Category: entertainment and leisure news

TONIGHT – Friday, May 20, at 7.45pm, Thame Players Theatre, Nelson Street, Thame – Doomed Women, a double bill of two fascinating one-act plays. Following excellent reviews and sell out shows in Edinburgh last year, the five-star rated company, A Drunken Sailor, are touring DOOMED WOMEN nationally in 2016: Drama from the award-winning playwright Joan Greening (creator of ITV’s Cabbage Patch and Trouble and Strife).
Five women set on a course to death or self-destruction. Who survives?
Two shows: one evening of brilliant drama and entertainment.

TERROR: During the French Revolution, two old courtesans, Jeanne Du Barry and Grace Dalrymple Elliot, spend the night together in Sainte-Pélagie Prison awaiting the guillotine the next day and hoping for a last minute reprieve. Will they find a way to escape the chop?’ Always an entertaining play – like Horrible Histories, it’s history with the horrible bits left in. ‘A great show – intelligent, funny, touching and full of interesting historical details.’ ‘ A real treat’

ROSSETTI’S WOMEN: Three of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s lovers, the prostitute Fanny Cornforth, the ghost of Lizzie Siddal, and Jane, wife of his best friend, William Morris, – fight each other to prove whom he loved best.
‘Clever, entertaining and well-executed…. The production features a fantastic performance by Munrow and offers thought-provoking observations on love, relationships and life along the way.’ Past praise for performers Julia Munrow and Julia Rufey. ‘Funny and touching’ (Times). ‘Hilarious’ (Guardian) ‘Exerts a control over the stage that is almost tangible'( Herald)‘ Funny and engaging’ Broadway Baby.

Tickets for Doomed Women cost £10 and are available as usual from Spear Travels on 01844 217228 or online from thameplayers.co.uk.

AS Thame prepares for the annual Carnival on June 11, including the Big Thame Street party afterwards to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday, more help is needed to complete the 600 metres of bunting needed. (See LINK)

Lots of people have been busy cutting out triangles in red, white and blue, but more hands are need to sew them onto tape.

Anyone with access to a sewing machine who can spare just an hour or so, is asked to contact: Admin@thame4me.co.uk for more details. Please spread the word to relatives and friends who can help,  and you know what that say: “Sewing mends the soul!”

EXCITEMENT is mounting among the nominees, as the time draws closer for the 2016 winners of the Change the World art competition to be announced at an awards ceremony at 2:30pm on Saturday, May 21, at Oxford Town Hall.

Now in its second year, the Change the World art competition received more than 2,900 votes with over 10,000 online views. The 16 finalist artworks are currently on display in Oxford Town Hall gallery during Oxfordshire Artweeks from 6th to 28th May 2016.

Oxfordshire adults and students competed in their respective categories to gain the most online votes for a place in the final where a panel of three judges decided the top three in each category and an overall Grand Prix winner.

Change the World competition organizer and Thame-based Poseytude Gallery founder and owner, James Taylor, explained: “It’s wonderful to have more entries and three times as many views and votes as last year. The finalists’ works this year show great creativity and technique across a breadth of different media; sculpture, installations, textile, painting and drawing. It is a magnificent show and we are delighted that we can promote the message, the art and the artists in this way.

“Hopefully this will encourage young and old to enjoy and create art in their chosen form with a positive message to us all.”

The judges this year are Oxfordshire Artweeks board member and artist Jim Robinson, the successful Long Crendon cartoonist, Robert Duncan, and the artist, musician and journalist Stuart Macbeth.

The winners will receive a share of £790 of GreatArt (www.greatart.co.uk) gift voucher prizes for first, second and third places, plus an overall competition Grand Prix winner earning a £150 gift voucher. The finalists’ artwork is on display at Oxford Town Hall from May 6 – 28, along with other emerging contemporary artists from Poseytude Gallery.

The free entry exhibition takes place during Oxfordshire Artweeks, the annual month long celebration and exhibition of art across Oxfordshire.

CHEESE will be the star at this year’s fund-raiser for Thame Food Festival 2016, when, in association with the famous Italian Cheesemonger from London’s Borough Market, Emilia Ltd, the festival will host a Prosecco and Cheese Tasting Evening.

This fabulous event will be held at Lassco’s at The Three Pigeons, Milton Common, on Thursday, June 9, between 7 – 9pm.

The stars on the night will be:

Parmesan cheese 36 month (Dairy Agrinascente/ SuperGold at Cheese Awards BBC 2015) in pairing with Organic Prosecco DOCG BRUT (Winery Cantina Pizzolato)

Goat Pepper Cheese (Dairy Il Moro/Bronze Medal at International Cheese Award in Nantwich 2015) in pairing with Prosecco DOC No Sulphites Added (Winery Cantina Pizzolato)

Castel Rosso cheese (Dairy il Rosso) in pairing with Organic Prosecco ROSE DOC (Winery Cantina Pizzolato)

Artisanal Blue cheese (Dairy Il Rosso/Silver Medal at International Cheese Award in Nantwich 2015) in pairing with Cabernet No Sulphites Added (Winery Cantina Pizzolato)

There’ll also be an auction on the night! Tickets are £35 each, click here to book

www.thamefoodfestival.co.uk
www.emilialtd.co.uk
www.lassco.co.uk

THE first event of this year’s Thame Arts and Literary Festival will be an evening with Roger McGough CBE, one of Britain’s best-loved poets and presenter of Radio 4’s Poetry Please, who will be visiting Thame on Wednesday, October 12. For this unmissable show he will be joined by LiTTLe MaCHiNe, whose setting of vintage, classic and surprising poems to music has earned them a global reputation.

From Lily the Pink and The Aintree Iron to his Molière adaptations for English Touring Theatre, Roger McGough’s work spans five decades and includes many poetry collections for all ages. Described as ‘the patron saint of poetry’ by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, his latest book, It Never Rains, features a new selection of comic verse, accompanied by his own drawings.

Appearing in a full show, following their sell-out event at Thame Arts & Literature Festival (TAL) last year, are LiTTLe MaCHiNe – Walter Wray , Steve Halliwell and Chris Hardy. This follows numerous appearances at literary festivals in the UK and abroad, including The Hay Festival 2016 with Roger McGough. Drawing on three thousand years of poetry, LiTTLe MaCHiNe set poems to music and perform them with energy, passion, humour and wit. They have performed with many of the UK’s best-known poets, including Carol Ann Duffy, John Cooper-Clarke and John Hegley.

An Evening with Roger McGough and LiTTLe MaCHiNe’  will be  at the Spread Eagle Hotel, Thame, Oxfordshire OX9 2BW

Tickets can be purchased online at www.talfestival.org  or by phone on 0871 288 3420 (calls 8p per minute) at £17 full price, £15 concessions. Visit www.talfestival.org for details of the exciting line-up for TAL 2016. More events will be added over the next few weeks. The full programme is available in July. General booking opens 1st September.

STAND UP comedian, Damian Kingsley will be knock-knocking on the door of The Stables at The James Figg pub on Sunday, May 8, as his nationwide comedy tour in aid of the homeless charity, Shelter reaches Thame.

Damian chose Thame as one of the 120 stops he plans to make on his 550-mile Knock-Knock tour of the UK, which sees him travel from Land’s End to Edinburgh performing live at venues along the way. He is hoping to get to Edinburgh in time to perform his first, hour-long show at the Fringe in August, having polished his material at gigs along the way.

Every show is free entry with a voluntary donation to Shelter at the end and after performing in Thame, Damian will be heading off to his next destination in Haddenham either on foot or by cadging a lift – he’s not allowed to use any money or public transport on the tour. Luckily the team at The James Figg won’t be seeing him off without making sure he has a hearty meal at the pub and a few glasses of ale to see him on his way.

“It’s great that Damian’s tour is taking in Thame and that he chose us to do one of his charity gigs,” said Suzy Fenlon, assistant manager of The James Figg. “We don’t often get to host comedy – we’re usually more about music – but we’ve got a great crowd here and we’re sure they’ll be a great audience. We can’t wait.

“We hope we’ll get as many regulars and new faces as possible in and that everyone will dig deeply as Damian tells us he’ll be ranking towns by how much they donate to find out which is the most generous and which is tight,” she continued. “We don’t want the last one so we’ll be encouraging everyone to part with their cash on the night and help Damian hit his target,”

Damian set off on his tour on Friday, March 25, with a gig at The Star in St Just near Land’s End in Cornwall. By the time he reaches Thame he will already have 65 planned and probably some impromptu gigs under his belt – he is promising to do extra performances in return for favours along the way.

“I’ve planned the distances between each gig so I should generally be able to get to them on foot. But I’m likely to end up performing on the street and mowing lawns in exchange for the use of a washing machine or somewhere to lay my sleeping bag,” explained Damian.

‘So far, take-up has been really good from venues. Most are country pubs and inns, who are often offering to put me up and provide a meal, but I’m also doing it at other venues like arts theatres and Working Men’s Clubs, mainly in villages and small towns.”

12O NIGHTS, NO MONEY, NO TRANSPORT

Damian had long wanted to help the homeless, but it was a series of upsets in his own life that spurred him into action. “Last year, all around the same time, I split up with my fiancé and lost my job and my flat,” he said. “That certainly made me put things into perspective, and as I suddenly had a lot of free time, I finally made a start on this tour idea that I’d had a couple of years before.”

His target is to raise £7,000 by the end of August, including donations taken at his performances and by supporters along the way.

More details about Damian’s Knock-Knock Comedy Tour and a donation link are on his web site www.damiankingsley.co.uk. To follow the journey and get all the podcasts, blogs and news, join Damian’s mailing list. Follow him on twitter: #TWOKNOCKTOUR

Damian Kingsley’s gig at The Stables is from 8pm – 10pm on Sunday, May 8. The Stables is at The James Figg, 21 Cornmarket, Thame, Oxon, OX9 2BL. Tel: 01844 260 166. www.thejamesfiggthame.co.uk @figgthame

IF you haven’t yet bought your tickets to see Thame Players’ production of Philip King’s celebrated farce, See How They Run, you might like to know that a matinee performance of the show will take place at 2.30pm on Saturday,  May 7.

Tickets for this and all performances cost £9, concessions £8, and are available as usual from Spear Travels, Greyhound Walk, Thame, 01844 217228 or online from www.thameplayers.co.uk.

THOUSANDS turned out to bask in the sun and some glorious music and dancing, at Thame’s sixth Music In The Park on Saturday, May 1, and the hardier stayed on as the day cooled, to see the headliners, Beatles tribute band, The Dung Beatles – brass section and all!

From Indi, folk, punk, rock and choirs, local people and visitors could take their pick, or, in the spirit of the event, just let the whole line-up entertain as a backdrop to dancing, picnicking, chatting with friends over a drink, or just playing around and blowing bubbles!

Unfortunately, Thame trio, The 2 Strokes, were unable to appear, but Sidewalk Express jumped in at the last minute and definitely made an impression. So to did the John Hampden School choir with an energetic and most harmonious rendition of the ELO classic, Mr Blue Sky, which they touchingly dedicated to Headmaster, Alan Haigh, who retired at Christmas, and was in the crowd to hear it.

Every year the standard seems to rise and rise, and this year, as well as proper, older, experienced musicians like Chinnor-based Bootlegger, Paul and Martin, Celtic Heartbeat and The Rattlesnakes (featuring John Hampden School’s new Headteacher, Paul Hankey), there were two stand-out young men in the persons of the sensational, 14 year-old, ‘Anglo-Brazilain, fingerstyle guitarist’ Billy Watman and the even younger, emerging young talent, the  jaw-droppingly talented, Ben Corby who is just 11 years-old, and writes his own songs about the things that matter in his life like sleep-overs and friendship – such a mature and charming head on such young shoulders – awesome!

Showing that girls rock too, Thame’s Andrea Yates, confidently set the bar high as first on, in the Crash Stage tent, with her bang-on, floating vocals and acoustic guitar covers, and The Nikki Loy Band, lead by First Thursday Music Club favourite, the ball of energy that is Nikki her self, stirred the crowd into action with her sometimes moving and personal lyrics, on the Dome Stage. Ellie Ruddock with her new band, Out of the Village, gave some folk and pop covers a truly ‘different’ slant to the delight of their appreciative audience on the more intimate Crash Stage, and a young lady described as ‘one of the most promising British artists of 2016’, Georgie Bird, continued making waves live in Thame.

The organisers were delighted with the way the festival went, and on the MITP2016 facebook page, posted:

“Wow – what a fantastic day! The rain stayed away and we were treated to wonderful performances by all the singers, dancers and musicians, topped off by an awesome performance by the The Dung Beatles!

“Thanks to everyone that came and partied with us and helped us raise money for local community projects.”

Let’s have YOUR comments on the performers and the day! Lots more pictures by Thame.Net here: SEE LINK

THE famous Chilterns bluebell woods are becoming covered with carpets of blue, and the next couple of weekends are the best time to get out and enjoy them.

The average peak flowering time for bluebells is late April into early May but this year in more sheltered locations they are already starting to look really good. In the next few days many local woods will turn into a sea of blue, so get out there and make the most of them – they will be at their peak for the next two weeks. Half of the world’s bluebell woods are found in the UK so this is a spectacle that is very special to this country.

Some of the best bluebell woods in the Chilterns are:

· Cowleaze Woods, near Watlington
· Ipsden Heath, near Henley-on-Thames
· Wendover Woods, near Wendover
· Adams Wood, near Lane End
· Bradenham Woods, near High Wycombe
· Angling Spring Wood, near Great Missenden
· Ashridge Estate, near Berkhamsted

It’s a fantastic time of year to make the most of our beautiful local countryside and enjoy all the signs of spring. You can find lots of information on the best places to see bluebells in the Chilterns, plus details of walks and bike rides, at www.chilternsaonb.org