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Weekly Roundup of Events in Wiltshire: 8th-14th September 2022

Slight seasonal changes, wetter but still warm, slight Prime Minister changes, dryer but still a narcissistic numpty; ah well, let’s see, a day later than usual I know and apologise, what’s happening in Wiltshire over the next week……

The one link you need as usual, is our event calendar, where it’s all listed with ticket and info links, and it’s updated (fairly) regularly, so bookmark the beast and remain as you will be after reading this; in the know.

Thursday 8^th and there’s the Swindon Comedy Club at Kioki, with headliner Abi Clarke.

Friday 9^thHedda Gabler begins at the Wharf Theatre, Devizes and runs until 24th September. Hedda Gabler is recognised as one of the world’s great plays written by one of the world’s great playwrights and is generally regarded as Ibsen’s masterpiece. Hedda, on the face of it, is not your archetypal tragic heroine. Starting quietly, and quite humorously, the drama builds to its terrifying and riveting climax, involving the presentation set of pistols that Hedda inherited from her father.

One to watch, Sour Apple play the Pelican in Devizes on Friday, and look out for a new music program called Vamos, at The Old Road Tavern, Chippenham, they’ve got the wonderful Harmony Asia supporting Hoggs Bison. And find Illingworth at The Royal Oak in Marlborough, all free gigs.

“Hurrah, they are back to School” runs the tagline of the end of summer barbeque at Seend Community Centre.

Our renowned house DJ, George G Force is at Marston Park, Frome, while tribute The Smyths play The Cheese & Grain. Festival season hasn’t quite closed yet, it’s The Mucky Weekender Festival at the Winchester Bowl.

Meanwhile, In Swindon, Dangerous Kitchen play The Vic, The Salts at Swindon Arts Centre, and A Country Night in Nashville at the Wyvern Theatre.

Saturday 10^th and back by popular demand, the start of the legendary Pewsey Carnival, yay! Procession is next Saturday 17th, with the Wheelbeero race on Thursday 15^th, but this Saturday is Pewsey Carnival Wine Race.

Our editor’s pick of the week; Party for Life, Melksham

A world suicide prevention day fundraiser in the Sky Bar at Melksham Town FC. The Soul Strutters, Blind Lemon Experience and Roughcut Rebels play this big one, with DJs and pizza and others; sounds fantastic, we did preview it a while back, and I believe a few tickets are still up for grabs, follow their Facebook page for more details.

Staying in the Sham, The Pilot has a Family fun day with music and, fundraising for MIND, see the poster for details.

Crafts, stalls and entertainment are promised at Devizes Rotary Club’s Health & Wellbeing Showcase on the Small Green from 11am-3pm on Saturday, and for a musical evening in Devizes, rock covers band Black Nasty are at The Southgate, while People Like Us do their awesome thing at the Three Crowns.

Time also, for the Burbage Beer, Cider & Music Festival.

Another upcoming local band to watch is Salisbury indie-kids Carsick, who plan to blow the lid off of Trowbridge Town Hall.

Contrasts in Swindon as Rage Against the Regime play The Vic, while Shape Of You brings the music of Ed Sheeran to the Wyvern Theatre.

You might have caught him at Devizes Arts Festival this summer, Alfie Moore’s show Fair Cop Unleashed comes to Salisbury Arts Centre.

No prizes for guessing who Motorheadache is attributing, they’re at the Cheese & Grain, Frome, while Dana Gavanski plays their sister venue the Tree House, with Cornelia Murr in support.

And unfortunately, The International Comics Expo, ICE in Birmingham which I’ve still got listed, has been cancelled, I’m just being too lazy to delete it!

Sunday 11^th, after terrible weather last Sunday postponed Devizes Town Band’s Children’s Proms in the Park at Hillworth, it will be combined this week with the planned main Proms in the Park.

And save a Recital Series at Swindon Arts Centre, also on Sunday, that about wraps it up for the weekend, unless you know different? Unless you dare to tell me that I missed something?! Please do, I don’t bite, at least only a nip, on the bum; it’s free to list stuff on Devizine, just message us, we’re in it for the love.

Through the week I’ve not got much, but you know updates of the event calendar occasionally happens, though I’m currently undergoing the arduous task of getting next year’s calendar up and running, so bear with, bear with.

Tuesday 13^th, I’ve got Kaleidoscopic at Salisbury Arts Centre and a RSPB: A Victorian Birder’s Wiltshire at the same venue.

Next week though you can look forward to Pewsey carnival, Swindon Shuffle, and the White Horse Opera is back too, along with lots more events to get your teeth into; I’ll catch you around at one sometime, maybe? What else are you going to do, “Simpsonise” yourself with a phone app; get real?!!

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The World Under the Wood; New Family Theatre at The Wharf

The World under the Wood is a new musical-play for children & family audiences written by Helen Langford, who brought ‘Adam & The Gurglewink’ to the Wharf in 2020…..

Jodie meets a magical talking Tree who asks for her help. The wood seems to be dying and Tree thinks the incredible World under the Wood may hold the answer…Jodie is whisked away to a super-world where life moves super-fast. But she discovers that this world is failing too; the super-humans have been collapsing and productivity is down. Jodie and Harley the dog must now journey between worlds to find an answer. Can the mega-multiplier plants restore the wood? And what is the mysterious Source?

The play highlights the need to stop taking the natural-world and its resources for granted. The world under the wood is an awe-inspiring land of invention and productivity, but Jodie discovers that the resources which underpin it are, to everyone’s surprise, finite. The ‘super-humans’ parody the rat-race of contemporary life, where achievement is king and the constant cycle of doing is reassuringly exhausting. Any long-term consequences of living this way have been ignored…until now. We learn through Jodie’s adventure, that it is through perseverance and working together that environmental problems can be tackled.

Though the message is timely and serious, the show is full of fun. With larger-than-life characters, catchy songs, and magical happenings, you’re sure to love your adventure to the world under the wood!

The World Under the Wood runs from Thursday 23rd June till the Sunday, 26th June.

Tickets can be purchased by ringing 03336 663 366; from the website https://www.wharftheatre.co.uk/ and at the Devizes Community Hub and Library on Sheep Street……and don’t forget to follow on Instagram and Twitter.

Ticket Prices:
£6.00 – £8.00* Family 4 – £22.00* Family 5 – £28.00* *booking fee applies For Group Bookings please contact hire@wharftheatre.co.uk directly to ensure that you only pay one booking fee.

Song of the Week: Sienna Wileman
Okay, I admit it, our Song of the Day feature was too optimistic, and failing every day to post a tune meant it fell by … Continue reading “Song of the Week: Sienna Wileman”
REVIEW – Comedy Night @ The Piggy Bank, Calne – Tuesday 31st January 2023
What’s Funny About Tuesday Night? Andy Fawthrop You know how we’ve previously moaned on and on (and on) on these pages before about the lack … Continue reading “REVIEW – Comedy Night @ The Piggy Bank, Calne – Tuesday 31st January 2023”
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Akin to Ghostbuster’s nemesis Slimer when he appears over the hotdog stand, I was squatting a spacious windowsill at Wiltshire Music Centre with an Evie’s … Continue reading “On The Wayside with Viduals”
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Thank the heavens we can kick January out of the door! It’s been a warmer week though, hasn’t it? Still wouldn’t reach for the Hawaiian … Continue reading “Weekly Roundup of Events in Wiltshire: 1st – 7th February 2023”
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Marlborough News reported “in the Seventies, Marlborough boasted well over twenty pubs. Now there are just six,” in an article about the retirement of longstanding … Continue reading “Marlborough’s Lamb Landlord Farewell Gig Will Be Pants!”
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If the last thing you’d expect as the final sound you hear before leaving a festival carpark is of scraping frost off windscreens, notion of … Continue reading “Beating January Blues, Bradford-on-Avon Roots Style”
Old Wharf Café to Become Meeting Room
The Kennet & Avon Trust today revealed plans to convert the old café on Devizes Wharf, Couch Lane, into a meeting facility; how exciting! It … Continue reading “Old Wharf Café to Become Meeting Room”
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Two Family Friendly Festivals in Swindon

If family-friendly festivals these days are two-to-a-penny, and you pop with the kids, like you are a kid, one thing is certain, and cool, you don’t gotta trek miles to catch one. Swindon has two upcoming I’d like to mention, if I may?

Firstly, a massive congratulations to Talk in Code, Swindon’s own indie-pop outfit rising to fame through excellence and dedication, we will be hearing a lot more from them methinks. They open the main stage at M is for Festival in Lydiard Park on 27th July. Alongside a plethora of contemporary pop acts such as Years and Years, Ella Eyre, HRVY, Becky Hill, Phats & Small, Jahmene Douglas and another BBC Music Introducing in the West upcoming band, She Makes War. Oh, not forgetting Top Loader will be dancing in the moonlight.

Tickets start at thirty quid, under fives go free, which isn’t half bad for such a grand line up, in such a nice setting too.

But if you’re all like Phats and who now, or years and years too far back, you could rustle up some hairspray and don your old leg warmers for Red Sky Promotions may just have the family festival for you, like as early as next week; I don’t think I’ll find my diddy-boppers in time, they’re in the loft somewhere.

Eighties fans, who isn’t? Bookmark 29th June, and grab a ticket for The Back to the Eighties Festival at the Old Town Bowl, in Old Town Gardens.

Throughout the day until 6pm all kids can have festive fun with everything from hair braiding, 80’s neon face paints and glitter designs, hair sparkles and hair chalk colouring, temporary transfer and glitter tattoos to neon nails and more, free of charge. Relax, you’ll even get to create your own T-shirt memento of the day.

There will be stalls, food, drink and a host of other activities to accompany the musical time machine that the festival promises to be.

The day offers a range of 80’s music delivered in unique ways; opening with Sonore String Quartet rendering classic songs into lush classical sounds, 80:Three deliver two sets of pop gems, Emily-Jane Sheppard will bring her solo singer-guitarist set of classic covers and the headline act is the awesome Ghetto Blasters, a lively brass ensemble popping and rocking their way through the decade. DJ’s will be spinning all the tunes you love from the era; big chart favourites to half-forgotten gems will play between the main acts.

Your ZX Spectrum may not load this page, but tickets are here; £25 for adults, £15 for the nippers, and a price range for groups of four or more. Wham!

Adverts & That!

Big, Music, Family, Fun @ Wiltshire Music Centre this Saturday

Kids banging their drum set upstairs, would-be guitar hero strumming in the lounge? Want to encourage them, don’t need the headache? I might have the answer to all your problems. This Saturday (22nd June) you need to get down to the Wiltshire Music Centre in Bradford on Avon, as it’s a Big Family Music Day over there, and for only £6, or £3 for under 18s and students.

What promises to be “a jam-packed day of fun for all the family,” The Music Centre invites you along to experience something new. There’s music and activities for all the family, including these varied workshops and things to do:

Discover / Learn / Perform with Wiltshire Young Musicians:

Come and learn a new instrument with our friends at Wiltshire Young Musicians! Discover brass, strings, wind or percussion before learning with outstanding teachers to prepare for a big performance in the Auditorium.

Bath Youth Folk Band:

Experience toe tapping reels and exciting jigs in this open rehearsal with Bath Youth Folk Band and get involved by singing, clapping or dancing!

Jazz Factory Workshop:

Learn how to swing and play the blues with Ross Hughes of Jazz Factory.

Drum West: African Percussion:

Tap away with Victoria and Chris from Drum West and discover the exciting music of West Africa.

Uke Lift: Ukulele Workshop:

Join Danielle from Uke Lift and pluck away in a large ukulele ensemble!

Free Stage: St Laurence School & Zone Club:

Sit back and enjoy performances from young musicians based across Wiltshire, including Wiltshire Young Musicians, St Laurence School and Zone Club.

WEYO Screening: West of England Youth Orchestra

Enjoy a recording of the West of England Youth Orchestra performing a recent new commission and find out more about the flagship orchestra.