Morpeth Gathering will celebrate Turner
09/03/2008
An exciting three-day festival of street entertainment, indoor events, music, dance, craft, dialect and traditional fun — this year with a 'Crossing Borders' theme and events marking 500 years of botanist William Turner — held the weekend after Easter at Morpeth.
An exciting three-day festival of street entertainment, indoor events, music, dance, craft, dialect and traditional fun — this year with a 'Crossing Borders' theme and events marking 500 years of botanist William Turner — held the weekend after Easter at Morpeth.
The annual celebration features the very best of Northumberland's traditional music, dance, craft, dialect and heritage with plenty of events to please all the family. After last year's incredibly successful 40th anniversary, 2008 sees a special 'Crossing Borders' theme and also incorporates Tudor music events to mark the launch of the town's year-long celebrations for the 500th birthday of Morpeth's own William Turner, father of English botany.
Proggy mat-makers, Northumbrian pipers and dialect poets will mingle with visitors from not just the Scottish Border but also the Welsh and Czech border regions, which have their own bagpiping traditions.
Highlights of the Saturday morning pageant will be the modern children's miners'-style banners created by Whitley Memorial CoE First School, Bedlington, and the magnificent giant figure of piper Jamie Allan making a return visit after his unveiling in 2007 by Dodgy Clutch Theatre, who are interrupting their spring tour of the internationally-acclaimed production 'Elephant' to perform the street theatre show based on Allan's scandalous life during the day.
Other artists will include leading early music groups the York Waits, Misericordia and Hautbois, singers Mike Tickell and Sandra Kerr, Northumbrian Water Ellington Band, Morpeth Highland Pipe Band, the county's youth ensemble the Northumbrian Ranters, barn dance group the Castle Band, Northumbrian piper Neil Smith, Border piper Matt Seattle, Ceri Rhys Matthews (expert player of the Welsh bagpipes) and fiddler Christine Cooper, the exciting MacUmba on Highland pipes and Caribbean drums, local rapper and morris teams, storytellers Taffy Thomas and Sedayne (performing at the Old Bakehouse Millennium Green storyteller's garden) and living history performers Lesley Bentham as a Northumbrian bondager, Iain McNicol as William Turner, Rent a Peasant with Tudor costumes and midwives' medicines and Sir Thomas Glemham's Regiment of the Sealed Knot with a Civil War battle re-enactment from the Welsh border.
More than 50 events will take place — many of them free — including outdoor shows in the Market Place and Park (plus Back Riggs if the redevelopment work allows), the Town Hall crafts exhibition, a full afternoon of musical and dialect competitions in various town centre halls on Saturday and the annual opening of the town's heritage spaces (Clock Tower on Saturday and Old Council Chamber on Sunday).
There will be a film presentation by Jefe Brown of Prague on the Czech international bagpiping festival at Strakonice with archive footage of Northumbrian musicians and dancers; artist in residence Catherine Stott exhibiting the paintings created at last year's event; more puppet tales from 'Time for George', pub sessions, vintage bus park and ride, bellringing and even orienteering, with the climax of events on Sunday with a performance in music, dance and drama by KEVI pupils of the Life of William Turner, a talk on Turner by Marie Addyman and a grand concert by the York Waits in full Tudor costume featuring their new tune 'A Fanfare for William Turner'.
Tickets and Accommodation Information are available from Morpeth Tourist Information Centre, The Chantry, Bridge Street, Morpeth, NE61 1PD. Tel: 01670 500 700.
Patrons' Scheme — there are no weekend or family tickets, but you can receive discounts by becoming a Patron. Contact Janet Brown on 01670 790 465.
Park events queries to the Park Office, by the Turner Garden. Tel: 01670 535 000.
Tickets and programmes are also available at Town Hall Exhibition and other venues during Gathering weekend.
All other competition, general and administrative details — for information on the Gathering, its fellow organisations the Northumbrian Language Society and mail-order details of books, posters, recordings, etc. contact: Kim Bibby-Wilson, Chairman, Westgate House, Dogger Bank, Morpeth, NE61 1RE. Tel: 01670 513 308.
Free Park and Ride, vintage Leyland Tiger buses (Saturday only, 10 am to 4.30 pm) will operate between County Hall and the town centre — look out for the yellow road signs. Thanks to Northumberland C.
The full article contains 720 words and appears in n/a newspaper. Last Updated: 09 March 2008 9:41 AM.
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