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Shindig 2007/08 Autumn Winter Tour

Shindig is Worcestershire's rural and community touring scheme. It brings professional artists to village halls and community centres around the county, usually places which don't usually see live performances. There is a wide range of events for all ages, with performances ranging from comedy to cabaret, from dance to drama, from poetry to puppetry.

Once again Shindig are touring with some spectacular shows. For Autumn/winter 2007/08 we have a total of 23 shows at various venues within Wychavon.

Below is a list of the shows being shown in Wychavon along with the dates, venues and the contact for any enquiries, ticket prices etc.

Mazaika

In Concert

Mazaika Duo is a perfect, yet totally unconventional, marriage of violin, accordion and voice, with performances full of fun, excitement and virtuosity, emotional depth and musical subtlety. Their twinkling humour, rapport with the audience and with each other gives the audience an intoxicating experience, which they will not easily forget.

Mazaika – Igor and Sarah - present a brilliant evening of highlights from their Classical, Russian and Gypsy programmes, interspersed with some of their favourites from around the world, including Argentine Tango, Neapolitan song, songs from the twenties and thirties, Bluegrass, Hot Club Swing, Klezmer and popular song, a real cabaret extravaganza. A very special evening of music, song and fun!

Trinity Church, Eckington, WR10 3AN
Wednesday 26th September - 7.30pm start

or

Harvington Village Hall, WR11 8NQ
Sunday 30th September - 7.30pm start

or

Birlingham Village Hall, WR10 3AD
Sunday 13th January 2008 - 8.00pm start
Contact for bookings - Karen Crowther - 01386 750915 BOX OFFICE. Email - stuart@crowther90.fsnet.co.uk

Pentabus Theatre Company

White Open Spaces

A young woman is jilted at a society wedding; a farmers wife fails to notice her marriage falling apart; a landlord has the worst day of his life....

Award winning Pentabus returns to its rural roots, with an evening of seven "talking heads". By turns hilarious, moving, provocative, White Open Spaces is a powerful exploration of life in the counrtyside today. Critically acclaimed in Edinburgh, London & Stockholm; broadcast on BBC Radio 4, White Open Spaces was nominated for a South Bank Show Award earlier this year.

Ashton Under Hill Village Hall
Saturday 29th September - 8.00pm start

NTC touring Theatre Company

Oceans Five and a Half

The lads of "The Flat Pack" love being Frank… and Deano and Sammie. The Summit of their aspirations is a sharp suit, a cool song, a classy dame, a Jack Daniels and a fistful full of aces… Unfortunately that’s not the hand they’ve been dealt.

They’re just three working-class lads from the North of England with suits from Oxfam and a big dream. Vegas… And if that dream is snatched away they’ll go to any daft lengths to get it back. Any crazy caper, an intricate plan … A Stewart Howson play with its typical mix of low comedy and high emotion. "But more, much more than this … They did it their way"

Cleeve Prior Memorial Hall
Friday 28th September - 8.15pm start

Phil Alexander & Greg Lawson

Box & Fiddle But No As You Know It

Phil and Greg’s music spans the world – Scotland, Ireland, Finland, Eastern Europe, Brazil… traditional tunes given a new twist, and original music built from all the influences we have encountered on our musical adventures. You will hear seductive waltzes, driving Balkan and Klezmer dances, heart-stopping tangos, foot-stomping reels and more – all played with wit, style and passion. Phil and Greg are two of the UK’s most versatile and innovative World musicians. Phil is a lynchpin of festival favourites Salsa Celtica (recently nominated for three Radio 2 folk awards) and is also the driving force behind Moishie’s Bagel, which has just completed 15 hugely successful dates for Artservice. Phil’s dynamic and inventive sound fuses his expertise across jazz, world and classical music into a whirl of creativity and drive. Greg is that rare thing: a classical musician able to channel his fearsome ability into the many sides of world and folk music, and still emerge with a sound all his own. A veteran of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the BBC concert orchestra and many more, Greg’s playing is characterised by a power and intensity that still manages to sing and soar every inch of the way. Together these two are a compelling mix of rhythm, dialogue, beauty and drama – the central energy behind two of Scotland’s finest World music bands allied to one of its most charismatic soloists.

Himbleton Parish Hall, WR9 7LG
Sunday 7th October - 7.30pm start
Contact for bookings - Mrs J George - 01905 391662 BOX OFFICE

or

Ashton Under Hill Village Hall
Sunday 2nd March 2008 - 8.00pm start
Contact for bookings -Penny Scotland - 01386 881594. Email - penny@home.gb.com

Trading Faces

Alice

Trading Faces’ new show for autumn 2007 is Alice, inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Alice is a family show packed with fun for adults and children aged 5 years and upwards. The show celebrates the fun and nonsense of Lewis Carroll’s works using masks, puppetry, film and poetry, drawing on the rich visual world of Carroll’s dynamic characters.

Carroll’s stories offer an action packed narrative – a story of a young girl who is thrown into a strange new world where she struggles to fit in and make sense of her surroundings. She is constantly faced with new challenges and has to learn to adapt and ultimately find the confidence to assert what she knows is right. This is a story of moving house; making new friends; learning when to speak and when not to speak; learning never to make assumptions; learning to cope with the unexpected and rarely to expect the expected. This show has Trading Faces trademark style of highly visual, fast and physical action and a contemporary treatment of a familiar story with relevance for an audience today. The production is full of visual surprises and physical transformations building on the success of The Little Prince a family show created by Trading Faces for Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company.

Charlton & Cropthorne Village Hall, WR10 3NH
Saturday 27th October - 6.30pm start

Hank Wangford & Reg Meuross

No Hall Too Small

This is the second season now of Hank and Reg’s great UK tour. The performance is folky and intimate, consisting of 1 part original songs mostly taken from Hank’s new album Best Foot Forward, 1 part original songs from Reg’s recent Short Stories and his brand new album Still. The 3rd part a selection of duets taken from the rich vein of songs produced in America from the 1930s to 50s by Brother acts such as The Louvin Brother & The Blue Sky Boys.

Songs that dealt with anything from religion, atomic power and class prejudice to the inevitable cheatin’, drinkin’ and divorce. As you’d expect from Hank the show contains plenty of humour, with his ‘You don’t have to make it up…!’ look at life, and his firm belief that it is possible to cry and dance at the same time!

Hank & Reg will share with you their love of the dark heart of Country. They will feature toe-tappers and tear-jerkers with such Divorce-defying Country near-classics as ‘He forgot to tell you he was a married man’, ‘It’s me or Elvis’, While you’re cheatin’ on me I’m praying for you’. As well as songs both solo and together, there will be stories and poetry from the highway of life. Lovely stuff!

Cleeve Prior Memorial Hall, WR11 8LE
Sunday 28th October - 8.15pm start

or

Whittington Village Hall, WR5 2RQ
Sunday 11th Nov - 7.30pm start

or

Harvington Village Hall, WR11 8NQ
Friday 18th Jan - 7.30pm start
Contact for booking - John Redman - 01386 870255/870817 BOX OFFICE. Email - johnaredman@onetel.com

Quondam

Unruly Women

Unruly Women builds on Quondam’s highly successful new style of Theatre With Music.
Unruly Women is an uplifting story with a (relatively!) happy ending about 3 women transported to Australia in the 1820s. Although they are told this sentence is a serious punishment, the women remain defiant and see it as an opportunity for a new beginning. The story revolves around how each of them displays hope and courage in the face of uncertain future, trusting that they inner strength will see them through.
Writer Sue McCormick has a genuine understanding of the audience for smallscale touring. She’s also an actress having just toured with Hull Truck’s hugely successful Ladies Day.
The songs and music in Unruly Women are a mixture of folk and classical-style music from the period, with a nod in the direction of modern instrumentation.

Beckford Village Hall, GL20 7AD
Friday 2nd November - 7.30pm start

New Rope String Band

In Concert

Brilliant musicianship counts for very little if you’re playing with total wallies.
The two surviving members of the Old Rope String Band (Pete Challoner & Tim Dalling) have joined forces with two amazing musicians (Jock Tyldesley and Vera van Heeringen) andas a four piece they are taking off from where the Old Ropes sadly stopped.
They play a big assortment of things and all sorts of hoedown, pan-Celtic old-timey up-beat down-home music.
All this is combined with bizarre physical nonsense and clowning about. And singing and dancing.
The sheer visualosity and laughableness of the New Rope String Band, plus the amount of interesting things will bring pleasure to absolutely almost everyone.

Boundless energy, exuberant spectacles and beautiful music executed with kindness. What could possibly go wrong?!

Sytchampton Village Hall, DY13 9SY
Sunday 4th November 7.30pm startor
or
Bishampton Village Hall, WR10 2LY
Sunday 3rd February 7.30pm start
Contact for booking - Sue Griffith - 01386 462306/462274. Email - orchardlea@bishampton99.freeserve.co.uk

Belshazzers Feast

In Concert

Are they classical? Are they traditional? Are they a category not even dreamed of yet by the reviewers? The answer to all three questions is undoubtedly YES - and they're a lot more besides!

Paul Sartin (Bellowhead, Faustus) on voice, fiddle and oboe plus Paul Hutchinson (Hoover The Dog) on voice and accordion have a perfect partnership. You can listen to their music note perfect and subtly nuanced – but it’s not going to tell you the half of what you’ll experience in concert because there are some things that you just can’t bottle!

The humour in a look, a groan, a frantic flailing at a keyboard as the pace hots up and the partnership disintegrates into combat of an entirely musical kind. And still it’s note perfect…until it’s not… and that’s where the superb dexterity of these two amazing musicians really comes into its own. A line of bum notes, perfectly timed between the two of them suddenly turns over the audience’s perception and bring forth howls of laughter. And was that really a measure of Hark the Herald Angels in the middle of Eine Kleine Nachtmusick? The musical jokes whistle past your ears with lightening speed.

Birlingham Village Hall, WR10 3AD
Sunday 11th November 8.00pm start

OTTC Touring Theatre Company

Under Milk Wood

Under Milk Wood is the final flowering of Dylan Thomas’s ripe genius, a poetic day-in-the-life of an imaginary small town - lyrical, heart-warming and wickedly funny! Peep through the keyhole, peer behind the curtains and join Lily Smalls, the poisonous Pughs, blind Captain Cat and a host of other colourful characters for the dance of the world and a sing-song in the Sailors’ Arms.

This acclaimed production toured last Spring and was so utterly brilliant that the company decided to re-tour with an integrated cast of actors. Under Milk Wood was universally praised by critics, promoters and audience alike during its first tour; one excellent reason for the revival and gives many audiences the opportunity to enjoy.

Elmbridge Village Hall, WR9 0DA
Saturday 10th November - 7.30pm start
Contact for bookings - Sylvia Clift - 01299 851266. Email - Sylvia.clift@tinyworld.co.uk

Coope Boyes & Simpson

Voices at the Door

The bumper winter harvest continues! Voices at the Door presents another splendid, bright and vibrant selection comprising pieces learned both from family carolling and the living carol-singing tradition of the singers’ local areas of Yorkshire and Derbyshire, together with some personal favourites out-side of those traditions. Naturally the singing here is top-class, with well-considered vocal arrangements that really involve the listener without losing earshot of the ‘bigger picture’.

Coope, Boyes and Simpson, Fi Fraser, Jo Freya and Georgina Boyes tell the story of carols – joyful and vigorous, darkly resonant or sublime – with tales of squabbling choirs, composers, collectors and controversy in a words and music programme of superb unaccompanied harmonies and fascinating historical detail. Voices at the Door captures the essence of the season – and is the best possible start to Christmas.

The incomparable acappella harmonies of Coope, Boyes and Simpson, Fi Fraser, Jo Freya and Georgina Boyes have won them friends across England and into Europe.

“There are carol singers and then there are Coope, Boyes and Simpson. Add Georgina Boyes and the two Fraser sisters, Jo and Fi, and you have a combination that manages to put the magic back into Christmas.” Surrey Advertiser

Harvington Village Hall, WR11 8NQ
Thursday 29th November - 7.30pm start
Contact for bookings - John Redman - 01386 870255/870817 BOX OFFICE. Email - johnaredman@onetel.com

Chuck & Albert

Arcadian Music

Chuck & Albert are no strangers to the art of total entertainment! They play brilliant music on a range of instruments alongside a mix of all-out sketch and comedy routines. The upbeat foot-stomping music of the indigenous Prince Edward Island is thrilling. Canada’s answer to the New Rope String Band!

From their unique cultural vantage point, these Island Acadian funny-men deliver clean creative, musical, family entertainment. Chuck and Albert believe two things: that every situation, no matter how grim, will be happily resolved, and that Chuck, who is thirty-six years old, will never be able to do his own laundry

Kemerton Victoria Hall, GL20 7JN
Saturday 1st December - 7.30pm start
Contact for booking - Ian and Sue McLeish - 01386 725404. Email - ianbmcleish@aol.com

OTTC Touring Theatre

The Delicious Revenge of Princess Ruby Slippers

Take a 5 year old, 6 yr old and 7yr old, add one harassed mum; a handful of favourite fairytale characters; season well with some sensational songs; mix together in a larger dressing up box and leave for five frenetic, fun-filled minutes. Result?

A topsy-turvy, helter-skelter history of sibling rivalry and parental desperation in a world of mixed-up musical make-believe where the Fairy Godmother’s hot and bothered and the Wicked Witch is itching to make boy pie!

With a surprise round every corner and a twist in every tale Princess Ruby Slippers is guaranteed to tickle the ribs of children, parents and grandparents everywhere.

Eckington Village Hall, WR10 3AU
Saturday 19th January 2008 - 7.00pm start
Contact for booking - Murray Briscoe - 01386 750305/07768 128690. Email - m.g.Briscoe@btinternet.com

Riccardo Tesi & Maurizio Geri

In Concert

Wonderful, evocative, traditional music and song from Italy with accordion, guitar and vocals. A joyful musical evening in the company of two internationally renowned musicians.

Riccardo Tesi is a composer, and impeccable instrumentalist on the Italian accordion. He is a multifaceted musical personality, a true pioneer of new music, influenced by his own rich Italian musical territories as well as retaining his links with the traditional music of his beloved Italy. For music that’s engaging, full of warmth, passion and sheer bliss to listen to this for any audience truly wonderful music from a fine artist, with a supreme band, simply remarkable!

Together with Maurizio Geri (voice and guitar) Riccardo Tesi provides a heart warming journey through the traditional music of Italy in an intimate and refreshing way. Maurizio Geri: The first experience of Maurizio Geri, guitarist and singer, was related to the revival of the folk tradition the Pistoia Apennines. In the early Eighties, during the ‘Cantar Maggio’ festival, organized by the Town Council of San Marcello Pistoiese, Maurizio had the opportunity to meet three musicians who would decidedly mark his development as an artist: Riccardo Tesi, Caterina Bueno, and Alberto Balia.

Whittington Village Hall, WR5 2RQ
Friday 1st February - 8.00pm start
Contact for bookings - Roger Phillips (co-promoter Les Wiltshire) - 01905 353964 and extra BOX OFFICE - 01905 357612. Email - roger@thechapelry.wanadoo.co.uk

or

Cleeve Prior Memorial Hall, WR11 8LE
Friday 8th February 2008 -8.15pm start
Contact for booking - John Arkell - 01789 773814. Email - johnarkell@supanet.com

Shooshoo Baby

Delicious!

The dazzlingly glamorous musical cabaret duo, ShooShoo Baby blends dry humour, rich harmonies and pulse-racing costume changes in their colourful new show Delicious!

Once ShooShoo Baby take to the stage the musical action never stops; they move seamlessly from The Old Bazaar in Cairo, via the Orient to Transylvania. The girls ‘friendly rivalry’ leads to an explosive finale as they compete to be the audience’s favourite sweet. In Delicious!

ShooShoo Baby perform witty new arrangements, of familiar songs such as Big Spender, A Night In Tunisia, The Monster Mash and The Rivers of Babylon by award winning arranger Warren Willis and musical director Craig Schneider. No theme tune, jazz standard or pop song is safe from their tongue-in-cheek treatment or quirky interpretation! Since creating ShooShoo Baby in 2000, Tanya Holt and Anna Braithwaite have performed at London’s Pizza on the Park, Cochrane Theatre, Talk of London, Menier Theatre and at Galas for everyone from Stonewall to French Attaché. They have toured extensively, performing to audiences from Cumbria to Devon. Their Edinburgh Festival debut in 2006 was greeted will full houses and critical acclaim. They are currently recording their debut album with producer Steve Booker, whichwill be released in April 2007.

Rous Lench Village Hall, WR11 4UN
Saturday 23rd February 2008 - 7.30pm start
Contact for booking - Fran Herdman - 01386 793651

If you are interested in becoming a Shindig Promoter please contact Sue Roberts at Artservice on 01544 327877. Email - sue@artservice.org.uk