, Bring a Book and Share a Story, at Buxton Library invites readers to share their literary enthusiasms reading out favourite passages and perhaps swapping books.

Spoken Word can offer a quiet interlude and a chance to reflect. Jane & Jim Poetry Theatre presents Town, a sketch in words and music inviting audiences to think about the world’s forgotten souls “left behind by indifference and the lack of hashtags”.

Fringe chair Keith Savage comments: “The Festival period can be a bit frantic at times. It is good to have the chance to slow the pace and concentrate the focus. Many of the stories - intimate or broad in scope - that can be heard as part of the Fringe will entertain and give pause for thought.”

The Fringe wishes to thank its sponsor The University of Derby as well as financial supporters The Trevor Osborne Charitable Trust and High Peak Borough Council, its Fringe Friends and the town’s many Fringe supporters and venues.

Buxton Fringe

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

A funny thing happened...

Ms Samantha Mann - at Underground Venues this July

In a growing comedy section at Buxton Festival Fringe, character comedians are proving a star attraction.

Multi award-winning Charles Adrian becomes spinster librarian Ms Samantha Mann delivering invaluable advice to the audience in her show Behind the Agony. Cutlery safety advisor and Buxton Fringe Comedy Award nominee Ian Crawford believes he can save lives with his show Accident Avoidance Training for Cutlery Users - Level 2. Audiences can let their hair down with Jay Bennett aka power balladeer Yasmine in An Audience with Yasmine Day.

Several performers are able to create multiple characters. BBC Three comedian David McIver pulls this off in his defiantly silly show David McIver Is A Nice Little Man, while Omar Ibrahim: Cosmic Clown offers a fusion of characters, stand up and some unexpected dancing. Returning to the Fringe with a brand new programme is James Hurn paying tribute to a classic comedy show in Hancock and Co - One Man, Many Voices.

Adding some welcome eccentricity is all-singing, all-crazy Mr Twonkey in Twonkey’s Night Train to Leichtenstein and Fringe award-nominated Covent Garden star Mike Raffone whose Brain Rinse, featuring a host of different characters, is bound to bring out your inner ninja.

The comedy category at this year’s Buxton Festival Fringe is the biggest ever with 42 separate events. See the Fringe programme online for full details of everything in this exciting section.

Fringe chair Keith Savage says: “With a comedy section bigger than ever it will be interesting to see what this year's performers choose to focus on. Will they be tired of Brexit and Trump - whose UK visit coincides with the Festival - or will they take a more sideways, more personal look at the world? It is often said that laughter is the best medicine, but do we know what the illness is?"

The Fringe wishes to thank its sponsor The University of Derby as well as financial supporters The Trevor Osborne Charitable Trust and High Peak Borough Council, its Fringe Friends and the town’s many Fringe supporters and venues.

Buxton Fringe

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

Art of every hue for Fringe 2018

Buxton Carnival Race Day - Rob Wilson's entry to the 2018 Derbyshire Open. 

See it at the Buxton Museum

Fringe-goers looking for something new will be excited to visit an atmospheric exhibition hidden in the basement of a bungalow on Buxton’s Lightwood Avenue. Autopoiesis - Sights, Sounds and Objects by CJ Robinson and Hugo Edwardes will feature projection and sculpture in a distinctive setting. Future Artists @ Buxton Community School highlights the talented young artists who regularly wow visitors to their annual show at Buxton Museum, while 3 of Us Going Somewhere presents recent work from three award-winning Buxton artists: inventive paintings and drawings by Langley Brown, embroidered photomontages by Adrienne Brown and geometric paintings by Norman Elliott. Another award-winning artist, Louise Jannetta, will be exploring abstraction in her latest show held in her art studio.

Buxton is renowned for its creative community with Nature’s Patterns at the Pavilion Gardens showcasing art of different media from High Peak Artists. The popular and long-established Burbage Art Group will be exhibiting at the Burbage Institute with cakes and a children’s quiz and The Green Man Gallery Artists present Something Like the Colour Purple, an exhibition exploring the hue in creative ways and featuring more than a hint of UV light.

Visual Arts is much bigger than it looks in the programme thanks to major collaborative shows like the award-winning Great Dome Art Fair from the hugely talented Peak District Artisans, and the Buxton Museum and Art Gallery’s ever-spectacular Derbyshire Open now in its 36th year and celebrating the county in all its diversity. The newly refurbished museum is celebrating its 125th anniversary and its exhibition Collectors and Curiosities: Buxton and Beyond will display some of its lesser known art and objects.

Finally Buxton Photo Challenge 2018 from Chapel Camera Club hopes to inspire creativity from the public. All you need is a camera and an empty memory card to take part in its special one-day photography challenge taking place on Buxton’s Carnival day, July 14.

Full details of all Visual Arts are on www.buxtonfringe.org.uk and in the printed programme. 

Comments Fringe chair Keith Savage: “Buxton, the Peak District and Derbyshire have long held a fascination for creative artists and it should come as no surprise that artists respond to the energy in the landscape. Nor should we take for granted all the hard graft that goes into making art that satisfies our curiosity and gives such enduring pleasure.”

The Fringe wishes to thank its sponsor The University of Derby as well as financial supporters The Trevor Osborne Charitable Trust and High Peak Borough Council, its Fringe Friends and the town’s many Fringe supporters and venues.

Buxton Fringe

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

Music and Buxton Churches this coming Fringe

Stained Glass Window at Buxton United Reformed Church - 

thanks to High Peak Community Arts for image

The Buxton Festival Fringe has always had a strong programme of musical events and this year is no exception. With almost 40 separate performances - from cabaret to symphony orchestra - the choice is mouth-watering. Six of Buxton’s churches - and Eyam Parish Church - will be hosting singers and musicians.

On the Market Place the Methodist Church welcomes the combined forces of the Tideswell Male Voice Choir and the Burbage Brass Band for what is sure to be an uplifting concert. The City of Manchester Opera is back with a programme of popular French arias and choruses. Two other vocal performances - both featuring COMO’s Margaret Ferguson - are in the programme. Margaret will be singing with The Maia Singers and as part of the quartet Vocivoices. Both concerts will include a mixture of much-loved opera and popular songs. Expect Mozart and Gershwin to feature prominently!

Partita - an ensemble specialising in Early Music - has been part of the Fringe for more than 20 years. The quality and variety of playing, singing and programming has earned a keen following. Partita offers two different lunchtime recitals at the Methodist Church. Also returning is the excellent Cheshire Chamber Collective whose concert includes quintets for strings and wind. The Sovereign Saxophone Octet brings wind music of a different kind. Arrangements of music written before the sax was invented will sit happily alongside jazz standards and originals.

The highly-talented pianist Eden Walker is making his Fringe debut at the Methodist Church. A graduate of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Eden’s programme includes major works by Beethoven, Scriabin and Liszt.

The beautiful Arts and Crafts St Mary’s Church is worth a visit anyway but especially to hear Steven Wilkie and Simon Mercer playing music for violin and organ by Bach, Handel and Elgar. You can also hear the 30-strong Ordsall Acappella Singers with their joyful sound. They promise cake too!

It would be second helpings for the Singers because they are also performing earlier in the day at the United Reformed Church. The URC is home to a recently restored Broadwood grand piano which Jill Crossland is playing. Jill’s recordings of Bach have been enthusiastically received. The Broadwood also figures in Smoky Folk’s informal evening of song and music by a trio of proud northerners.

St John’s is the town’s biggest church and it will be well-filled by the High Peak Orchestra bringing music by Sibelius and Tchaikovsky, whose piano concerto will be played by Matthew McLachlan. The concert will benefit Blythe House Hospice and there will be an exhibition of original artwork to see. Also at St John’s is a special event - Vision - which uses words and music to relate the story of Abbess Hildegard of Bingen. This event is also part of the 
Buxton International Festival programme.

St Peter’s Church, Fairfield, is hosting performances by Mr Simpson’s Little Consort which delighted audiences last year. Expect beautiful and haunting music by Purcell and Monteverdi. The Consort will also be playing at Eyam Parish Church. The Manchester Recorder Orchestra works tirelessly to rescue the reputation of the much-maligned instrument. Featuring nine sizes of recorder, an arrangement of Pictures At An Exhibition as well as original works, the performance at a Trinity Church might just change your life.

Buxton Fringe

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

Just two weeks to go... and we'll have dancing in the street.

Chapel-en-le-Frith Morris Men in Buxton's Pavilion Gardens

It has been a lovely start to the summer in Buxton. Fingers crossed that the dry, warm weather continues because the streets will be alive with the fun of Buxton Fringe this July.

The traditional Buxton Day of Dance from the award-winning Chapel-en-le-Frith Morris Men offers 16 Morris sides performing across the town while in a new venture for the Fringe, Fit Up Productions brings Fringe on the Market! - circus acts and Fringe performers on the market place. Fit Up were at Brighton last month - see this video for what happened there.

Fringe stars will also be showcasing their events at several free showcases kicking off with the Fringe Launch Party, this year on the first night of the Fringe upstairs at the Old Clubhouse courtesy of Underground Venues. There is also the popular, family-friendly Fringe Sunday (July 8) plus the eclectic Fringe @ 5 at the Pavilion Gardens bandstand. You can wave on acts walking beside the special, all-orange Fringe float during Carnival Day or see them performing at Friday the 13th in the Pump Room, a special free Fringe event in association with the Buxton Crescent and Thermal Spa Heritage Trust. All this year’s Street Theatre events, plus many others in the Fringe programme, are free, whether it is Fringe veterans the award-winning Shakespeare Jukebox offering scenes from the Bard outside the Opera House or, in the same location, St Luke’s CE Primary School offering their own jukebox of songs.

Among those hoping the sun will shine are Spirit of the Fringe award-winning Stone and Water with their colourful Buxton Pride Picnic in the Pavilion Gardens. The Gardens are a particularly busy venue for the Fringe this year with the Rotunda dome hosting the eagerly anticipated Fringe Awards as well as, the Fringe Forum, a new event offering a chance for performers, audiences and venue managers to quiz the Fringe committee.

Indoor entertainments include Buxton Film’s anniversary screening of The Graduate at Buxton Working Men’s Club and a whole raft of category-defying entertainment listed under Other Events. Take a Journey Through Whisky Understanding at Monk Cocktail Bar or enjoy comedy and FAIR Spirits cocktails there on another evening. Monk is also hosting a night of Brooklyn beers, brewery games and 90s nostalgia. Alternatively Fringe-goer can celebrate Buxton’s pure and healing waters at Present from the Past’s words and pictures event Well, Well I Never Knew That About Buxton’s Waters!, flex their writing muscles at the CafeLit workshop at Scrivener’s or Meet the Experts at Buxton Museum’s lunchtime talks.

Details of all Fringe events are in the programme and on www.buxtonfringe.org.uk, where there is a special page listing the many free events at this year’s festival.

The Fringe wishes to thank its sponsor The University of Derby as well as financial supporters The Trevor Osborne Charitable Trust and High Peak Borough Council, its Fringe Friends and the town’s many Fringe supporters and venues.

Buxton Fringe

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