Tag Archives: session

Upcoming visiting guests at the Unicorn session, Marden

The free tune and song evenings at The Unicorn, Marden start at 8pm on the last Sunday of the month and are open to everyone: just pull up a seat and listen or bring a song, a tune, a story, or a dance.

We say the agenda is ‘trad, old fashioned and entertaining’.

We always have visiting friends to bring something a little different to the entertainment, so here’s our schedule for winter and spring:

29th January: Pip Ives Tunes and songs from a widely admired melodeon and anglo concertina player. (You may also recognise him from his day job at Hobgoblin in Canterbury.)
26th February: Will Duke Will is a fabulous anglo concertina player and singer with an interesting repertoire drawn mainly from Sussex. He’s also an entertaining performer possessed of an excellent dry wit, so expect to be amused into the bargain…
26th March: Mike Hebbert Mike’s a Jeffries duet concertina maestro with a cheeky grin and an old fashioned and entertaining repertoire you might not expect — but which may remind you of the BBC Light Programme.
30th April: Ruairidh Greig It’s great to have Ruairidh back again — he’s a proper scholar of the songs of his home county of Lincolnshire, some collected by Ruairidh himself. Expect to hear material we don’t often come across in the South East of England.

Jo and Pip Ives at the Frittenden session, from 8pm on the 26th January

On Sunday night at The Bell and Jorrocks, Frittenden, session our featured visitors are Jo and Pip Ives.

Jo’s a talented flautist, and melodeon and anglo concertina player Pip Ives will need no introduction to local musicians (he works at Hobgoblin Canterbury for one thing) or to morris and sword dancers. Here’s a sample of Pip’s playing for those who need to be persuaded to come! Oh – and it’s a session so entry is free…

Peter Collins sings at the end of December Frittenden session, 29th December

Peter Collins photographed by Jacqui Ross

We’re greatly looking forward to our session with Peter Collins on the evening of the 29th December.

The session is always a moment of sanity in the madness of the Christmas period, and we’re always pleased to welcome our old friend and session regular Peter to chip in with a well-considered selection of songs in line with a reflective time of year, in between the parties of Christmas and the New Year.

We’ll try not to let things get too conventionally Christmassy, but no doubt there will be the odd old carol – and we will have the Nonsuch Mummers along to entertain us. I expect high drama, costumes, a near fatality (and with perhaps a spot or two of corpsing, which is almost the same), and some spirited ad-libbing.

The sessions take place at the Bell & Jorrocks pub at Frittenden, Kent, and start at 8pm and continue until it’s time to sing Nellie Dean and say goodnight. They’re informal and free, with lots of old fashioned and traditional songs and tunes, and a big emphasis on variety, humour and entertainment generally – as we like to say, if you liked your pub the way it was before the telly and the computer came, this is the event for you.