Today at the 35th Buxton Festival Fringe

So what’s new today at the Buxton Festival Fringe? The short answer is ‘Lots’ and here is a quick summary.

Early music specialists Partita have been coming to the Fringe for 20 years now and have built-up a loyal following. Led by lutenist Roger Child, Partita always have some new songs and music for audiences to hear and no doubt their concert tonight at St John’s Church will prove to be no exception.

Likely to be totally different – but such is the joy of the Fringe – is ‘Professor Harry Stottle’s Music Hall Extravaganza’ which starts a run at the Old Clubhouse at 7pm. The show aims at a vivid re-creation of the heyday of the British music hall.

Scrivener’s Bookshop is the smallest venue in the Fringe – just 12 tickets are available for performances of ‘The Ghosthunters’ Club’ which is on for just three nights starting at 7.30pm tonight. Be prepared to search all five floors of the creaky bookshop in search of ghosts in this spooky, tongue-in-cheek event.

A new play – ‘Boy On A Bed’ – is back for its second outing at the Arts Centre Studio. Well-received on its first performance when the reviewer described it as ‘sometimes funny, often touching’ the play explores the developing sexual awareness of a young man who is a keen athlete who meets a painter.

Also back on the Fringe is ‘ComedySportz’ – a fast-paced improv comedy show between two teams. Taking place in Underground Venues at 7.30pm ‘be prepared to take an active part, get your funny-muscles well stretched and limbered up to get the silliness going and your ideas flowing: it is fast, frantic and funny’ wrote the Fringe reviewer.

Radio 4 comedian Alfie Moore brings his new show to Buxton. ‘The Naked Stun’. Alfie has been described by David Mitchell as ‘Brilliantly funny, genuinely hilarious.’ He is at Underground Venues tonight at 8.30pm.

More comedy is on offer at Underground from The Dead Secrets in their show ‘Bulletproof Jest’ – a series of inventive, and sometimes absurd, sketches.

If it is music that you are looking for then Buxton Brewery’s Tap House begins a week of gigs starting tonight at 9.30 with the Gren Bartley Band. There are a different bands – in a whole range of styles – between now and 25^th July. Admission is Free.

Buxton Fringe

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

Daily Bulletin - Wednesday 16 July

As the second full-week of the 35^th Buxton Festival Fringe begins things are getting busier as more new shows open. Here are some of today’s debutantes:

The CHS Youth Theatre Company from Chapel-en-le-Frith begins its run with a play called ‘Crossroads’ which it performs at the United Reformed Church. The question is psoed – ‘What would make your life perfect – but what would it cost you?’ Hints of the Faustus myth.

Buxton Drama League begin three nights at the Methodist Church with a new play ‘Caroline’ which is written and directed by Toni Saxton, a Drama League member. Caroline is found trying to cope with the death of her daughter – can she overcome her feelings of guilt?

More new drama at Underground Venues as ‘Because She Loved the Lion’ opens at 7.30pm. ‘The story of a mother, her daughter, her sister and a mouse consumed by a lion with a beautiful mane.’

For younger audiences, perhaps, but not starting until 8pm is an adaptation of Jules Verne’s ‘Around the World in 80 Days.’ Performed by the REC Youth Theatre and presented at the Pavilion Arts Centre Studio this treatment has been written by Tom Crawshaw who grew up in Buxton and is part of the company that runs Underground Venues during the Fringe.

We don’t get much dance in the Fringe and a daring new piece opens at a venue new to this year’s Fringe. Sian Dudley who worked at the Buxton Opera House is managing a number of venues around the Market Place. At the Loft at 9.15 tonight Brick Wall Ensemble will be performing ‘The Remarkable Case of You’ in which nine people, under the influence of a hypnotist will reveal their true selves. The performance will include ‘adult themes’ we are advised.

Perennial Buxton favourites the Tideswell Male Voice Choir sings at St John’s Church starting at 7pm. The show is entitled ‘Do you hear the people sing?’ and the Choir will be joined by pianist Christopher Ellis and other special guests. The church will be full of people and voices.

Among those leaving Buxton after today is Chris Neville-Smith with his play ‘Waiting for Gandalf’ which is on at Underground Venues at 10.30pm. Chris has entered into the spirit of the Fringe wholeheartedly – blogging on what he sees as the ‘Best of the Fringe’ and offering advice to visitors on ‘Surviving in Buxton.’ Chris is just one of many people who have been welcome guests – we’ll miss him and we hope he takes a piece of Buxton with him when he returns to Durham.

Buxton Fringe

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

Fringe Bulletin - Tuesday 15th July

Just four new shows opening on the Fringe today – though there is plenty to catch-up with.

The Kaleidoscope Community Choir is in open rehearsal at the Octagon from 1-2pm. If you go to listen feel free to join in. The Choir meets regularly to sing and rehearse. It is having a summer break after today – but contact the Opera House for times and dates of the new season’s rehearsals which are open to all.

Comedian Caimh (pronounced Kweeve) McDonnell returns to Buxton with his new show Southbound and Down. Last year Caimh moved to London, trying to be an upstanding member of the society – he says this show is proof that no good dead goes unpunished. High Peak residents could probably have told him and saved him the trouble. Caimh, who has written for Sarah Millican and Mock The Week, is at Underground Venues at 7pm.

Dennis Potter’s play Blue Remembered Hills was first seen on TV in 1979 with a cast including Helen Mirren and Colin Welland playing 7-year-olds. Set in the Forest of Dean in 1943 a childish prank goes terribly wrong. The REC Youth Theatre bring a new production to the Arts Centre Studio at 7.30 tonight.

Local trombone player Sam Slide has long-promised to ‘do’ the Fringe. Finally he keeps his promise – with the help of a couple of mates. He is at the Old Clubhouse at 7.30 telling stories from his life with musical accompaniment and an explanation of how the trombone works. You could hear carols, jazz, Bach and blues.

Among the performers we say ‘goodbye’ to today is comedian Andrew Watts whose show Feminism for Chaps was very favourably reviewed when it opened. Samantha Mann’s comedy show Stories About Love, Death and A Rabbit finishes at 10pm tonight. The Fringe reviewer reported: “You’re in a cellar with a man dressed as a spinster librarian who punctures his act with mimes of a rabbit eaten by a fox, surrounded by an audience who aren’t quite sure what’s going on; you’re going to end up laughing!” 

It will also be your last chance to catch Seriously Funny – a play about the friendship and relationship of Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams. That starts at 8.30pm at the United Reformed Church.

Tonight’s Fringe At Five – 5pm at the Pavilion Gardens Bandstand – includes some songs from the Sideways Band, who closed the Fringe Sunday show so brilliantly. [If you haven't seen them already Donald Judge took many brilliant photos of Fringe Sunday. If you were there you may well be here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donaldjudge/

Meanwhile continuing throughout the Fringe there are excellent art exhibitions at the Art Café (in the Pavilion Graden), at the Buxton Museum and the Green Man Gallery.

Buxton Fringe

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

At the smallest theatre in Buxton 24-26 July

Scrivener's may well be the biggest bookshop in Buxton - and for many miles around - but it is also the smallest performance space. However, every year it is a delight to attend intimate performances there. There are 15 tickets only for each show - so don't delay and be disappointed. Coming up is this treat:

Threadbare Carpet Productions presents a new play for the Buxton Fringe: The Good Lady Ducayne based on a story of the same title by Mary Braddon the ‘Queen of the Victorian sensational novelists’ 

‘Before Dracula, there was the Good Lady Ducayne!’

Originally published in The Strand Magazine on February 1896, a year before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this site-specific production is a classic tale of horror and suspense set in the Dark Peak and will be performed in Scrivener’s second-hand bookshop, the perfect setting for this gothic tale of mystery and suspense. It is produced and directed by Cordelia Howard and adapted by Michael Howard, whose An Evening at the Cabaret Voltaire won the MEN Drama award for Fringe Productions in 1996.

 

The Good Lady Ducayne

Scrivener’s Bookshop, 42 High St, Buxton SK17 6HB

July Thu 24, Fri 25, Sat 26 at 7.30pm

Tickets: £5 at Buxton Opera House Box Office  -  Tel: 0845 127 2190

Online - www.buxtonoperahouse.org.uk

Numbers are limited to 15 per show - Suitable for age 8 upwards

www.buxtonfringe.org.uk

Buxton Fringe

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

Monday 14 July - Fringe At Five begins!

The brilliant weather continues for the second week of the Fringe as a clutch of new shows arrive in town.

Also new is ‘Fringe At Five’ – a free sampler of shows that are taking place. Fittingly this is launched today by the person whose idea it was. Carol Bowns leads the Kaleidoscope Community Choir workshops in Buxton and the Choir kick-off “Fringe At Five” on the Pavilion Gardens Bandstand at 5pm today. Following the Choir is Augustus Stephens with extracts from his show “This Way Madness Lies” – in which good humour proves to be a blessing. The line-up will be completed by Chris Neville-Smith previewing “Gandalf’s Last Stand”. A varied 30 minutes of free entertainment before dinner!

Among today’s new shows we see the welcome return of Butterfly Theatre with their hugely popular show in Poole’s Cavern. They have done Shakespeare in the past but this year they bring “Dracula’s Women Underground”. An hour-long promenade through the caves following the vampire women in search of Dracula and blood! Remember to dress warmly it is just 7 degrees in the Cavern. There are shows today at 5.30, 7.00 and 8.30.

A new play is “The Speech” by Tony Earnshaw. Liz Oldfield is the British prime minister and she is presiding over a difficult period. She turns to her speechwriter for help, but can they save her government. This thoughtful and humorous play opens at 7.30 in Underground Venues.

Chris Neville-Smith will be rushing from “Fringe At Five” to perform “Waiting for Gandalf”. Kevin is a “Lord of the Rings” superfan and is off to a book-signing where he waits to meet “Gandalf”. But what else motivates him? Be in Underground Venues at 10.30 to find out.

If music is what you are looking for then the St Peter’s Fairfield music festival continues – tonight at 7pm with Keith Donnelly a singer and comedian. The Clouds Harp Quartet is back after their hugely successful Fringe debut last week; you’ll find them at the Buckingham Hotel at 8pm. Singer/songwriter Cathy Rimer is doing a one-off gig at the Green Man Gallery starting at 7pm.

Maxine Jones offers early-evening comedy – 5.30 in the Barrel Room, Underground Venues.

Continuing today are Betsy & Bern Budd with their charming “Mark Twain’s Adam & Eve Diaries”.

For full details of all shows and events please see the Fringe website – www.buxtonfringe.org.uk or get a Fringe programme at the Tourist Information Office or visit the Fringe Information desk – right next door to the Opera House where Gemma, Gaye or the super-friendly volunteers from Buxton Community School will be happy to answer any question.

Buxton Fringe

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

Fringe Sunday - come to the party!

Sunday 13 July is Fringe Sunday. There are two other Fringe Sundays but on this first Sunday in the Fringe there is something of a party going on in the Pavilion Gardens. Starting at 2pm at The Bandstand a dozen acts and performers will be playing for free: singer Darren Poyzer kicks things off with songs from his First World War-themed show The War To End All Wars. Darren will be followed by Will Hawthorne whose Kinks’ songs went down a storm on his opening night. He’ll get the whole park singing-along.

As the afternoon progresses there will comedy from Maxine Jones, poetry from Derbyshire legend Mark Gwynne Jones plus ever-popular guests The Belly Dance Flames. The ‘Victorian’ comedy/magic duo Morgan & West and a chorus from PB Theatricals singing extracts from ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ are also in the programme. We shall also be pleased to welcome another guest performance - Reforma Movement Theatre will be joining us for a dance piece which we suspect will be very different from our other two dance groups!

While all this is going on the Chapel Morris Men will have been teaching beginners how to dance the Morris. Freshly trained, the new Morris side will dance in public for the first time at 4pm. Fringe Sunday will close with The Sideways Band who are sure to keep the party mood going.

The High Peak Magic Society will also be on hand to demonstrate their skills – and no matter how many times you’ve seen the tricks you remain confounded. Bring a rug and some sandwiches, stretch out and enjoy yourselves. There is plenty of ice cream, tea and coffee for sale at the Gardens café.

Away from the Gardens there is much, much more to see and hear. The Grinlow Art and Storytelling Trail finishes today. Go to the Poole’s Cavern car park from 10.00 to follow the trail. It has really caught the imagination of those that have followed it so far – it has a real ‘Wow factor’ one Fringe veteran reported.

There is a lovely ‘one-off’ flute and piano recital by Rachel Johnson and Jemima Palfreyman at the United Reforemd Church at 8pm. There is a one-man, one-act production of ‘Treasure Island’ at Underground Venues at 9pm tonight.

There is just one film entry in this year’s Fringe – and it clashes with the World Cup Final! Buxton Film runs a short film competition every year and this year six films from the entries have been selected for screening. Starting at 7.30 in the Arts Centre Studio there are films about a middle-aged couple who miss their son who is in the army, a lovely comedy about a man who is waiting to meet a new date following the end of his marriage and a brilliantly executed one-take, 9 minute film about two men who await a very important phone call. The programme includes some strong language and some difficult themes and is recommended for those aged 15 and above.

Buxton Fringe

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

It's Carnival Time!

Saturday the 12th of July is the day that Buxton takes to the streets – it’s Carnival time! The Fringe Festival will have its, now traditional, orange bed-decked float (courtesy of Lomas Distribution). The only thing more orange will be the Billerettes – so you can’t miss the Fringe or Bill and his gang. [At this point some Irish friends usually caution us to make it clear that Fringe orange has nothing to do with certain other Oranges].

Away from the hurly burly of the fair in the Market Place and the swelter of the streets there is much else going on as the Fringe picks up pace.

One of the quiet triumphs of last year was a week-long music festival (within a festival) at St Peter’s Church Fairfield. Much of the Festival Fringe is around the Crescent and the town centre and so it is especially important to have performances elsewhere. As Fairfield residents are keen to remind us theirs is the oldest settlement. The St Peter’s music festival really does have something for everyone – it is free to children. They kick-off at 7pm tonight with a Chamber Choir with jazz, folk and classical guitar to come.

The Buxton Festival Fringe has always included events beyond the town boundaries and this year there are some shows at the beautiful Spring Bank Arts Centre, New Mills. At 7.30 tonight Trace Taylor and her band are performing. Trace has promised to join the Carnival procession before heading off to New Mills.

If the Carnival atmosphere and the sunshine get to be all too much for you then retire to St Mary’s Church at 3pm. The Ordsall Acapella Singers have become firmly established in the Fringe programme but they are here just for one day. Enjoy an hour of their singing and a slice of cake! Alternatively hear the Sideways Band. They are popping-up all over the Fringe this year (see below for more) but debut in The Barrel Room at the Old Hall starting at 2pm.

If you are staying in town for the evening you’ll be spoiled for choice: you can relish the High Peak Orchestra tackling Mahler’s 4^th and Schumann’s Cello Concerto featuring local soloist Miriam Brown; Morgan & West return with their mixture of comedy and magic laced with Holmes & Watson; for late night comedy Ruth E Cockburn is on at 10pm at Underground Venues – she reassures us “We are all in control of our own happiness. As long as we are near a toaster”; or you could catch the first of two performances of a theatrical adaptation of ‘The Elephant Man’.

Will there be time for a glass of Buxton Brewery’s specially brewed Fringe Beer at the Tap House? Let’s hope so.

Back to Buxton after 40 years

Guitarist and song writer Peter Buxton of Sideways Band, has moved back to Buxton after 40 years away.

Sideways, a duo who have achieved a following on the South Coast in Sussex for many years, will be playing live in venues all over the area. 

Peter's great Grandad sold clothes pegs on Buxton market and the wheel has turned full circle in being back to contribute to the buzzing bohemia that is Buxton.

A new song will be performed specially for the Fringe festival about coming back to the places you belong.

The Sideways repertoire from Bob and Peter is a personalised journey through blues folk and rock over the years, and has some laid back acoustic music for everyone.

Buxton Fringe

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