THIS coming Monday morning, March 19, sees the Forget Me Knot Café host another of their bi-weekly sessions. Visiting musician, Heddi, will be coming along with all her instruments, and there’ll be lots of singing and making music together; lots of laughter – and fun! This will be followed by games such as balloon volleyball, beach ball football, hand tennis or flat football.
LOCAL guitar-playing prodigy, Billy Watman, 16, will be back to entertain the crowds at Music in the Park 2018. Billy will thrill the audience with a genre-defying, fresh, new approach, featuring a repertoire spanning Classical, Flamenco and Pop, through to Electronic Trance and Classic Rock – all on one guitar. He’ll get you singing along to classic songs by artists such as Queen, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Tommy Emmanuel and The Eagles.
in case you’ve not heard him before, Billy Watman is an award-winning Anglo-Brazilian classical / flamenco / fingerstyle guitarist, inspired by the likes of Rodrigo y Gabriela, Tommy Emmanuel, Mike Oldfield and Paco De Lucia. In early 2016, at the age of just 14, Billy successfully auditioned for ‘Guitar Star’ – a guitar-based talent show open to all ages and genres on Sky Arts TV in the UK. He stunned audiences with some extraordinary performances and the judges, who included Jazz legend George Benson, Classical Virtuoso Miloš Karadaglić, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, and David Bowie’s long-time producer Tony Visconti. Tony described Bill as ‘a little boy genius’.
You can buy tickets for Music in the Park, which takes place on Sunday, May 6, now, online at: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/427258. Tickets cost: Family (two adults and three children) £25; Adult £10; Concessions £7 (Plus 10% booking fee).
To keep up-to-date with news of next year’s Music in the Park event, visit the Facebook page
THAME Concert Band is rehearsing hard for its next concert on April 7, entitled Young at Heart, featuring music that will include Harry Potter, Toy Story, How to train your Dragon and many more. Everyone is welcome to the concert that will begin at 4pm.
Back in December, Thame Concert Band accompanied over 800 local people and families singing traditional carols in what has become a popular event on Christmas Eve in Thame town centre. Donations collected from the audience raised over £600 which was donated to two local good causes and a presentation of the cheques took place recently. Conductor of the band, Callum Rookes, presented the cheque to Thame Youth Café Manager, Nick Francis. TYC is a hub for young people aged 11 – 16 years-old in Thame, run by volunteers who support them, and provides a safe environment for them to meet, to enjoy a variety of activities and refreshments.
At the same time, Fiona Lindsay presented the cheque to John Hulett, a Trustee of the Red Kite Family Centre.
Thame Concert Band band is seeking new players to join this friendly group of musicians. So, whether you are an experienced player or a bit rusty, you’re invited to get in touch. The band meets at Christchurch in Thame on Tuesday evenings. Visit the website: www.thameconcertband.org.uk
A rich, aggressive, merchant plots to seize the throne in 17th-century Egoland, an alternative reality to England. Who can save the country – and the world – from his destructive policies? We find ourselves in the powerful kingdom of Egoland, a few centuries ago. Rich merchant Donald, bored with his empire of taverns, hunting grounds, racecourses and houses of ill repute, and annoyed by repeated demands for the tax he has evaded, decides that his best defence against the kingdom is to seize control of it.
Based on events in the USA where Donald Trump succeeded in being elected, another Donald, similar in character but far removed in fictional time and place has been created for this incredible show. This distance permits a complete story, encompassing his fall as well as his rise.
There will always be interest in the phenomenon of how Trump came to power, which the first half of the play reflects. In the second half we imagine a partial resolution based on the historical observation that the fate of tyrants – and would-be tyrants – is decided perhaps more by those close to them than by their outright opponents.
Sunday 1st April at 7.45pm – The Players Theatre, Nelson Street, Thame
THAME Cinema 4 All Presents THE PARTY, on SUNDAY, March 11. The film is a 15 Certificate and is Directed by Sally Potter. The Party stars Kristen Scott-Thomas, Timothy Spall, Patricia Clarkson, Cillian Murphy, Emily Mortimer, Bruno Gantz, and Cherry Jones.
Potter’s riotous comedy about the messy unravelling of a bourgeois dinner party is small but perfectly formed. Scott-Thomas is Janet, recently promoted to the shadow cabinet of an unnamed political party. To celebrate her success, she has organised a soiree for a handful of people close to her and her husband, Bill (Timothy Spall), a morose academic whose glory days are over and who is now emasculated by his wife’s conspicuous success.
Guests include the fabulously waspish April, her ageing hippy mystic life coach lover, a newly pregnant Jinny and her older partner Martha, and Cillian Murphy’s frenzied coke-snorting banker Tom, who arrives armed and intent on violence, without his wife Marianne whose arrival is, we are told, imminent. And the hostess gets regular texts and calls from a secret lover. Needless to say, secrets are revealed, the vol au vents are ruined, and things get ugly, the guests shredding one another’s veneers of intellect and leftist political principle, with much bile and bitterness. A hilarious satire of politics and the Left, with a sterling cast really letting rip.
TURN End is a RIBA award winning group of three houses and a garden in the heart of Haddenham, designed by architect Peter Aldington. It is widely regarded as a fine example of post-war housing design. In November 2017 Historic England listed Turn End’s garden at Grade II and added it to the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.
Turn End Trust runs an events programme which includes education, creative and community led events appealing to architecture, garden design lovers and those who care about good design in the area. visit the What’s On page: https://www.turnend.org.uk/new-events/ for full details and online bookings at http://turnendtrust.eventbrite.com
…. a Joyful Noise, that is! Thame Chamber Choir’s concert in St Mary’s Church, Thame, on Saturday, March 10, entitled Make a Joyful Noise, includes masterpieces by Byrd, Haydn – a chorus from ‘The Creation’ – and Mendelssohn, and features the famous ‘Miserer’e by Allegri. This so impressed the 14-year-old Mozart that, having heard it during a visit to Rome, he is reported to have later written out the whole piece from memory!
These pieces, and all the music in the concert, are settings of Psalms and the programme also includes former Lord Williams’s School pupil Howard Goodall’s version of ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’, better known as the signature tune for The Vicar of Dibley.
Tickets for the concert cost £12, concessions £10, and are free for under 18s. They are available from the Book House, Thame High Street (tel: 213032) and at the door.
THAME Players will be present this rip-roaring comedy by Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot, at The Players Theatre, Nelson Street, Thame, between March 6 & 10, 2018.
Due to a simple mistake a young couple get inundated with pornographic material. How will they stop the tide before senior bank officials find out?
Visit Thame Players’ website for full details and ticket information. LINK HERE
ONE of the top Bee Gees tribute acts is to headline this year’s Music In The Park, in Thame, on Sunday, May 6, 2018.
The Bootleg Bee Gees
So, Guys, get your white suits and gold chains ready; gals, get your chiffon party dresses out, because the headline act at this year’s Music in the Park are top Bee Gees tribute act, the Bootleg Bee Gees. This band has played throughout Europe for the past fifteen years, performing in theatres, festivals, clubs and hotels, always bringing the house down with their faithful recreations of all those famous Bee Gees tunes.
All the greatest hits are featured; from the dance sounds of Saturday Night Fever to sixties classics like Massachusetts and Words and all those Bee Gee songs made famous by other artists such as Chain Reaction (Diana Ross), Islands in the Stream (Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton), Tragedy (Steps), How Deep is Your Love (Take That) and Grease (Frankie Valli).
Chris Fram, Chair of the Music in the Park organising committee, said: “Having a Bee Gees tribute act will be particularly poignant for the people of Thame considering the town’s long association with Bee Gee, Robin Gibb, who lived here from 1984 till his death in 2012.”
Advance tickets for Music In the Park 2018, are now available online at: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/427258. Ticket costa: Family (two adults and three children) £25; Adult £10; Concessions £7 (Plus 10% booking fee)
PLANS are well underway for this year’s Thame Carnival, to be held on June 9, with a theme for 2018 of ‘Countryside’. The organisers, 21st Century Thame, are really keen for there to be more floats this year, so all local clubs, groups, organisations and businesses in and around the town are being encouraged to start thinking about how they can best be represented in this fun and colourful annual event for the whole family.
Floats
The Carnival team, being co-ordinated once again by Sue Martin Downhill, are starting to organise the Parade through Thame Town Centre and the Fete that follows on Southern Road Recreation Ground. Floats don’t need vast numbers of people on the day, they need plenty of people leading up to the event to help build something that will WOW the crowds!
A float from the carnival in Thame’s twin town, Montesson, back in September, 2017. Image: Michel Cojean
“We are hoping to arrange a Float building workshop where the ‘Genius of John Hampden Primary School’ imparts some of his wisdom on how to make a start on an amazing float creation,” said Sue. People interested in being involved in a workshop can contact the planning team via the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/thamecarnival
As ever, Sue and her merry band will be looking for a good variety of stalls, particularly involving activities for children, as well as a good selection of food and drink. There are six fee options for a stall : Extra large commercial, 6m x 6m commercial, 4m x 4m commercial, 6m x 6m community, 4m x 4x community and 25% profit share. Bookings can be made HERE
The proceeds of this year’s Carnival will go to the PTFAs of Lord Williams’s School, John Hampden Primary, Barley Hill Primary and St Joseph’s Primary Schools.
