I Got Music

The rambling campaigners

CAMPAIGNING theatre company Townsend Productions brings a new show with music, Behold Ye Ramblers, to Shillingstone’s Portman Hall on Saturday 23rd and Burton Bradstock village hall on Sunday 24th, both starting at 7.30pm. Behold Ye Ramblers is a new play by Neil Gore, produced in association with The Society for the Study of Labour History….

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Broadsides and bangers

BROADSIDE ballads, the wild and gruesome “tabloids” of the 17th, 18th and 19th century, are brought to noisy and colourful life in Broadside Bangers, a new show from Cornwall’s post-ragtime punk-klezmer-swing band, Julian Gaskell and His Ragged Trousered Philanthropists coming to Dorset for three dates with Artsreach from 22nd to 24th March. Described as a…

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Hanging Stars launch new album

LONDON based five peice The Hanging Stars are touring the UK to launch their latest album, On a Golden Shore, and stopping off at Southampton Joiners on 29th March and Bristol Hen and Chicken two days later. With sounds echoing classic Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at their peak, they will make these evenings memorable,…

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The hard life of the herring fishers

THE hard life of the North Sea herring fishermen was memorably captured in a 1929 documentary film which has been reissued with a new live score by the sound artist, nature beatboxer and composer Jason Singh. The film, Drifters, with Singh’s soundtrack and a new film is being shown at two Dorset venues on 15th…

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A folk ode to Dorset’s quarrymen

THE Mowlem Theatre at Swanage, close to some of Purbeck’s ancient quarries, was the setting for a film and recording of a new song, Drop The Hammer, described as a “captivating ode to quarrying in Dorset,” written and performed by the West Country folk and shanty band, The Longest Johns. The song was commissioned by…

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Taking tea with William Barnes

A CELEBRATION of the Dorset dialect poet, linguist and polymath William Barnes has become an annual fixture in the calendar of Dorset’s rural touring arts charity Artsreach and the Ridgeway Singers and Band. This year the event, Tea with William Barnes, will be at The Exchange at Sturminster Newton on Sunday 25th February at 3pm,…

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Counter’s Creek in Dorset

DRAWING on the heritage of folk music from the British Isles and beyond, acoustic folk-jazz quartet Counter’s Creek bring their original music – foot-tapping jigs and reels, heart-wrenching songs and 4-part harmonies, dance grooves from Eastern Europe and West Africa and a whole lot more –on 10th and 11th February to Winfrith Newburgh and Wootton…

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Half-term fun with Artsreach

WHATEVER the weather (currently unseasonably mild), Artsreach, Dorset’s rural touring arts charity, has a February half-term line-up of fantastic and fun theatre events for children of all ages, from deep-sea adventures and quests to deep, dark dungeons, puppetry, live music and more. Scarlet Oak Theatre comes to Sixpenny Handley village hall on Monday 12th and…

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