RACQUETS Fitness Centre, in North Street, Thame, will be hosting a graded Doubles tournament on June 15, 2019, and all standards are welcome to take part.
Prize money will be up for grabs in the A grade.
For more information visit: LINK or to enter for the link HERE
Entry fee includes T-shirt, food on Saturday and a free beer! (Local matches may start on Friday)
GRADES A, B, C, D, E (Any gender mix)
PRIZE FUND of £500 Cash and Equipment prizes
A Grade Winner £200
A Grade Runner-up £140
Losing A Grade Semi’s £80
SATURDAY EVENING – There will be music and drinks in the bar after so why not stay for bit of social?
WHEN: Sunday May 12, at 7 pm – UK 2018, 111 minutes, 15 certificate – directed by Wash Westmoreland, starring Kiera Knightley, Dominic West, Fiona Shaw, Eleanor Tomlinson, Denise Gough.
COLETTE was one of the most celebrated French authors of the twentieth century, nominated for the Nobel Prize, and given the honour of a state funeral when she died in 1954. But to begin with, she was Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, a young girl from a French provincial town, waiting for her life to begin.
She has an older lover, the literary entrepeneur Henry Gauthier-Villars known as “Willy” (Dominic West). When she becomes his bride, moving to Paris to become part of the literary demi-monde, she anticipates creative and artistic adventure and romantic fulfilment. Things don’t quite turn out that way – Willy is a rake and a philanderer with no intention of setted fidelity, and Gabrielle is bored and frustrated, frequently cooped up in cramped apartments, impoverished and engaged in clerical servitude, liaising with Willy’s factory of writers churning out pulp bestsellers.
But along the way she learns to write. She produces a manuscript about Claudine, a young girl at school navigating burgeoning maturity, and Willy decides to publish it as his own work. It is a publishing sensation, becoming something of a cult, tapping into a hitherto neglected readership of young girls and women eager to consume distinctly feminine narratives. Willy recruits his wife to keep churning them out, spicing things up, feeding the seemingly bottomless public appetite for all things Claudine – but insisting on using his own name as the author.
Knightley palpably relishes this role, and is feisty and playful as a woman grappling with personal, marital and societal constraints, striving to reclaim power and autonomy from her egotistical and pompous husband. This is simultaneously a spirited and celebratory biopic, and a lush and exhilarating portrait of Belle Epoque literary Paris: the bars, the nightclubs, the salons, the characters, the scandals, and the people who moved within them. These include gender fluid trailblazers such as ‘Missy’, a noblewoman and artist who chooses to live as a man, becoming Colette’s lover.
Westmoreland’s film – his first following Still Alice – is a period piece but with a defiant contemporary sensibility, celebrating women’s voices, women’s stories, and one person’s journey towards creative autonomy. View the trailer HERE
THAME mum, Helen Flitton and her children and some friends, held there own School Strike for Climate Strike last Friday, outside Thame town hall.
Helen, who had written to the Head of her children’s school, explaining why they were striking, was joined by other mums including Rosie Pierce and Rachel Lowe, and their children.
Helen published a copy of the letter she sent to her children’s Headteacher explaining why she was taking her children out of school to hold their rally to draw attention to the Climate Change Emergency:
POPULAR TV celebrity cook, Mary Berry, is to appear at this year’s Thame Food Festival on September 22.
Mary will be doing an interview, followed by a book signing. Others appearing in an all-star cast of chefs and bakers on the main demonstration stage include previous The Great British Bake Off and MasterChef winners and contestants, plus lots of new people too, Briony May, Alex Hollywood and Chris Bavin to name a few.
BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW and be entered into the prize draw to have a reserved seat in the front row!
THAME has been in the national news recently because of the Town Council’s (rejected) proposal to erect red plaques commemorating the town’s fictitious involvement in a television series.
Thame does however boast several blue plaques featuring famous real people who lived in the town, one of whom, the poet W.B. Yeats, is the inspiration for Thame Chamber Choir’s recently-announced Choral Composition Competition.
Launched as part of the choir’s 20th anniversary celebrations, the contest asks entrants to set any Yeats poem of their choice to music. Entries will be judged by international composers and conductors, Bob Chilcott and James Burton, as well as the choir’s Musical Director, Duncan Aspden and professional pianist and singer, Anna Markland.
The winning composition will be premièred at the choir’s concert during the 2019 Thame Arts & Literature Festival, and the composer will receive a prize of £1000.
Full details of how to enter are on the choir’s website, www.thamechamberchoir.org
Soha Housing, landlord to around 6,700 households across South Oxfordshire and surrounding areas, including Thame, is among the best providers of housing for older persons in the country, according to judges of the UK Housing Awards, held yesterday, May 1.
This came in the same week that the Centre for Housing and Support, part of the Chartered Institute of Housing, rated Soha’s Independent Living service as “outstanding”.
Soha was shortlisted for the quality of its homes and services to older people. In a statement, Soha said: “The housing association offers homes to rent or buy from self-contained retirement apartments and bungalows to individual flats in the community or in the very popular Extra Care schemes. It makes sure its housing services are responsive and meet individual needs. The Independent Living team visit everyone over 70 regardless of where they live and help them access wider services.”
Resident Val Kir, Chair of Soha’s Seniors’ Group, has supported the initiative this year to become a dementia-friendly organisation, creating over 100 Alzheimer’s Society dementia friends, as well as the partnership working with Oxfordshire County Council’s Adult Social Care to embed an Occupational Therapy service in Soha. Mrs Kir said: “Soha really cares about its older residents and their independence, and as a mutual organisation – where residents can become shareholding members if they wish – residents are the real judge of their services.”
Maureen Adams, Director of Customer Service and Operations at Soha, added: “I’m thrilled that the hard work of residents, partners and our great team has been recognised nationally. We work with customers to make a difference to the quality of life for present and future residents.”
The UK Best Older Persons’ Housing Provider was Connexus of the West Midlands.
Image: Rachel Dredge with an elderly Soha resident
THAME Chamber Choir (TCC) has received a funding boost that will help the choir towards celebrating its twentieth anniversary, and the tenth anniversary of its children’s choir, TCC2.
Chris Fram, Music in the Park Chair (centre) presents the cheque to Peter Smith, Chairman (left) and Duncan Aspden, Musical Director (right). Photo courtesy Steve Gunn
Music in the Park has donated £500 to Thame Chamber Choir (TCC). The money will help fund a series of concerts to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Thame Chamber Choir by enabling it to engage professional musicians to perform at the concerts to enhance their appeal and bring them to a wider audience.
Thame Chamber Choir brings together many outstanding singers from Thame and the surrounding area, including professional musicians, singing and music teachers, former Cathedral lay clerks and ex-choral scholars from many cities. They blend their voices with others drawn by a passion for excellent choral singing. The Choir’s repertoire has included substantial works by Bach, Bernstein, Charpentier, Dvorak, Faure, Handel, Haydn, Kodaly, Liszt, Mozart, Rossini, Schutz and Vivaldi, as well as shorter works by a wide variety of composers from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century. Thame’s Children Choir (TCC2) is the children’s wing of the Choir. It offers a special opportunity for boys and girls aged from seven years upwards to learn to sing and enjoy a wide variety of music.
Music in the Park Chair, Chris Fram, said: “Music in the Park is delighted to help Thame Chamber Choir in its mission to bring first-rate choral music to a wider audience.” Thame Chamber Choir’s Chairman, Peter Smith, added: “Thame Chamber Choir has been providing audiences with high quality musical performances since it began in 1999. We formed the Children’s Choir in 2010 and we are thrilled that this grant will help us celebrate these anniversaries in a fitting manner.”
THAME Players are opening with their production of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution at the Players Theatre on Tuesday, May 7.
Generally regarded as one of Christie’s most accomplished plays, this suspenseful thriller keeps audiences guessing until the very end.
The plot centres on a court case involving a man, Leonard Vole, who stands accused of murdering a wealthy older woman, Emily French, who has made hm her heir, unaware that he is married. The stakes are high, with shocking witness testimony, impassioned outbursts from the dock, and a young man fighting to escape the hangman’s noose. The jury’s verdict is only the beginning of a story that is full of twists and turns.
This play was suggested to Agatha Christie by her theatre producer, Peter Saunders. The first draft was entitled Hostile Witness, but this was changed to Witness for the Prosecution at an early stage. Peter Saunders enlisted the services of Humphrey Tilling, a barrister, to verify the authenticity of the legal aspects of the plot. A lot of research went into the play, with both Christie and Saunders writing long letters to each other debating points and Christie also reading several volumes of the Notable British Trials book series to ensure everything was just right.
Witness for the Prosecution premiered at the Winter Garden Theatre in London’s West End in October 1953 and was a huge hit. It became Christie’s proudest achievement as a dramatist.
Agatha Christie’s output includes over 70 novels and 150 short stories. She also wrote over 20 plays. The most famous, The Mousetrap, which opened in 1952, is the longest-running play in the world. With more than two billion books printed she is outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Agatha Christie has been widely adapted for TV, film, radio, publishing, stage and digital, and her books have been translated into more than 100 languages, making her the most translated writer of all time.
Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution is being performed at The Players Theatre, Nelson Street, Thame OX9 2DP from Tuesday – Saturday, March 7 – 11, 2019 at 7.45pm.
Tickets are all £8 on Tuesday 7th and Wednesday 8th, and £10 (£9 concessions) from Thursday 9th – Saturday 11th. Tickets are available from Spear Travels, Greyhound Walk, Thame, telephone 01844 217228, or online from www.thameplayers.co.uk
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL – PATRICK COLLINS
Sunday 19th May Ticket price tbc
Another evening of poetry, readings and music in aid of Amnesty International
EXTREME CHAMPIONSHIP IMPROV Friday 24th May at 7.45pm Tickets £10
Extreme Championship Improv is the latest and greatest form of improvised theatre from Sparky Buddy Productions, a film and theatre company based in the UK. Originally founded in 2010 by artistic director David Pustansky, the company was originally formed as a pure improvisation theatre company
HATS OFF TO LED ZEPPELIN
Sunday 2nd June at 7.45pm Tickets £15
Experience the power and the passion of a Led Zeppelin concert, played by one of the most exciting Rock’n’Roll bands on the circuit today. These guys have performed with the best and are a truly professional outfit guaranteed to give you a night that you won’t forget in a hurry!
COMEDY @ THE PLAYERS
Friday 7th June at 7.45pm Tickets £12
Alfie Brown: Lunatic (plus supporting act)
From a complete sell out run at the Edinburgh Festival, Alfie Brown is coming to Thame on his first UK Tour. His latest show, Lunatic, is about identity politics and trying to be a good father in a horrible world. He provides no answers, only questions.
DUNG BEATLES
Saturday 8th June at 7.45pm Tickets £12 with £10 concessions
Hailed by The British Beatles Fan Club as ‘definitely not your average Beatles band’, the band has earned high praise for its authentic musical renditions and close-harmony vocals. Based in Buckinghamshire, The Dung Beatles got together in 2013, with Danny Prendergast on lead guitar and vocal, Mike Ashton on drums, Steve Hillier on rhythm guitar and lead vocal, and Phil Toler on bass and vocals. Martin Kent joined in 2017 on keyboards.
All Tickets available online from www.thameplayers.co.uk or from Spear Travels on 01844 217228
