LONG standing Sound Technician and club stalwart at Thame’s First Thursday Music Club, Johnny Spruce, is moving from behind the mixing desk – to centre stage.
Johnny Spruce in 2016
For one night only, Johnny Spruce and The Sprucettes, will perform in the Feature Act spot at 10 pm tomorow, Thursday September 1, at The Stables behind The James Figg pub in Thame.
First Thursday Music Club founder, Jon Littler, said: “Johnny is off to university as a mature student and will be sorely missed as the master of the mixing. Few sound guys face an evening where they will be handling the changeovers of up to 15 acts, including bands of up to eight pieces, during the course of a four hour gig.
Johnny Spruce in 2013
“To recognise his enormous efforts over the last four years, The Sprucettes have been working with Johnny to produce a set that will allow Johnny to present his soulful rock voice and guitar skills backed by a band of seasoned performers.”
As well as lots of other artists, Nikki Loy, Out of the Village (featuring Ellie Ruddock), 2am Blue and Sir Walter J Wallis and Kev Lucas are pre-booked to appear.
As has been the case since the launch of The First Thursday Music Club over six years ago, the club still offers the opportunity for artists to play live in front of a warm and appreciative audience, the club maintains the Open Mic section of the evening where slots will always be available in the first hour on a ‘first come, first served’ basis with player sign-up starting at 7.30.
The club has a full house PA system with keyboard, bass amp, guitar amp and jazz drum kit (bring breakables!) all set up on stage and ready to go. Another eclectic evening is guaranteed and entrance, as always, is FREE to all.
ENTHUSIASTIC crowds, warm weather and outstanding performances marked this year’s Towersey Festival, held over the Bank Holiday weekend on the Thame Showground.
Ock ‘N Dough with their Hoedown sounds set the feet a tapping at Towersey on Monday.
There were packed headline appearances from Kate Rusby, Midge Ure, The Young’uns and Billy Bragg, who charactically arrived after visiting striking bus drivers in Dorset. Other memorable performances included The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, The Wonder Stuff, 9Bach and the Tom Robinson Band. Some new bands too made strong impressions including Elephant Sessions in venue 65, and Cosmosis, invited along by the organisers of Thame’s First Thursday Music Club who ran The Bar Tent stage; an exciting band and one to watch!
Fifteen year-old Billy Watman, familiar to Thame music-goers from Music in the Park back in May, and fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe, mesmerised his audience with his Flamenco style fingering, accoustic guitar playing, and had them singing along to his very special version of Bohemian Rhapsody. And what confidence to play something you only composed the day before for your encore! Such a bright star!
Dragon lantern in the parade; made during a workshop at Towersey Festival 2016
Alongside many familiar elements, such as the traditional closing Lantern Parade and Festival Choir, this year saw the introduction of new programmes of activities for 5-11 year-old festival-goers and young people, both of which proved highly popular.
Attracting in the region of 7,000 revellers, the infamous British weather didn’t disappoint bringing bright warm sunshine on Friday and Monday, and only fleeting showers on Saturday and Sunday. Monday was hot and sunny seeing icecream stalls, iced coffee sellers and the two bar tents, practically selling out. There were over 40 beers and ales available, many from local breweries, and Tea Kettle Stout from Tring Brewery was voted the Best Ale at Towersey this year.
Towersey Festival Director Joe Heap said: “This year was our biggest ever line-up, and visitors really responded positively to the bill, as well as the site and infrastructure improvements we have made.
“There were so many highlights, from the family-friendly events and Towersey Festiva patron, Roy Bailey, launching his new album, to the Festival Dance House (FDH) stage, where there was a buzzing atmosphere with lots of young people embracing the festival’s strong dance programme.”
The artists also enjoyed the event with Sunday headliner Midge Ure Tweeting: “A beautifully run festival. Lovely organisation and great crowd… it was a joy to play.”
The Wonder Stuff’s lead man, Miles Hunt, told an adoring Towersey audience that this, his band’s first ever gig at Towersey, was the most enjoyable his band had experienced in years – though his language was somewhat more colourful !
And though the crowd felt a little thinner at times on the new, more spacious site, and a few merry-makers may have tripped on the ‘rubber road’, many in that audience and others throughout the three day festival, would have agreed with him.
Many more snippets and shared memories from Towersey 2016, on the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Towerseyfestival
NOT only did we see the start of the seventh series of The Great British Bake Off on Wednesday, but we also had last year’s winner hitting our screens with ‘The Chronicles of Nadiya’ which, as Thame Food Festival Patron, Lotte Duncan suggested, should probably win a BAFTA for it’s title alone!
“All at Thame Food Festival Towers will be watching to see how the first week goes,” said Lotte. “What disasters lay in wait for these GBBO newbies?
“We count ourselves extremely lucky to be having our own BIG THAME BAKE in the town again on the day of the festival, and we’re even luckier to have some GBBO competitors, and of course the very lovely Nadiya herself.” They will be judging and baking on the day of the festival, September 24 – and they’ll all be interviewed by Lotte at 2.15 pm on the Big Thame Baking Stage.
Do you have any questions for Thame’s baking stars? Does your tart have the proverbial soggy bottom? Does your cake sag in the middle? And do your meringues have a mind of their own?
Well, send in your question now and you could be one of the lucky ones to have it answered.
Email your question to bake@thamefoodfestival.co.uk
THE BIG THAME BAKE – FULLY RISEN – 2.15PM ON THE BIG THAME BAKING STAGE WITH:
Nadiya Hussain
Richard Burr
Miranda Gore Browne
Chetna Makan
And the show Schedule now available to download from the new website: LINK HERE
This, the latest evolution of the original Thame Show that started as a ploughing match over 130 years ago, is to be know as The Thame Horse and Country Show. It will include many of the same things as the old ‘Oxfordshire County and Thame Show’ including a very big Horse Show with top class Showing Classes, Show Jumping with the country’s very best show jumpers taking part, and Dressage.
There will be a large, well filled Countryside Arena, with local packs of hounds and other animals like Alpacas and Rare Breeds, Cattle & Sheep classes, Shetland Pony Agility, Donkeys & Pony Scurry Driving. Another big attraction will be an Open Dog Show with classes for all including Scruffs that qualify for Crufts in 2017.
As usual, there will be plenty of Trade Stands and a Farmers Market, so plenty of food and drink to chose from.
The original Oxfordshire County & Thame Show was cancelled for 2016, following a number of year of financial losses. An experiment to move the show date to the summer and then back again the following September, both failed to draw the crowds, mostly because of bad weather.
The Directors chose to cancel the show for 2016, in order to protect the assets of the Association concentrate on letting the showground out to other event organisers for the time being.
Visit the new website HERE from time to time, for more details as the show approaches.
An independent retailer in Thame, which sells cake-decorating and making equipment internationally, has just said ‘good-bye’ to a class of students from all over the world, who have spent 12 days learning how to make sugarpaste flower sprays with internationally acclaimed specialist, Alan Dunn, in Thame.
Yes, those flowers really ARE made of sugarpaste !
The students were teachers, decorators and hobbiests from places as far as way as Atlanta in Georgia, Italy, Germany, Hong Kong and China. When Thame.Net dropped in to meet the visitors, they were all loving Thame, many of them having explored the town’s pubs and the shops – including one gentleman from Belgium – who happens to be cake-maker to the Belgian Royal Court, who bought several bow ties from Gallant in Greyhound Walk.
Joint owner of the course facilitator, A Piece of Cake in Upper High Street, Norma Laver, said: “It was such a pleasure to meet some amazing, talented people and to see old friends again and meet new ones. I’m looking forward to seeing many of them again next year.”
From L to R – Norma Laver, Michael Lewis-Anderson (cake maker to the Belgian Royal Court), Alan Dunn & Christine Walker. Image courstesy of A Piece of Cake
Norma and her business partner, Jenny Walker, have both won awards for their work. They started APiece of Cake in 1985 and now have one of the most comprehensive online stores supplying cake decorating equipment to the world. They were the first company to manufacture and sell ready-made, ready to use Flower Paste which is used by some of the worlds top cake decorators.
They are both great supporters of charities, most recently taking part in the Ice Bucket challenge, to raise funds for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the local activity centre for children with special needs, Thomley.
WITH just five weeks to go to the Thame Food Festival, and The Big Thame Bake, the ‘Plethora of Baking Genius Judges (Lottie Duncan quote!), time is running out fast to enter. Go to http://www.thamefoodfestival.co.uk/the-big-thame-bake-2016/ and check out the rules and the 12 tasty categories, and get practicing for the big day! Enter now and you could win a Kitchen Aid Mixer for your stunning bakes and cakes!
Great British Bake Off 2015 winner, Nadiya Hussain
The festival organisers will soon be taking bookings on the website for this year’s, brand new Wine Workshops with Wine Guru, Jerome Harlington, upstairs at Christchurch on the day, to pitch David against Goliath in the English vs Champagne taste off!
“The quality of English Sparkling Wine is now so impressive that we think it’s about time we gave Champagne a run for it’s money!” said Lotte Duncan, Patron, Non-exective Director and evet co-ordinator of the festival. “We have a line up of outstanding English Sparkling wines to pitch against some quality Champagne contenders.”
Thame Food Festival’s headliner on the brand spanking, new BIG THAME BAKING STAGE is last year’s winner of the Great British Bake Off, Nadiya Hussain. Lotte said: “We are chuffed to bits that we’ve managed to secure her appearance – she has captured the nation’s hearts, and I know she’ll capture yours on the day! We have so many wonderful bakers on the stage – Richard Bertinet, Benoit Blin, Richard Bertinet, Will Torrent, Richard Burr, Miranda Gore Browne and Chetna Makan.”
If you join Lotte Duncan at the stage at 2.15pm, you can see her interview them, and you get to ask them some questions and hear how the programme has changed their lives.
For the AGA CHEF’S STAGE, Raymond Blanc is back! – the Festival Ambassador from just down the road at Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. He’ll be on the stage at 2.30pm shortly after his boys (Adam and Mark) fight it out in the annual cook off with Aylesbury College – always great fun and a chance to heckle!
Masterchef Champion ,Natalie Coleman, will be first up on the AGA stage, cooking with the winners of the local school cooking competition.
Festival regulars, the Caldesis, Dave Mooney and Sophie Grigson will also be featured as well as, for her second year, Lucie Greenwood from The Milk Shed, Weston on the Green, and for their first year, Alex Mackay and Chris Wheeler. “It’s going to be fabulous!” Added Lotte.
Want a book signed? Then walk over to the Pop Up Bookshop by the Baking Stage, care of The Book House in Thame. All your favourites will be on sale there and you can get them personally signed by the festival’s cooking superstars.
And of course – the main reason it’s called a Food Festival – over 200 artisan food producers lining up in the historic High Street of Thame. A Pop Up Pub in amongst them, some music and plenty of seating so you can soak up the atmosphere, have a drink and eat some outstanding and delicious food – all sampled and vetted by TFF HQ – “It’s a terrible job, but someone has to take one for the team!” concluded Lotte.
GET ready to tap your feet, laugh out loud, feel inspired, hear soul-stirring stories and generally totally indulge your senses!
That’s the message from this year’s, the seventh, Thame Arts and Literature (TAL) Festival coming up this Autumn, with over 40 events – the biggest ever TAL festival programme.
The wider-than-ever choice will include listening to fascinating stories from Charlotte Green, Nicholas Parsons, Anna Pasternak, Fiona Maddocks, Hugh Sebag Montefiore? Or Tom Paulin reading some of W.B. Yeats’ poems, accompanied by the wonderful John Pethica on fiddle.
To get you into the Festival mood, there’s a brand new Festival event, the Fothergill’s Fizzy Friday Concert, an hour of wonderful acoustic classic songs at the Spread Eagle Hotel, and be the first to hear the world premiere of a new work as part of the Thame Chamber Choir gala concert.
TAL tickets will be going on sale in less than a month, and prices have been kept at an affordable price, thanks to TAL’s generous sponsors.
For Star Trek aficionados, you won’t want to miss Marcus Berkmann, boldly going where several other people have been before. With wit, insight and a huge pile of DVDs, he tells the story of this sturdy science fiction vehicle.
Live long and prosper.
Read more about TAL, including the Founder’s Lecture by Lady Anne Heseltine, on the festival’s website: LINK HERE
DAVID Hare’s new English version of Lorca’s great masterpiece of love and loathing, The House of Bernarda Alba, is being performed by Thame Players during the week September 6 – 10.
The play is one of three in Lorca’s ‘rural trilogy’ – the others being Yerma (successfully revived at the Young Vic in a new adaptation starring Billie Piper this summer) and Blood Wedding.
Val Cockayne, who plays Maria Josefa, in rehearsals for ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’
The play was written in 1936, the year that saw the start of the Spanish Civil War and also Lorca’s murder by Franco’s nationalists at the age of 38 – he never saw his work performed. With an all-female cast, The House of Bernarda Alba tells the story of five daughters living in one household with their tyrannical mother. When the father of all but the eldest dies, a marriage plan is advanced which has dramatic and tragic consequences for the entire family.
The play deals with themes such as arranged marriage and illegitimacy, providing an insight into social conditions in rural Spain in the 1930s. It explores passion, repression and conformity, showing the powerful influence of family reputation on events.
Lorca was the homosexual son of a wealthy landowner, a celebrated poet, artist and musician as well as a playwright. A gentle man with republican sympathies, he heard first-hand in his father’s household from the servants gossiping about village life, about how women were treated in 1930s Spain, and this drama, set in the villages of Andalusia, shows how oppression, tradition and class prejudice affected women’s lives.
The director of Thame Players’ production is Bernadette Tildesley. She explained: “This play is challenging and draws you in because all the characters are strong and credible. The action is dramatic, but you sense an underlying ironic humour which deepens audience engagement. The leading character, the matriarch of the family, is fascinatingly awful to watch – men are mesmerised by her just as much as women.
“Although it relates to life in rural Spain over 80 years ago, this play has meaning for us in the 21st century.” Referring to a 2012 adaptation of Bernarda Alba by Emily Mann at the Almeida Theatre, Bernadette continued: “This adaptation reinforced the political resonances first seen in the 2005 premiere of David Hare’s version. These are relevant, for example, when you look at the oppression, particularly of women, that is happening now in contemporary Iran. These undertones enable the audience to appreciate and empathise with the poignancy of the story, while pondering its political dimensions. The play is beautifully written and well worth experiencing.”
NOTES
• The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca in the new English version by David Hare is at The Players Theatre, Nelson Street, Thame OX9 2DP from Tuesday 6th until Saturday 10th September, starting at 7.45 pm. Tickets cost £9 and £8 (concessions) and are available from Spear Travels, telephone 01844 217228 or online from www.thameplayers.co.uk
• Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), one of the greatest Spanish writers of the twentieth century, was born in Fuente Vaqueros, a village west of Granada. His early years growing up in the countryside had a lasting effect on him. In 1928 he found national fame with the publication of Gypsy Ballads. Returning to Spain from a visit to New York in 1929/30, Lorca found the left-wing government more to his liking. Using a government grant, he ran a travelling theatre company, La Barraca, from 1932-36. During this period he completed his ‘rural trilogy’ including The House of Bernarda Alba. Following the outbreak of civil war in 1936, he was targeted by Falangist thugs, arrested, and shot dead near Granada. Although his death was recorded in 1940, his body was never found.
• David Hare, born in Sussex in 1947, is the author of twenty-nine plays for the stage, seventeen of which have been seen at the National Theatre. His new version of Lorca’s play, premiered at the National in 2005 in a fine production by Howard Davies, leaves little doubt of the play’s political resonance. He has also written many screenplays for cinema and television and written and directed a trilogy of films for the BBC.
• Thame Players is a registered charity run entirely by volunteers offering a varied range of productions all year round, from serious theatre to comedy and pantomime, including their own productions, visiting shows, and film screenings by Thame Cinema 4 All. For more information about Thame Players call 07938 857291 or visit www.thameplayers.co.uk.
IF you’re beginning to run out of ideas of things to do with the family during the summer holidays, or just a curious adult with a couple of hours to spare in Oxford, there’s a fascinating exhibition on at the moment at The Ashmolean featuring relics left behind from sunken ships off the Italian island of Sicily.
Dr Jeff Royal of the East Carolina University, in front of the-the Rome: Total War display and battering rams
Oxford-based Freelance writer, Nicholas Newman, has written this review after a visiting the exhibition on its opening day, June 21st, but there’s plenty of time yet to see for yourself, as it runs until September 25.
Nicholas writes: “For over 2500 years, Sicily was fought over by many great powers including the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines,the Arabs and the Normans. As a result, a huge number of wrecks have been discovered in the waters that surround this island.
Some of the exhibits on display
For computer game players and fans of Rome: Total War, they will be especially pleased to see an excerpt from Battle of the Egadi being portrayed on a screen. This historic battle, that took place between the Romans and the Carthaginians on March 10, 241 BC, eventually led to Rome’s domination of the Mediterranean. The clip being played certainly demonstrates the effectiveness of the battering rams affixed to such triremes.
In addition, the exhibition illustrates the work of Honor Frost (1917–2010), who was one of the pioneers of early underwater archaeology. Sicily is where she did much of the work that was to make her a world leader in her subject. Well worth a visit!
This exhibition, Storms, War and Shipwrecks, has been curated by Dr Paul Roberts, Keeper of the Department of Antiquities and Dr Alexandra Sofroniew, Exhibition Curator at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and supported by The William Delafield Charitable Trust and the Honor Frost Foundation.”
FULL DETAILS, including ticket prices and information, can be found on the Ashmolean’s website HERE
PREPARE for an ocean of fun at Thame Leisure Centre’s swimming sessions this summer and grab the chance to win some ‘Finding Dory’ goodies.
Disney, the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) and Change4Life want your family to ‘Just Keep Moving…’ as they dive into a summer of activity inspired by the new Disney Pixar film, Finding Dory.
Families will have a whale of a time as they dive like Dory, splash like sea lions, and hide like Hank in a series of Finding Dory inspired activities based on core aquatic skills and led by a trained pool activator.
Better, the UK’s largest provider of public swimming pools, are delivering these sessions in 57 Better facilities across the UK including in the South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse areas, Thame Leisure Centre, Didcot Wave Leisure Pool and Gym, Abbey Meadows Outdoor Pool and Wantage Leisure Centre.
The bookable sessions, open to families of all ages and abilities, will be available betweem July 26 to September 4. Sessions are priced at £3 for adults and £2 for children, and will be held at Thame Leisure Centre on Tuesdays 9.15-10.00; Didcot Wave on Fridays from 9.30 to 10.30; Abbey Meadows Outdoor Pool on Tuesdays 11.30-12.00 and Fridays 10.00-10.30/10.30-11.00 and Wantage Leisure Centre on Tuesdays from 14.00-15.00 and 15.00-16.00.
The first 50,000 children across the UK that attend three sessions will receive a Finding Dory branded swimming bag from reception. All you need to do is collect a loyalty card from reception at your first session which must then be stamped on three separate occasions to qualify for the bag.
You could also win a Finding Dory prize bundle worth £250 when you upload a photo via Instagram using #JustKeepMoving. The competition will have 10 winners selected every week, winning a prize bundle of £250 value of Finding Dory products.
Full terms and conditions of the offer and competition are available on the ASA and Disney link here: www.disney.co.uk/justkeepmoving
The club has a full house PA system with keyboard, bass amp, guitar amp and jazz drum kit (bring breakables!) all set up on stage and ready to go. Another eclectic evening is guaranteed and entrance, as always, is FREE to all.
