The fringe, as well as the International Festival itself is bristling with brilliance this year. Having been on the committee for the fringe I saw its budding ideas blossom and bloom before my very eyes. I had to back out of involvement (due to the Jaygo / hospital saga around the peak planning time) but I’m very pleased to see that it’s going great guns.  A huge cross range of things to do in and around town over the next couple of weeks.

Here’s a copy paste from an email thread I’m on the circulation of from the fringe main man, the one and only Graham Chalmers;

“The next 7 days are going to be a helluva week with the excellent Poems, Prose and Pints back in action at the Tap n Spile on Wednesday, Edwyn Collins of Orange Juice at 108 Fine Art gallery on Friday (the same night as amazing London rock band Teeth of the Sea play Katana in a 3D extravanganze thanks to Rod) and then a triple whammy next Saturday with a quintet from the Scottish Philharmonic at 108 Fine Art, Melody Maker music critic Chris Welch at Harrogate Theatre circle bar and the Across the Town: Hidden Harrogate psychogeographic ‘happening’ the same evening.
..Toyah at Harrogate Theatre on Friday and the highly sophisticated but quite sexy Claire Martin and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett at the same venue next Sunday.”

- – -

Click here for more info – the Fringe webpage»

 

Casablanca, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

You must remember this scene from Casablanca.. ? no? It was 8pm, Sunday evening in Harrogate. Daren, aka @paint_Monkey defined the moment by taking the Cuban bit by the teeth and declaring one of the few smoking cinemas left in England,  was open for business. Casablanca was playing on the temporary outdoor cinerma, perhaps less inflectionally known as ‘Movies on Montpellier’. The weekend activities (of which there were a few) were enhanced by the option of the free (and easy) outdoor walk in moviedrome.

The something for everyone film policy could have oh so easily gone for a strictly mainstream super safe approach the selectors, I think, got it spot on. Toy Story 3 was their opening gambit which we attended – on a stunning afternoon – and this was one of the kick-off (read awareness) events of the Harrogate International Festival – proper.  The Talented Mr Ripley headlined Sunday with Sherlock Holmes and Moulin Rouge! being the Saturday night showreels. I tweeted and foursquared during the event – seemed like quite a buzz about town for this event. We made the most of it and I rustled up a cracking picnic, washed down with cider on ice. Happy atmosphere, loads of space and thankfully the quality sound and picture were more than acceptable. The surreal bit was watching a terrific thunderstorm, whilst sat outside on a red hot and sunny July lunch time.

The only slight erk was that the virtual brochure (see link above) claimed that it would be showing “an array of feature [tick], family friendly [tick] and art-house films [hmm..?] as well as a showcasing talented young filmmakers in the region [insert Family Fortunes big cross noise here]“.  Is this last years copy? Were they featured but not billed,  or are there no talented young filmmakers in the region?

If I may reiterate the emphasis on ‘slight’ erk though – my main regret from the whole package was that we didn’t get enjoy more of it. Our weekend was jam packed. A Pub Quiz night at Grove Road School, a 4 year olds princess party, a huge win by fixing the fridge in our land ship as well as a bunch of other uber practical activities topped off with a lovely dinner and hang out with super fine wine and sunshine at the gorgeous abode of some lovely friends. Quite a special weekend all round. Here’s looking at you kid!

So I drive from Harrogate to a town just west of Skipton (and back) every day. Closing the A59 to work on landslip prevention for 5 weeks is fair enough (even though it’s the 3rd year running they’ve done it).

I can live with that. Essential work. Big ticket roadworks. Serious civil engineering – stand back everybody.

What I can’t live with is that they have closed the parallel (ish) Hall Lane / North Moor Road into Kexgill.  What should be a +3 mile / 5 min extra route turns into a +15 mile / 40 minute, depending in traffic in Otley) HGV friendly diversion. Apparently (according to the site foreman I spoke to) this is all because a resident complained about his road being used as a rat run. Same said foreman told me that the Police had instructed them to close that road. I spoke to the police who told me they had not done that at all and they shouldn’t cite them as the responsible party – it’s the Highways Agency / Council. My guess is that there’s a Daily Mail reading Harrogate Borough Councillor who lives down that road. I could be wrong.

I pay my road taxes. I’m not a HGV. My road gets used as a rat run and there’s nothing I can do about that. Surely the inconvenience of having increased traffic could be managed (ie – cars only, no LWB / HGV) so that the A59 Blubberhouses doesn’t cost the environment and good commuting folk of Yorkshire thousands of extra man hours and pounds of petrol. All that’s actually happening is that it’s moving the problem elsewhere – the even less suitable for increased traffic Beamsley road is getting hammered.

A traditional North Yorkshire Mummers Play

I saw a world that I didn’t know existed last night. Whilst sat having a quiet jar with a friend in the (Graeme) Swan on The Stray public house, we were ‘warned’ that there would shortly be a performance and we may not like it on the grounds that it may be “a bit loud”. We were told there was to be a ‘Mummers Play’ – some kind of “Medieval thing” and a profusion of pre emptive apologies were proffered. The up-coming performance was pre-empted along the same lines as if someone was about to enter with a small dog who takes a special interest in ones legs. The general ‘medieval, play and loud’ bits piqued our interest, so we decided to grab a ringside seat.

Several minutes later the show began. In comes the first player. A pitch of introduction, belted out at the top of the lungs by someone dressed in a top hat, a ‘blacked up’ face and dark suit covered in coloured rags. Over the course of the next few minutes, all of the players came into the pub in a similar vein. “IN COMES… ” and then their pitch. Intrigue, a sword fight and a back stabbing murder were the next events – quite outrageous for 8pm on a Tuesday evening in Harrogate! A unique spectacle of vintage surrealism. Some of our fellow patrons even put down their iPhones for a minute to passively observe this comedic spectacle.

I felt rather lucky to have been in the right place at the right time to have see this.  It certainly falls under the ‘you don’t see that every day’ category. I was quite amazed that others punters seemed to think of it as a bit of in imposition, an inconvenience at best. My friend Henry, who caught a later performance in the (Andy Flower) Coach & Horses also enjoyed it – he said “It’s nice to hop back a few hundred years during your pint! It reminded me of the mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream who do their own Mummers play.” He also noted the general apathy to get involved in this less accessible form of entertainment, which he summed up the patronage’s attitude with “Unappreciative and seemed narked at being distracted from thinking about their Audi’s”

I had a brief chat with one of the company after their performance and have subsequently done a little research – it seems the roots of The Mummers, although a little patchy, stems from the middle ages when troupes of actors used to perform a seasonal play to collect money from “The big houses” for charity. I am so pleased to see such a bizarre, obscure and quintessentially English tradition lives on and give this a  ’like – thumbs up’ in the traditional sense of the phrase.

More info & links

Catch The Knaresborough Mummers on tour! | link to their website»
See a video of the above described performance»
Read more about the history of this tradition»

Thanks to @RevDino for the photo

Last week we attended the launch of the Harrogate Fringe Festival. After a general intro from the Harrogate Internation Festival (proper) Director, Graham Chalmers of Gig Scene was introduced. He gushed the passion, like only he can,  about how good this thing could really be. There’s so much creativity in this town and so much creative appreciation of off mainstream stuff that – the feeling seems to be – it really could be the start of something quite special.

There’ll be the widest of sub spectrum acts ‘flown in’ , playing at a host of some old – some new Harrogate venues. A secret venue for instance and “The Harrogate Club” which I’d never heard of but someone told me it’s a lovely Victorian chamber down Victoria Avenue.

There’s a day of more home grown acts – mainly Harrogate and Leeds based bands (including an after party by us lot (FIRE) ‘v’ Bottom of the Bottle. whilst the North Yorkshire Hardcode Punk lot make some noise in Crabtrees ) This is billed as “Festival Fringe Crawl Indie Rock Day” but I much prefer the title “Harrogate Fringe Fringe”.

As it’s the first year, its a bit ‘suck it and see’ but the organisers don’t seem to have used that as an excuse in any way for falling short.   The Fringe highlight for me would probably be Robin Williamson (Incredible String Band) and local boy Karl Culley – both geniuses in their own right. A brilliant pairing who ever came up with that idea. Field Music (they don’t sound like they’re from Sunderland but they are) who this time last week I’d never heard of, who since have featured heavily on my spotify playlist – quite refreshing stuff. The Rothko v Stockhausen guy Mark Stubbs will be doing some kind of lecture by the look of things – could be interesting. As a  package, it’s not  (I’m glad to report) billable as  ’something for everyone’ as that often means ‘something quite mainstream’  - which this seems proudly not, I’m glad to report.

The thing about a good fringe festivals is, it’s not necessarily the acts you ear mark to see before hand that leave the lasting memories but the magical unexpected moments you stumble across that make them special. This fringe looks like it’s got stacks of ammo in the unexpected department.

Harrogate Fringe line up (or ‘highlights’ )

An evening with Bob Harris, Jackson-Webber & Special guest
July 14 Harrogate Theatre

Robin Williamson (ex Incredible String Band) plus Karl Culley
July 15 St Peter’s Church

Poems, Prose & Pints, Creative Writing Workshop & Guest Writer
July 17 & 21 - The Harrogate Club

Haiku Workshop
(Run by Eirene! contact us for details)  - July 17th –  Hornbeam Park

Codebreakers The Story of Enigma
July 17 Harrogate Theatre

Showstopper! The improvised Musical
July 17 Harrogate Theatre

RedHouse presents Music To My Eyes: A Rock n Roll exhibition
July 23 – 25 108 Fine Art Gallery, Crown Place

Kamaca’s Tribute to Gershwin
July 23 Harrogate Theatre

Alex Wilson Salsa Con Soul
July 23 Royal Hall

Fear of Music with David Stubbs of The Wire/Uncut magazines.
July 24 The Harrogate Club

John Otway: Making Success Out of Failure & Chris Simpson of Magna Carta reads Fields of Eden
July 25 The Harrogate Club

Alrnias: Anthropology/art music with Phil Legard.
July 25 Secret Harrogate Location

Esoteric Electronica with Primate Engineer.
July 28 The Harrogate Club

An Evening with Field Music
July 29 Harrogate Theatre

Ralph McTell
July 31 Harrogate Theatre

Festival Fringe Crawl Indie Rock Day
July 31 Monteys / Blues Bar / Rehab / Crabtrees / St Peter‘s Church

Bookings

As soon as I know about booking info, I’ll post it up here – at the moment, unless someone cares to correct me in the comments, there’s no news. Stay tuned!

Bit bored of politics?

Then why not

THIS VERY SUNDAY

more deets and what have you : here>>

FIRE : May2, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

We’re chucking another log on the FIRE. A Bank Holiday special. 2nd May, Rehab, Harrogate (pictured here).

Spotty Brolly 2, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

Just uploaded a bunch of photos from the Fireworks display on The Stray in Harrogate last weekend. It rained for the entire thing so it made taking photos a bit harder than normal but I managed to get a few shots of the event.

Apart from this, Its been busy busy. Had old friends Dark and Sticky over for the weekend with their bin lids. Good food good fun. Done a bit of geocaching including the placing of a brand new one – litterally on the Yorkhire Lancashire border near Earby. I’m fairly sure one half of the box is in Lanc’s, the other Yorkshire. I’ve called it Straddling The Border.

Tribunal, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

.. I do like the Swedish sauna look they’ve gone for at the Harrogate Magistrate Courtrooms.

I was invited to take photos at the Harrogate Magistrates Court Open Day. Normally, photography is strictly forbidden inside the building. I was granted special clearance for the day to take photos of everywhere apart from the cells and of everyone apart from the Prison Officers (fair enough)

A fascinating day where we got to see the mock trial of Phil Wills MP presided over by the mock Magistrate Councillor John Fox – the Mayor of Harrogate. Phill was brought up from the cells in handcuffs whilst shouting “it’s a disgrace”. Phill pleaded guilty and was given a 4 year ban from driving for his (mock!) offence of drink driving. Brilliant. Learned so much about the courts and the way they work. All sorts of other things like the Fire Brigade doing a demo of cutting open a drink drivers car, a scale mockup of a prison cell (scary!) and some drunk simulation glasses (quite fun!).

After that I came home and made a huge indian meal of beef curry, nan breads and baji’s from scratch before heading out t’ Tap & Spile with my best chum Simon.

Big one tonight: the OPTIBUS gig.
So It’s one of those non stop weekends. I’m indulging myself on a little blog time.

Yesterday, my wife Eirene shaved her head. I’d mentioned in an earlier blog that I’d hated the idea. Now the deed is done, It doesn’t look too bad. I’ve decided to stop being so pig headed about the whole thing. It looks good. (whoa, that wasn’t easy to say) It’s raised a stink load of cash for the fund through sponsorship and it’s been great PR for the cause. Yesterday was also Eirene’s 30th birthday. She’d got a bottle of 30 year old port that was saved for last night. The build up was epic. A bunch of close friends were invited to celebrate with us at home. We did cheese, by jimmeny, we did cheese. A selection of The Cheeseboard’s finest. We did wine. We’re lucky enough to have a resident expert in training in the form of Tinanana, who along with her brothers help and the stock of his shop (Harrogate Fine Wines Company) we had a case of some spot on wines. We all rather sensibly kept an eye on the time – all are guest / crew at tonights’ Optibus gig. Eirene and I had a cheeky game of scrabble, post rabble.

Uh oh, what’s that -tis that “I’m sitting in bed blogging, Eirene is doing all the kid related activity downstairs” slightly guilty feeling. TTFN!

:::update::: She’s just brought me pate on toast in bed! What have I done so right I wonder.. It may have something to do with the trip to Barcelona next weekend birthday prezzy.

beer fest bar, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

Cracking weekend. This was the scene from the 17th Harrogate Beer festival. Top ale, company and night. Things like that bring so many people out of the woodwork from all walks of life. Poor ol’ conference centre didn’t know what had hit em.

Friday Felix and I went to Drn’s house for a Star Wars extraveganzza. We got through 4. Top night.

Sunday we went out for a relatives birthday lunch to The Royal Oak in Dacre Bank. Top nosh – beef Sunday roast (puddings were a bit of a let down mind) Good ale there as well.

Tezza wozza queue, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.

A massive queue has formed in Harrogate because Terry Wogan is doing a book signing at Ottomans.