Great opening to Festival

The Audlem Music & Arts Festival gets off to a great start on Thursday 26th May with poetry and music.

The opening event is a 'must see' at the Bridge Inn – the Poetry Slam – see below for more details.

On the music front Abbie Ozard gets the Festival underway at The Lord Combermere at 8.00pm. An acoustic singer/song writer from Nantwich, she made an appearance at last year's festival with her Folkypop brand of music. A very welcome return.

After Abbie, look out for the Uptown Monotones at the Lord C. Known for constantly delivering musical surprises, you will enjoy a mix of off-beat driven Pop, unique cover versions and an avalanche of electronic and ethno inspired improvisation performances. They start at 9.00pm.

Down at the Shroppie Fly, Northbound Acoustic Blues Band, a four piece acoustic blues band comprising vocals, guitar, harmonica and upright bass, will deliver a modern take on traditional Delta blues with includes a mix of original and traditional blues songs.

They also feature an authentic blues harp as well as a slide guitar.

Poetry at Festival

The opening event of this year's Audlem Music & Arts Festival is the famous Poetry Slam at the Bridge Inn on Thursday 26th May, starting at 7.30pm.

Poets go head to head, battling it out to woo the audience with their scintillating spoken word. Who will be crowned the 5th Audlem Slam Champion? You decide. Anything could happen!

Once again there are opportunities to listen to, perform and write poetry with our festival favourite, performance poet Emma Purshouse.

In a new addition to the Poetry Programme for 2016, there will be spoken word sessions on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday of the Festival from 2.00 – 4.00pm outside the Methodist Church.

Previous Poetry Slam winners will return as our poetry headliners. Saturday sees Salford's (we think that's the Salford by Manchester rather than Audlem's very own Salford) Kieren King and Manchester based Rod Tame take to the mic. Kieren is a multiple slam champ and has featured the spoken word across the UK.

Rod's poetry has been described as 'playfully energetic with a good dose of the profound.'

On the Sunday, Poet's Corner will be geared towards the young or the young at heart with Sparky Mark and Emma P performing poetry for for children.

On Bank Holiday Monday both the Poet Laureate of Milton Keynes and the former Poet Laureate of Birmingham appear. Mark Niel has performed his work on Radio 2 and 4 and is a veteran of many mainstream festivals such as Latitude.

Giovanni 'Spot' Esposito is a Glastonbury veteran and former poet in residence for Birmingham City Football Club. Open mic slots will also be available each day.

Want to hone your writing skills? Book a place on one of the two writing workshops that Emma will be running at the Audlem Mill (Saturday and Sunday morning 10.00am – 12noon). This year's theme is 'writing for children'.

For more information about the poetry events, or to book open mic and workshop slots then contact Emma on 07950 165265 or emmaasif@hotmail.com

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