KATHRYN TICKELL

KATHRYN TICKELL - NORTHUMBRIAN ECHOES

Civic Theatre,

8^th October 2011

Jim Hutchon was in the stalls at the Civic ...

Kathryn Tickell is a folk singer. She is also a highly entertaining and persuasive ambassador for a fast disappearing way of life ? the bleak, unforgiving existence of a Northumbrian hill farmer. And she uses her very real talents with the Northumbrian pipes, along with authentic snippets from interviews, to evoke past days and people from these parts.

In a show shot through with stunning music, she is helped by an equally talented group of musicians, Julian Sutton, Patsy Reid, Hannah Rickard and Kit Haigh, and also by her father Mike, a snowy haired guru in an armchair who is a class act, bringing the voices of his past to life. The atmosphere had the full house clapping, stamping and joining in the choruses.

I would personally have preferred to hear this in a country pub, sat nursing a pint by a log fire. The music was mainly fast and furious, showing off the virtuoso technical skills of the players, though I would have liked to hear more of the pipes in their slow, haunting, evocative, mood. Perhaps some backdrops too, sepia prints of lonely stone cottages with a shepherd and a dog and such, rather than the tasteful curtain backdrop they used.