The sun is shining, the forecast is good, and tomorrow is the Palmers Green Festival. The big day runs from 12 til 7, and there will be food, a fun and entertainment. and nearly 100 stands.
Palmers Green Jewel in the North and Joe Studman of Jaywalks have a stand in the community area. We will be talking about Palmers Green history and people, Joe’s new local history course – the first to be run in the area for more than 30 years – and the new Rock n Roll Enfield oral history project.
But you dont have to talk to us about any of those. We’re just looking forward to meeting you all. Why not pop along and say hello, and pick up one of our Palmers Green Jewel in the North bookmarks?
The Palmers Green festival kicks off on Sunday with the first in a string of events leading up to our Festival Day in Broomfield Park on Sunday 1 September.
Opening the festivities Sunday lunchtime are the Chicago and Memphis Electric Blues Band, playing from 1-5 at the bandstand in Broomfield Park. At 5.30 there is another opportunity to join Joe Studman on a fascinating walk through the history of Palmers Green. Booking is through Jaywalks.co.uk.
On Monday there is a BBQ and live music at the Inn on the Green, and more live music at the Bookafe (Bookafe also have live music on Tuesday). Talkies at the Fox hosts Red Minies on Tuesday evening, featuring short films from students at Middlesex University.
On Wednesday, Baskervilles hosts a summer tea concert with live cellist at 12 and 2, and the Ruth Winston Centre has a pop up cafe and live music from 11.30 to 2.30.
Palmers Green residents are encouraged to share their memories of the area over the last 50 years with Talkies and friends (including Palmers Green Jewel in the North, Jaywalks and the Southgate Photographic Society) on Thursday at the Ruth Winston Centre, and Thursday evening sees wine and cheese tasting also at Ruth Winston.
On Friday you can try line dancing at Ruth Winston from 11-1.30, or hear some classics at The Vintage, St Harmonica’s Blues Club on Friday evening. Skinners Court hosts a garden party on Saturday, and there will be flashmob song and dance courtesy of Centre Stage Performing Arts at Morrisons at 1. Festival Eve sees Talkies hosting singalonga (and optional dressy-uppy) Wizard of Oz at Burford United Reformed Church.
And of course, Sunday is festival day itself, with music, food, games and over 80 stalls descending on Broomfield Park for an afternoon of neighbourly fun.
For full details of the festival programme, visit http://www.palmersgreenfestival.org.uk/palmersgreenfestival.org.uk/home.html. The festival team still need people to help manage and steward the day, so if you have a few hours and can help, please get in touch via the website.
This weekend is going to be a scorcher and there are plenty of opportunities for summer fun.
“Nope, I’m not doing that. Not even for charity!” says respected PG resident*
The St John’s Church Summer Fete is back on Saturday, and promises the return of teddy bear absailing.
Apart from that, the theme is ‘vintage’, based on fetes of the 1940’s and 1950’s, including bric-a-brac, clothes, cake, gifts, raffle, plants, composting, and lots of games including bottle tombola and hunt for silver in the sand. There will also be entertainment in the church, strawberries and cream, BBQ and Pimm’s. The Fete runs from 12-4pm with David Burrowes MP opening the festivities. I do hope that he will be bringing his teddy.
Over at Walker School on Southgate Green the theme of this year’s annual Walkerbout is also the 1950’s – specifically, rock n roll. There will be more Pimm’s, by which time you might be tiddly enough to think you have seen a pink Cadillac and local residents jiving. And there will be plenty more games, food and stalls. Why not see if you can get along to both?
For those in search of art and culture, there are a range of other events on Saturday, in what must be the busiest weekend of the year.
The Principal Theatre Company presents The Comedy of Errors as part of its open air Shakespeare season at the Old Ashmoleans Rugby Club, the Bourne: Comedy of Errors
Sadly, its the last opening night at Space Art Gallery before it moves to new premises. The final show will be by Conrad Mecheski, about whom more soon.
The North London Symphony Orchestra http://www.nlso.org.uk/Concerts.htm plays Berlioz, Brahms, Elgar at the United Reformed Church, Fox Lane
* I am perfectly aware that a panda is not a bear, so please dont write in!
It was a month of highs and lows, and not only in the temperature.
The success story of the month surely goes to the Palmers Greenery team, who learned that they have the go-ahead to create a new community café in Broomfield Park. There has been a huge amount of work to get this far, and its great to see their efforts being rewarded and a new community amenity to look forward to. Further down south, we also heard that regeneration of Ally Pally was to be one of 6 major projects across the UK to receive Heritage Lottery Fund support.
At the Grovelands Festival – image Colin Younger
The Grovelands Park Centenary Celebrations will surely be talked about for years to come – the biggest gathering I have seen in all my time in the area, and full of colour, fun and a great musical line up, including the legendary Tornados of Telstar fame. Many thanks to Colin Younger for his photos of the day, which adorn this round-up.
Finally, the sad saga of the Poundland Bansky seems to have been concluded with its private sale at an auction in London, at which it fetched over three quarters of a million pounds. That’s 750,000 times the price of any article purchasable in Poundland. The mural is being taken to join a private collection of Banksy’s work in the USA – though Banksy is reported to have said that once a work is removed from its location its no longer a Banksy.
There is plenty to look forward to in June, starting this weekend with the Palmers Green Shopping Festival, our annual celebration of all that Palmers Green has to offer. Unlike many areas, we still have a reasonably thriving high street, with new businesses coming in, but like everywhere, the high street is at risk, and the shape of what it has to offer could change radically if we don’t support our local traders. Hazelwood Road will be closed on Saturday to host a day of entertainment, including the wonderful SOUP ukulele orchestra, local singers and Greek Dancing from Hazelwood School. There will be street performers, stalls, ice cream and a bouncy castle, and shops all over Palmers Green will be running activities and promotions.
Devonshire Road has long taken the lead in showing what can be done with a little bit of community spirit. Residents are currently exploring setting up a monthly ‘play in the street’ day, and this weekend they have come up with the fabulous idea of a draw on the pavement day. They also have a great Facebook page– come on the rest of Palmers Green, keep up! While you are out and about, why not also pop in to the St John’s Church Flower festival including work by local children, all centred around the theme All Things Bright and Beautiful.
Saturday 6 July 12-4 Walker School summer fete – celebrating the school’s diamond jubilee
Saturday 6 July North London Symphony Orchestra http://www.nlso.org.uk/Concerts.htm play Berlioz, Brahms, Elgar at the United Reformed Church, Fox Lane
Tuesday 16 JulyAround the Corner Cinema present F W Murnau’s The Last Laugh as part of the Mimetic Festival
Around the Corner Cinema returns in July with two new screenings as part of the 2013 Mimetic festival.
As with February’s screenings, the emphasis is on the wonderful, silent and seldom seen.
“The Mimetic Festival aims to celebrate the very best emerging mime, puppetry and cabaret in the UK – its a fantastic programme of theatre and arts, and experimentatation, and we will be showing arguably two of the best silent films ever made,” says Around the Corner’s John Stewart.
Made in 1924 and showing at Enfield Grammar School Hall on 16 July, the Last Laugh follows the story of an elderly doorman at a famous hotel who is demoted to washroom attendant and tries in vain to conceal his shame from friends and family, with tragic consequences – or are they?
The film was highly praised on its release, and is unusual in using almost no intertitles – more unusual still, when they are used, they do not represent dialogue on screen. Director F W Murnau described his story in the Last Laugh as absurd – on the grounds that everyone knows that a washroom attendant earns more than a doorman!
This screening will feature live, improvised piano accompaniment from British Film Institute silent film pianist, Costas Fotopoulos who works internationally as a concert and silent film pianist, and as a composer and arranger for film, the stage and the concert hall. There will also be an introduction from Pamela Hutchinson; Editor of Silent London, and Features Production Editor for The Guardian.
Showing on July 25th, also at Enfield Grammar School Hall, the Kid is one of Charlie Chaplin’s most celebrated and most personal feature films. The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) and an abandoned child (Jackie Coogan) triumph over life’s hard knocks in the landmark film that changed the notion of what a screen comedy could be. An award winning short film (The Girl is Mime) directed by Tim Bunn, and starring Martin Freeman (The Hobbit, The Office), will be screened beforehand.
Comedy genius Simon Munnery returns to Palmers Green for a one-off gig at Gary Colman’s Electric Mouse Comedy Club at the Fox next Friday.
Renowned for this off beat originality, Munnery won the 2012 Chortle awards for Best Comedy Innovation for his show La Concepta which he opened a non dining restaurant for eight non diners at a time, presenting ‘haute cuisine without the shame of eating’. In his most recent show, The Fylm-Makker, Munnery didn’t appear on stage at all, instead sitting in the audience behind a box of tricks that could only display his face, the table or both. From there he made live films – or Fylms – which were projected on a big screen at the front of the theatre.
Also on the bill are Junior Simpson and Nick Doody, and the event is compared by Gary Colman. You can reserve tickets to pick up on the door by emailing gary@electricmousecomedy.com. Doors open 7.30pm.
For more information about the festival programme, visit the festival website
