The Week in Light & Sound
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Sheffield city councillor Martin Smith said the festival would be "an unforgettable experience". He added: "It will see the city embrace both the beats and flavours of Africa and the Caribbean and is a testament to the power of the music and culture on offer in our city. Mobo Awards Sheffield - The Fringe is going to be an unforgettable experience for Sheffield and our communities, and I hope everyone is able to get involved and enjoy what's on offer."
Frozen Out - Disney’s Frozen will complete its West End run at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in September. Produced by Disney Theatrical Group, it will close on 8 September, after three years in the West End. Director Michael Grandage said: “It has been a joy to be part of the Frozen journey in London. Working with the team at Disney, the brilliant creative team, and the incredible cast have made this one of my happiest theatre experiences.”
Frozen opened in the UK on the heels of the pandemic, and it was glorious to welcome back audiences, many of whom were coming to the theatre for the first time. To introduce so many to the power of theatre and hopefully cultivate a life-long love for it, has been an immense privilege.”
Disney Theatrical Group chief creative officer Thomas Schumacher added: “I am enormously proud of everything the team achieved with Frozen and of London’s warm embrace of it. This production was specially created for the West End, and it was an honour to reopen Madeleine and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s beautifully refurbished Theatre Royal Drhtury Lane, where the majesty of the production met the majesty of the space.”
In The Wilderness - A popular festival will return this summer, despite concerns about noise. Wilderness Festival will take place at Cornbury Park, near Chipping Norton, after West Oxfordshire District Councillors approved its application for a premises licence. Council approval came despite worries around traffic and noise. The annual event began in 2011 and has been described as a festival of "wholesome hedonism". Simon Taylor, who represented the festival at the council meeting, said: "We will work on our traffic management plan and noise management plan."
Administration - A company that runs a not-for-profit music festival has gone into administration, leaving "devastated" volunteers. Ampthill Festival CIC, external, which runs the three-day event in Bedfordshire, said "adverse weather" badly affected last summer's festival. It said all creditors, including ticket holders, had been contacted. Local councillor Heather Townsend said: "My thoughts are really with the volunteers that put their hearts and souls into it." She added that she hoped the festival would come back "in some sort of guise".
The festival has seen headline acts such as McFly and Human League perform at its AmpRocks Friday event, with more family-orientated AmpProms and AmpGala over the weekend. All three "cherished community initiatives" are affected, said Ampthill Festival.
Off The Farm - Clarkson's Farm star Kaleb Cooper has released a rap song about his dislike of sheep to raise funds for a farming charity. All profit from I Can't Stand Sheep! is going to the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI), based in Botley, Oxfordshire. One of the themes explored in the song is loneliness in the farming industry. "Never did I think I'd be saying these words, that I'm releasing a record," Cooper said. "When you listen to it, you'll realise why I didn't ever think it was possible - my singing voice isn't a match for my farming skills by any stretch."
Farewell - Mary Weiss, lead singer of the 1960s pop group The Shangri-Las, has died at the age of 75, her record label said. "Mary was an icon, a hero, a heroine, to both young men and women of my generation and of all generations," Miriam Linna, of Norton Records, said in a statement. The Shangri-Las were made up of two sets of sisters and formed in the Queens borough of New York. Their hits included Remember and their best-known song, Leader of the Pack.
(Jim Evans)
23 January 2024
