Lords of the dance: there’s a wide and varied range of events planned for the next week
Acts, dates and venues have been released for the first Carshalton Festival, a week of arts and entertainment taking place at venues in and around the parks, ponds and pubs of Carshalton village.
The Carshalton Festival runs from Monday, June 5 to Sunday, June 12, and includes art workshops and exhibitions, concerts and dance outs, and coincides with the emergence of the Carshalton Jack of Hope and the launch of the Carshalton cocktail.
“This will be an entirely free festival where everyone can join in and celebrate,” says organiser Neal Vaughan.
With backing from EcoLocal and CryerArts, the festival organising committee has come up with a lively and diverse festival.
The full programme can be seen here (note… it is subject to variations and change, due to weather and other factors):
The festival opens in the beautiful, historic venues of Honeywood Museum and The Greyhound Hotel.
The Festival will see a “Jack of Hope”, a fresh take on a traditional custom of decorating and celebrating a summer folk dancing frame, with people invited to decorate it with messages of hope.
On song: there will be plenty of live music performed in the week-long Carshalton Festival
All Saints Church, overlooking Carshalton Ponds, serves as the principal indoor venue for concerts. Highlights include Carshalton Jazz Society recitals, Sutton Music Service Youth Ensembles, Relight My Choir and a beautiful duo of Mbira and Cello.
The Church will also be hosting a week-long photographic exhibition.
Sutton Music Service has also helped build capacity among local primary schools with a Big Sing, in the now firmly re-established Cryer Arts Centre. This venue will host Cryer Folk, a successful monthly folk club which regularly attracts audiences of around 100.
Doves Vagaries, one of the club house bands, will be hosting a ceilidh on the Saturday night.
Local artists Doug Shaw and Claire Chandler, alongside theatre scenery company Gemstage, will be offering workshop opportunities for artists young and old, while Carshalton Artists Open Studios will be previewing their forthcoming open studios weekends alongside an arts trail.
Right lines: art workshops feature in the Festival programme
Many of the Carshalton pubs have agreed to participate in a Carshalton Crawl on Friday June 10, with six pubs and nine bands to enjoy. “We hope people will rise to the challenge of trying to see as many as possible,” the committee says, gnomically.
“We are thrilled to launch the inaugural Carshalton Festival and hope to see many of our community enjoying the thriving arts scene, pubs and creativity of this special place,” said organiser Kieran Parsons.
“The Jack of Hope will dance in to start the festivities and we’d love to see what people bring to the celebration, hopefully the first of many.”
And his colleague Vaughan said, “After a particularly difficult few years, it’s brilliant to see so many organisations taking part in his community festival event supported by so many local charities and businesses.”
Some events, although free, will require pre-booking online through the Festival website, which can be visited by clicking here.
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