Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
From small acorns, great things grow
Small acorns grow into large oak trees, and Canterbury Festival is celebrating some of the successful artists who started as small acorns in Canterbury by bringing them back to their roots.
Oysterband formed nearly 40 years ago in the city and since then they have toured around the world, in festivals and concerts, bars, rallies and even jails.
Their music is fundamentally acoustic, and this year they are returning to Canterbury with hits from their long-awaited album This House Will Stand: The Best of Oysterband 19982015.
Ivo Neame, of the Shepherd Neame family, was born in Kent. He studied at the King’s School and went on to the Royal Academy of Music to study jazz saxophone.
Ivo is now regarded one of the finest young jazz musicians in the country.
He will be returning with his esteemed quintet on October 22 at St Gregory’s music Centre to deliver music that is fresh, uncompromising and brimming with energy.
The quintet will draw on their skills in improvisation as well as performing songs from their latest album Yatra.
Regulars at the Spiegeltent will already know Matt Bernard as the Kentish-born dapper Spiegeltent host.
He is also a member of the award-winning group Slightly Fat Features which is performing a family-friendly production, Variety Soup on Tuesday, October 25 and Wednesday, October 26.
This production promises to have anyone from seven to 107 on the edge of their seat with wondrous antics, tiger taming, bullet catching, original live music and most importantly, lots and lots of laughs.
Canterbury Festival nurtures the wealth of incredible young talent from across Kent through its Made in Kent initiative which is sponsored by University of Kent. Young writers, musicians, comedians and performers have the potential to become the big names of tomorrow, and the festival tries to give as much support and encouragement as it can in order to get them there.
A staggering 519 poems were entered for the Schools’ Poetry Competition this year, and winners have had their poems published in an anthology which is available for purchase.
The quality of work received this year was incredibly high.
The Bursary Competition comes to an exciting climax on Tuesday, November 1, with six talented finalists competing for the bursary prize by showcasing their technical brilliance in front of the judges.
For those young talented musicians who are more suited to pop rather than classical, Track Record is back for a second year.
For an opportunity to hear the best performing talent competing to win the opportunity to lay down their track in a professional studio, come to The Ballroom on Sunday, October 16, and listen to a mix of new original music and old classics with a contemporary twist.
This year the festival has set up a new comedy competition.
This competition gives local budding comedians a chance to wow the judges and leave audiences laughing out loud, with the winner receiving feedback from industry professionals and tickets to another comedy act performing at the festival this year.
You’ve missed this year’s deadline to enter, however the Comedy Competition will be coming back around in 2017 so if you think you have what it takes, look out for the application on the website.
If performing isn’t your cup of tea, but you would like to witness the next Michael Mcintyre or Sarah Millican before they hit the big time, then book tickets to the Comedy Competition on Monday, October 24, before they sell out, for a night so hilarious your jaw will ache.
Made in Kent is also supporting two incredible local theatre companies at the start of their careers.
After applying to the Made in Kent scheme back in May, these companies were selected to be a part of the main programme when it launched in July, and have been working incredibly hard on their shows ever since to bring professional and entertaining performances to the festival stage.
On Wednesday, October 26, the Cantastori Theatre Company is going to be performing Paris and Juliet, an original production that takes one of Shakespeare’s most wellknown tales and reimagines it from the perspective of Paris – a character who is constantly misunderstood.
Made in Kent’s other performance plays with fact rather than fiction; Sky News: The Musical is coming to the festival on Friday, October 28.
This musical theatre production humorously plays with real human interest stories from news broadcasts to remind us that the stories of human lives are truly stranger than fiction.