Folk Festival Fringe Packs Warwick with Music and Dancing

Bonfire Radicals. Photo courtesy of the artists.

Folk Festival Fringe packs Warwick with Music and Dancing this weekend, from Friday 26 to Sunday 28 July, 2024.

Preview by Pete Willow

The taverns and bars of Warwick play host to a lively programme of free folk entertainment this weekend, while Morris dancers from across the country fill the streets with noise and colour.

While the main Warwick Folk Festival runs its packed programme of big-name concerts, ceilidhs, kids’ events, and sessions for ticketholders on the main Castle Park site, you’ll find music for all tastes when the Festival Fringe takes over the Town Centre from Friday to Sunday, 26-28 July. This year sees the biggest choice to date of free entertainment with fourteen venues playing host to over 40 events – everything from Irish and English music sessions, and chorus singing to informal concerts, barbershop harmonies and traditional American music.

Berkshire Bedlams will be entertaining the crowds. Photo courtesy of the artists.

The Friday evening sees folk entertainment from 8pm in The Roebuck Inn, Ronnies Bar, The Craftsman, and the bar of Warwick Conservative Club where local band Tilt and Bedworth Folk Club hosts, Malc Gurnham and Gill Gilsenan are joined by landlocked choir of shanty singers The Hawkesbury Trawlermen. Meanwhile Coventry-based Irish musicians, The Cullens and friends hold court for a lively session in the Old Fourpenny Shop Hotel.

Highlights for Saturday lunchtime include unaccompanied harmony singing by Shropshire group Rapsquillion and Warwickshire trio Daisybell making full use of the atmospheric acoustics unique to the Unitarian Chapel in High Street.  The Dough and Brew pizza and pasta restaurant presents an afternoon concert by contemporary acoustic acts, Nowhere Club and Jamie Scott, followed by an evening performance by rising star Staffordshire folk duo, Farefeld.  Teatime in Smith Street witnesses a colourful burst of the rhythms and spectacle of the Brazilian carnival, courtesy of the Leamington-based Sambassadors of Groove.

Daisybell. Photo courtesy of the artists.

Sunday afternoon’s fare includes the Festival’s famous ‘Jazz Tour’ of five venues by celebrated ceilidh band with added horn section, the Steamchicken Strollers, giving a taste of their vast repertoire of traditional folk, jazz, blues and classic hits.

As always, the weekend features open-air concerts on the stage rigged up in Warwick’s Market Place. The Sambassadors will be there on Saturday evening, plus Birmingham’s highly acclaimed band, Bonfire Radicals and Warwickshire folk-rockers Wychwood. Sunday sees a lunchtime performance of songs from across the globe by the Warwick Folk Festival Choir followed by an afternoon’s performance by Tilt, Bill Bates and a celebration of Bob Dylan songs courtesy of Bob Phillips’ Dylan Rhythm Band.

Warwick Folk Festival Choir. Photo courtesy of the artists.

From Friday evening and throughout the weekend, all styles of Morris and traditional dancing are demonstrated by performers wielding staves, longswords, rappers and the ever-dangerous handkerchiefs with teams appearing from across the country, Belgium and the USA. Saturday afternoon sees all the dance sides in one noisy, colourful procession when Jury Street, Market Place and Church Street are part of the route that reverberates to the music of melodeons, accordions, fiddles, horns and drums, plus the clashing of sticks and the clatter of clogs.

Sambassadors. Photo courtesy of the artists.

The full programme of events for the Festival – Including a breakdown of all the public Morris and traditional dance displays – is now available on https://warwickfolkfestival.co.uk/whats-on/programme/ . Or you can find a list of all the free Fringe events on the CVFolk website: www.cvfolk.com/calendar.