LEWES SATURDAY FOLK CLUB PROGRAMME

May June July August/a> and Beyond
2 MAY MAY SONGS & TUNES £5 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Email to reserve tickets, bring the right money in cash on the night Bring songs & tunes for May & springtime. A good night to try performing for the first time in an informal, friendly setting. Vocal & instrumental groups welcome. 9 MAY COME ALL YE £5 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Bring songs & tunes on any subject. A good night to try performing for the first time in an informal, friendly setting. Vocal & instrumental groups welcome. 16 MAY BOB LEWIS £10 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Bob is a genuine Sussex source singer with a fine voice & distinctive singing style. He has a huge repertoire of unusual songs, funny, mysterious, exciting & beautiful. BOB LEWIS: MEMORIES OF PADSTOW MAY DAY CELEBRATIONS 14:00 - 16:15 £10 cash (2 under-25 year olds £5) Email to reserve places, bring cash on the day Bob will bring professional archive footage from the 1950s & his own vivid memories of Padstow & the musicians & singers of May Day from the 1960s onwards. 23 MAY COME ALL YE £5 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Bring songs & tunes on any subject. A good night to try performing for the first time in an informal, friendly setting. Vocal & instrumental groups welcome. 30 MAY TOM McCONVILLE £12 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Email to reserve tickets, bring the right money in cash on the night Tom is a master fiddle player & glorious singer from Newcastle. His performances are full of laughter, beauty, charm & thrills. TOM McCONVILLE FIDDLE WORKSHOP 10:45 - 16:15 £45 cash (2 under-25 year olds £22) Email to reserve places, bring cash on the day The workshop will focus on slow air playing, giving lift to tunes, finger & bowing embellishment in Irish, Scottish & English music, & double-stopping. Some music will be sent in advance.
6 JUN JIMMY HUTCHISON £12 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Email to reserve tickets, bring the right money in cash on the night Jimmy is a bearer of Scottish traditional song, born on Uist & raised speaking Gaelic & English. He learned from the great source singers like Jeannie Robertson, Jimmie McBeath & the Stewarts of Blair & sings 'with a craftsmanship & intensity which makes the senses tingle' (The Scotsman). He is also a highly-skilled handloom weaver. SUNDAY 7 JUNE JIMMY HUTCHISON BALLAD FORUM 10:45 - 16:15 £45 cash (2 under-25 year olds £22) Email to reserve places, bring cash on the day Choose a couple of ballads in advance which you are happy to sing & discuss with the group. If in doubt about what counts as a ballad, call or email Valmai to discuss. 13 JUN EWAN WARDROP £10 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Email to reserve tickets, bring the right money in cash on the night Ewan sings, plays melodeon, banjo, ukulele (he’s in The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain) & guitar, step-dances, & is a fine actor appearing with the RSC, at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Old Vic & The Barbican. His one-man show about London folk clubs of the 1960s/70s, Sweet Thames Flow Softly, appeared at recent festivals. 20 JUN COME ALL YE £5 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Email to reserve tickets, bring the right money in cash on the night Bring songs & tunes. A good night to try performing for the first time to friendly listeners in an informal setting. Instrumental & vocal groups welcome. 27 JUN KEVIN HENTY £10 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Email to reserve tickets, bring the right money in cash on the night Kevin is from Kent & sings a mixture of traditional & newer songs. He has a mighty bass voice, a powerful melodeon style, & also plays guitar. Kevin plays in a duo with fiddler Matthew English & in the bands Jumbo Gumbo & Triage.
4 JUL NIGEL HORN & MARYLIN THOMAS £8 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Email to reserve tickets, bring the right money in cash on the night Nigel is an original & mesmerising guitarist with his own style, writing pieces often inspired by nature & place. Marilyn is a fine fiddle player with much emotional depth. 11 JUL DUCK SOUP £12 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Dan Quinn (melodeon, voice) Ian Kearey (dobro, bass, mandolin etc) & Adam Bushell (marimba, mandolin, phonofiddle, sometimes musical saw) deliver English country dance tunes, quirky & humorous songs, & tunes from Alfred Montmarquette of New York & Montreal. 18 JUL JEZ LOWE £15 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Email to reserve tickets, bring the right money in cash on the night Jez is one of England's finest singer-songwriters, producing powerful, moving & often humorous songs using the traditional styles of his North-East home about working people, especially miners, shipbuilders and deep-sea fishermen (Back in Durham Gaol, Old Bones, The Bonny Barque the Bergen, These Coal Town Days, High Part of the Town). They have been recorded by Fairport Convention, the Tannahill Weavers, the Unthanks & the Young'uns. He currently works with his band The Bad Pennies, with Bob Fox, Billy Mitchell & Benny Graham in The Pitmen Poets, and contributed to the new BBC Radio Ballads series. Jez plays guitar, harmonica & cittern. JEZ LOWE SONGWRITING WORKSHOP 10:45 - 16:15 £45 cash (2 under-25 year olds £22) Email to reserve places, bring cash on the day During the day Jez leads an all-day workshop on songwriting in traditional style. 25 JUL TWAGGER BAND £10 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. The Twagger Band are Keith Phillips, Joy Lewis, Derrick Hughes, Ian Chisholm, Sue Evans & Tom Evans. They sing & play a glorious mixture of traditional music from England, Scotland, Ireland, the US, France & Sweden on hammered dulcimers, concertinas, guitars, harp, whistles, harmonium, recorders, Northumbrian pipes, & serpent.
AUGUST 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 OPEN NIGHTS £5 cash We will start at 7:30 p.m. & finish at 10:30 p.m. Bring songs & tunes. Good nights to try performing for the first time to friendly listeners in an informal setting. Instrumental & vocal groups welcome.
LEWES SATURDAY FOLK CLUB MUSIC WORKSHOPS 2026 (more to come) The workshops mostly last a full Saturday or Sunday & the tutor performs at the Elephant & Castle, White Hill, Lewes BN7 2DJ, on the Saturday evening. Email for places, pay cash on the day.
12 Sept Brian Peters Ballad forum 10 Oct Jerry O'Reilly & Rosie Davis Irish song 24 Oct Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne English Melodeon 14 Nov Tim Edey Melodeon