What’s on in & around Newbury this week
FaceBar
THIS is Independent Venue Week, celebrating independent music and arts venues and the people that own, run and work in them. encouraging fans to show support for their local scene and enjoy a live gig or show. Club Velocity & New Mind present Funke And The Two Tone Baby at FaceBar in Ambrose Place, Reading tonight (Thursday, 8pm). Go to any gig and you get the acoustic opener, the big main band and the afterparty DJ. Fuse them together and you’re starting to get close to Funke and the Two Tone Baby. A one-man phenomenon that mixes folky singalong anthems with blistering blues riffs, juxtaposed with fat bass, big beats and sub kicks. A frenzied amalgamation of organic and electronic that defies all preconception.Born from festivals and knocking on the door of 1000 shows, F&TTTB has wowed audiences from Glastonbury to Sziget, WOMAD to Boomtown and Alexandra Palace to a Bahraini Princes’ private studio. He has also secured support tours and shows with Skinny Lister, Dutty Moonshine Big Band, Comet is Coming, Beans on Toast, Hazel O’ Connor, Ferocious Dog, Hayseed Dixie, Mark Chadwick (Levellers) and many more. A lo-fi peach with orchestral depth, a DJ without decks and a blur to the eyes, Funke generates huge sounds from seemingly nothing and sweeps up audiences in an awestruck wave of power, energy and sweat. A truly unique act that needs to be seen to be believed. Support will be Baby Maker who cherry pick and prod at the carcass of influence, looking to rip off the best of what remains ripe and ready, and meld it into the latest musical designer dog. https://wegottickets.com/event/634421/
Jazz Club
SAXOPHONIST Andy Panayi is an exceptionally gifted jazz musician, skilled in performance, composition and arranging. He plays all the flutes and all the saxophones and currently leads his own groups, both jazz and classical. He also writes commissioned works and compositions & arrangements for his own ensembles. He’s performed and recorded with many singers such as Shirley Bassey, Jessye Norman, Paul McCartney, Seth MacFarlane, Elaine Paige, Salena Jones, Elvis Costello, Georgie Fame, Peter Skellen, Zoot Money, Irene Reed, Elaine Delmar, Helen Shapiro, Madeline Bell & Patty Austin to name a few. And he’s Pangbourne Jazz Club’s guest on Sunday (7.30pm), backed by the PJC rhythm section Jim Pollard (piano), Iain Scott (guitar), Andy Crowdy (double bass) and Brian Greene (drums).
Classic farce
BOUNDARY Players next production is Out of Order by farce-master Ray Cooney and is running at the William Penney Theatre, Tadley, from Wednesday to Saturday next week. Written in the 1990s, it’s classic Cooney. When Richard Willey, a Government Junior Minister, plans to spend the evening with Jane Worthington, one of the Opposition’s typists, he does not anticipate finding a dead body trapped in the sash window of his room. Enlisting the help of his hapless private secretary George Pigden, things go from bad to worse with the arrival of his wife, Jane’s distraught husband, an unscrupulous waiter, a frustrated hotel manager, George’s mother’s nurse and a Spanish maid. This will be one night that Richard will wish he had actually been at the all-night debate in the House of Commons. Booking and enquiries online at http://www.boundaryplayers.co.uk/
Deaf-led theatre
GEORGE Mann’s new Ad Infinitum production Last Rites, is a powerful Deaf-led show written with Glasgow-based Singaporean deaf performer Ramesh Meyyappan. A fictitious story based on losing a parent and having children that both artists have experienced, it’s a solo show without words, but Christopher Harrisson’s often amusingly drawn animations and Akintayo Akinbode’s multilayered soundtrack work as additional cast members. Arjun uses sign language to the audience that is magnified into gestural physical theatre movements. The play explores the nature of the relationship between fathers and sons through the middle-aged Arjun’s experience in returning to his birth country, India, for his father’s funeral. The vision of his father’s corpse lying on a mat prior to cremation and the finding of his father’s glasses, stimulates a period of reflection and introspection which structures the drama. The glasses are a metaphor for seeing, and not seeing, with Arjun’s deafness a blind spot in his father’s life that causes lifelong misunderstandings and resentments. Catch it at The Corn Exchange on Tuesday and Wednesday. https://cornexchangenew.com/
Motown magic
THE Magic of Motown is back with its 20th Anniversary Tour and it’s no surprise that this show is one of the biggest success stories in British theatre history. Get ready for all the hits, glittering costumes, dazzling dance routines and outstanding musicianship in this breathtaking live concert spectacular. You will be going Loco down in Acapulco as you travel down memory lane with all the Motown classics from artists such as Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Supremes, The Four Tops, Martha Reeves, The Jackson 5, Smokey Robinson, and many, many more. This is a tribute show and is no way affiliated with any original artists/estates/management companies or similar shows. It comes to New Theatre Oxford on Sunday. https://www.atgtickets.com/venues/new-theatre-oxford/
