Category: entertainment and leisure news

CHRISTMAS is fast approaching and to get Thame into the festive spirit, the Town Council will once again be launching a treasure trail around the town centre for the young and young-at-heart.

In line with the Go-Karts which will be at this year’s Christmas Lights Switch-On on Friday, December 2,  24 Go-Kart Santa’s have been hidden, including one very special Santa holding the Golden Trophy, in shop windows and town centre buildings around Cornmarket, Upper High Street, North Street, Buttermarket, Swan Walk, Greyhound Walk and High Street. You can start hunting high and low from Friday, November 4, and see if you can you find them all!  To give you a helping hand, all of our Go-Kart Santa’s will be numbered.

The first entry out of the hat with all the correct answers will get the chance to push the plunger and switch on the town’s Christmas lights, as well as win some other fabulous prizes. To enter the competition all you need to do is download an entry form from www.thametowncouncil.gov.uk/christmas or pick one up from the Town Hall Information Centre, write down all the places around town that you find a Go-Kart Santa and return your entry to the Town Hall Information Centre by Thursday, December 1.

Don’t forget to include your name, age, address and telephone number. Good luck and happy hunting!

All the latest news and information about this year’s Christmas Lights Switch-On will be available on the Town Council’s website at: www.thametowncouncil.gov.uk/christmas

THAME Players, based at The Players Theatre just off Thame High Street, will be presenting its first, dedicated comedy night featuring, direct from the Fringe:

Jake Yapp is One In A Million.  Jake will be performing his acclaimed Edinburgh show highlighting all his comedic and performing talents. Jake’s comedy credits include Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe; 8 out of 10 Cats; BBC Radio 4 comedy and he is a talkRADIO Sunday breakfast host.

“This is the art and the craft of comedy at such a high level my ears were popping…” The Scotsman ****

“Funny and smart in ways this poster cannot possibly convey” Charlie Brooker

Olaf Falafel and The Cheese of Truth. Olaf presents his unique mixture of one-liners and Scandinavian-tinged stories along with his hilarious new show which debuted in Edinburgh recently.

“Wonderfully absurd”… Ed Fringe Review ****

“Punchy, surprising and highly entertaining… a gloriously daft show” Fringe Guru ****

More information and tickets HERE

THAME’S growing calendar of town centre events is about to get a lot livelier, with ambitious plans for a town-centre wide, multi-venue, multi-genre music festival.

An annual Thame Music Festival is the brainchild of Musician and Thame First Thursday Music Club (FTMC) Founder, Jon Littler, and on Tuesday evening he presented his proposal to members of Thame Town Council’s Community, Leisure and Recreation committee (CLR).

Jon told Councillors: “Such a festival would add to the diversity of activities in the town, enhance its cultural life and stimulate and add value to the economy of the high street. The dream is that every pub and coffee shop, the Snooker Club etc in the town centre would become a venue with music going on in different places all day, a day where whole families could come, split up to enjoy different aspects of the festival, then come together at the end, like in Edinburgh for instance.”

Jon’s suggestion to the council was that a structure such as a Community Interest Company be formed, which would include town councillors on ‘the board’, and that the festival would be free to attend and not commercial, but funded by sponsorship and grants. Long-term, Jon envisaged 10 venues in the town, including perhaps classical music in the church, Rockabilly outside the Vintage Guitar Shop, folk, rock, electronic – every genre somewhere in the town, with a long term dream to create a brand new, dedicated performance venue of 3-400 capacity.

The festival could see a large, main stage in the town centre, with activities spilling into the Buttermarket, with 1950s, classic American cars lined up there close to the guitar shop, with perhaps Jordans Courtyard hosting accoustic, singer-songwriters performing in a marquee in the garden.

The town councillors were very supportive of Jon’s proposal and agreed to take his request for £5,000 seed money to kick start the campaign and seek further funding and sponsorship, to the council’s Budget Working Group for further consideration.

THE Thatch in Thame has continued its winning streak by once again being recognised in some of the country’s top food and drink awards, after being voted one of the best places to eat and drink in The Observer Food Monthly Awards.

The Thame gastro pub learned on Sunday that it had been given the ‘thumbs-up’ by readers of The Observer, when it was named Runner-up in Best Sunday Lunch and Best Place to Drink in the south, in this year’s awards.

General manager Evelin Rae and her team were quick to celebrate after being given the news this weekend that they had been singled out for praise for the third time, in these high profile, national awards. She and the team kicked off their day with a well-deserved glass of bubbly, before getting ready for a busy Sunday service.

“This Sunday was already shaping up to be a good one, with a full reservations book and the chefs in early as usual to get their prep done for Sunday lunch – joints roasting slowly in the oven and Yorkshires rising to perfection,” said Evelin. “Things suddenly went from good to better, when the Sunday papers landed on the doormat and I nervously leafed through The Observer Food Monthly Magazine.

“Imagine my delight when I came to the news that we had been named runner-up in not one but two categories – ones close to our heart – Sunday lunch and as a rather good watering-hole,” she continued. “I was absolutely thrilled, and couldn’t wait to share the news with the team.

“We all work very hard to make The Thatch the place it is – somewhere you can enjoy good food and drink with great friendly service to match – and it’s down to the team that we have done so well. And also to our great guests and readers of the magazine who voted for us again, and we thank them all.”

Now in their 13th year, The Observer Food Monthly Awards reward the finest in British food and drink. They are voted for by readers and a judging panel, and champion the best producers, restaurants, retailers and bloggers in the UK. Prizes are presented at an awards celebration in London co-hosted by Observer writer Jay Rayner and Great British Bake Off host Sue Perkins.

“We’ve done a lot over the last couple of years to make our roasts the best, and it’s great to have this recognised,” added Evelin. “The atmosphere in the pub on Sundays is now always fantastic, with a real warm and friendly buzz and The Thatch has become known locally as a great place to get together with friends and family for a great Sunday lunch – people flock to us from miles around. Make sure you join them soon!”

To book a table for Sunday lunch or lunch or dinner any other day of the week, go to www.thethatchthame.co.uk. The Thatch is at 29-30 Lower High Street, Thame, Oxon, OX9 2AA. Tel: 01844 214340.

SOURCE: Contributed

THIS month’s screening by Thame Cinema For All,  on Friday, October 21, is a new Danish film, The Commune, a certificate 15 film, set in a commune the 1970s – and it’s not all free love and fun, as it turns out – though there is some of that!

The Commune is Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, and stars Trine Dyrholm, Ulrich Thomsen, Fares Fares, Julie Agnete Vang, Lars Ranthe, Helene Reingaard Neumann, Mads Reuther, Martha Sofie Wallstrøm Hansen, Magnus Millang and Anne Gry Henningsen.  The setting is Copenhagen, the 1970s. Anna, a successful television journalist, and Erik, who lectures in architecture, inherit a rambling and capacious suburban home when Erik’s father dies. Initially intent on selling it, Erik is persuaded by Anna that the house represents an opportunity for them to revitalise their lives and stave off the torpor of affluent mid-life: they will turn it into a commune, and invite their witty, creative, unconventional friends to live with them.

So far so happy, the mood is celebratory, and frequently comic. The friends unite around the dining room table, agree house rules, share cooking, much wine, laughter and agreeable chaos. But their experiment in collective living soon shows signs of strain: issues of ownership, privacy, parenting, boundaries and finances require constant and sometimes tense negotiation, the situation proving particularly testy when Erik and Anna’s marriage falters and Erik begins a relationship with one of his students.

The film explores what happens when the group is required to accommodate the new addition to their number, and Anna must endure the hurt and humiliation of her very private loss under collective scrutiny, without control of her domestic space. What begins as something warm and nostalgic (the flares, the facial hair, the nudity, the fags, the décor…) becomes a moving and compelling dramatic examination of the tension between lofty idealism and the implications for the individual of collective living and sexual freedoms, with a storming performance from Dyholm as Anna, the emotional and moral heart of the narrative. Watch the trailer here.

SOURCE: Contributed by Catriona Gilmour Hamilton

SUPPORTERS and sponsors of Thame’s Arts and Literature Festival and guests joined the organisers for a reception and exhibition at Thame Museum on Friday (07/10) to officially launch TAL 2016.

Tasty canapes were provided by caterer, Caroline Jones,  the wine flowed, supplied by The Red Bottle Company, in Dormer Road, Thame,  and the work of Long Crendon Cartoonist, Robert Duncan, which is currently being exhibited at the museum, was much admired, and a great air of excitement and anticipation was in the air for the start of this year’s festival of music, film, arts and literary lusciousness!

C0-festival organiser, Steve Bannister welcomed everyone with a slide tour of the festival’s origins, philosophy – Participate Enjoy Inspire – and history since the first TAL in 2010.

This year there are 41 events taking place over the weekend of October 12 – 14, ranging from the history of cake to the Somme, many of which are already sold out. On Friday, October 14, at 7.30pm at the Spread Eagle Hotel, Michael (Lord) and Anne Heseltine will deliver the Founder’s Lecture, telling the story of one garden and one family, over a 40-year time period. In their own words, they will describe the ups and downs of how they set about transforming and expanding a wild, overgrown and often dilapidated woodland into the magnificent garden they have today.

Authors taking part include former Children’s Laureate, Anne Fine OBE, Jason Lewis, the first person to circumnavigate the Earth by human power—without using motors or sails. He walked, cycled, and inline skated five continents, and kayaked, swam, rowed, and pedalled a boat across the rivers, seas, and oceans.

If Sci fi is your thing, Marcus Berkmann will talk about the 50 years of ‘Star Trek’ answering all the important questions. Why did Kirk’s shirt always get torn when he had a fist fight? What’s the most number of times Uhura said ‘Hailing frequencies open, sir’ in a single episode? (Seven.) And what’s the worst imaginable insult in Klingon? (Your mother has a smooth forehead.)

Visit the website for the full programme and to order tickets (Be quick – they’re selling fast!) : LINK HERE

SENIOR residents of Thame are invited to take part in the annual Senior Citizen’s Christmas Tea Party hosted by Thame Football Club.

This yearly celebration, jointly organised by the Town Council, Rotary and Inner Wheel, will be taking place on Friday, December 9, between 1.30pm and 4pm and will feature a whole host of festive food and entertainment. The event is free to attend but booking is essential. Anyone who would like to go along is invited to contact Rosie Collins on 01844 212833 or in person at the Town Hall Information Centre. Transport to and from the event is available if required.

DRIVERS NEEDED! – If you could spare a little time to help one of the elderly guests get to the party, please contact the Mayor, Linda Emery, on 01844 261064 or email lindaemery@btinternet.com.