A tribute to Nat Adderley at Jazz Club

Forits firstPeterboroughJazz Club concert of the Autumn Season, London-based trumpeterMattRobertshasassembled an all-star sextet to pay tribute to the great trumpeter/composer Nat Adderley at the Great Northern Hotel on Sunday.

TheSextet, whichfeatures the classic front line of trumpet, alto andtenorsaxophone, consists of six of the top young jazz musicians from the London and Leeds jazz scenes. This concert is part of a tour celebrating the music associated with Nat Adderley, with the sextet playing manyofthe great tunes associated with Nat and his brother, Cannonball Adderley.

Matt Roberts graduated from Leeds College of Music then progressed to Trinity College of Music, where he won the 2010 Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition and also was awarded the Chappell Composition Prize.

Music starts at 7.30pm. Tickets £14 at the door. Earlier this year, hundreds of people flocked to Nene Park to see the company’s atmospheric version of Arthur Ransome’s We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea, performed in a pop-up theatre tent.

Now the theatre-makers have turned their attention to E. Nesbit’s much-lovedclassic, The Railway Children.

Staged in Eastern Angles’ new performance space, The Undercroft, this brand new version of the story, entitled TheFlettonRailwayChildren, will transport the familiar characters to Peterborough during the 1960s.

WhenEasternAngleswere looking for someone to take on the adaptation, they soon realised that award-winning writer Julie Mayhew was the perfect choice. Not only was Julie was born and educated in Peterborough, her family backgroundgivesheraunique insight into the world of the railways.

“My f amily i s steeped in the railways,” says Julie. “My grandfather Sidney ‘Dick’Mayhew started working on the railways as a horse boy when he was 13 and met my grandmother, Olive, the baker’s daughter, in Shepeau Stow, when he was running deliveries from Postland station. He finished his railways career as the foreman of the goodsyardatthenow-gonePeterborough East Station.

“My father was a young trainspotter,” she continues, “collecting numbers with his brothers at the Peterborough FairgroundandatHicksLane, and I was taken to every preserved railway in the UK! I even did a stint on the Nene Valley Railway as a kid, being a fairy helper on the Santa Specials.

“I never knew my grandfather because he died when I was two years old, but I have discoveredsomuchabouthim whileresearchingTheFletton Railway Children. I’ve even given him a role in the play.”

Eastern Angles have a special affinity with Peterborough. Over the last eight years the theatre company have created a whole raft of work including 13 new plays especially commissioned for Peterborough audiences. Many will remember the company’spopular‘NewTown musical’ Parkway Dreams which charted the history of the Peterborough Development Corporation. Now, with the establishment of The Undercroft, in the basement of Serpentine Green Shopping Centre, the companyarekeen to produce more work with a Peterborough focus.

For Julie Mayhew, the play’s Peterborough setting makes perfect sense. “Peterborough has such a longstanding relationship with the railways. By 1900 one in four people were working on the railways. Yet, as one of the characters in my play says, Peterborough is just seen as a station you go through or get stuck at, not a place you purposely stop. I hope this play will change some attitudes about that.”

The Fletton Railway Children, can be seen at The Undercroft, Serpentine Green, betweenOctober26thandNovember 5th. For tickets visit: www.easternangles.co.uk