Stroud Folk Festival

Three days of Fabulous Folk, Ceilidh, Morris Sides, Ale and Cider Bar and much more.

Stroud Folk Festival is back. The weekend takes a slightly different form this year, with a lot of emphasis on the Saturday on local musicians and performers. Proceedings start, as is now traditional, with the festival Ceilidh on the Friday at the Sub Rooms and the band this year is The Watch. Also on Friday, there’s something a bit special this year. The Gloucestershire Blinder. Celebrating the songs and tunes of our glorious county (old boundaries), this concert draws its material from a brand new online archive representing over a hundred years of folk song and music collecting. Live performance with field recordings and video.

Saturday sees Morris sides around the town as well as sessions in the Ale House and The Little Vic throughout the day. There will be an ale and cider bar in the George Room at the Sub Rooms all day and maybe even a session in there too.

Saturday evening on the Subscription Rooms main stage will kick off at 6pm with our favourite local heroine, Hattie Briggs. Hattie’s star has risen meteorically over the last couple of years and we’re delighted to welcome her back to the Sub Rooms stage to open the evening’s festivities. She will be followed by the wonderful Lisbee Stainton. In the eight years since she became the first unsigned singer to perform at London’s O2 Arena to 30,000 people, Lisbee has toured with Joan Armatrading, Paul Carrack and Seth Lakeman, been a featured artist on BBC Radio 2’s prestigious “In Concert” series, as well as releasing four albums to huge critical acclaim.

We then have a bit of real Folk royalty in the shape of Steve Tilston. Steve made his recording debut in 1971 with the classic An Acoustic Confusion and has been turning out quality albums ever since. As a songwriter and guitarist he has many admirers throughout the world including luminaries such as Bert Jansch and Ralph McTell. He’s toured with John Renbourn’s Ship of Fools, in a stunning partnership with traditional singer Maggie Boyle (producing the classic recordings Of Moor and Mesa and All Under the Sun), as guitarist with Ballet Rambert; with Martin Allcock and Pete Zorn in WAZ!; with Brooks Williams in A Transatlantic Song-Swap and, of course, with his daughter Martha. But tonight it’s just Steve and his guitar!

The night will be brought to a rousing climax by the magnificent New Rope String Band as part of their farewell tour. Sadly the band has come to the end of their tether! The sheer strain of spreading joy around the world for more than 25 years as Old and New Rope has proved too much. Audiences' laughter muscles have been stretched and twanged and they, too, need a rest.

But, before these ageing folk-cabaret artistes go their separate ways, heading for new and exciting theatrical and musical horizons, they have decided to do a farewell lap of honour, a celebratory extravaganza of their finest routines with some specially-created final flourishes. Expect fish tanks, boiled eggs, fiddles, banjos, cardboard guitars, theremins, explosions, interactive films, drainpipes, mermaids, pink y-fronts, thrills, spills, tears and hilarity.

For diehard audiences it's a chance to come along, laugh once more and say goodbye. For those who've never seen them, wake up, this is your last chance!