This exciting week-long programme of live arts events, fringe activities and happenings around town is an opportunity to showcase creativity and arts in the local area, through unique and exclusive experiences.

What’s on?

There will be interactive street theatre and dance performances in Park Mall, all to interact with the community and provide events and an atmosphere in Ashford town centre. Bootworks Theatre will perform We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat, which is a show for small-town communities, about small-town communities. You’ll see Comedy Cavemen, a posse of Palaeolithic cavemen characters causing mischief and spreading an environmental message.

You’ll be able to see street art created by great local artists. Create your own art with The Open Air Drawing-Room a drawing group offering some landscape painting. Each artist (audience member) also makes a Cyanotype portrait which will be exhibited as a mirror image to the final painting – A Sea of Faces – embracing JMW Turner’s pioneering interest in photography and his desire to find new ways to embrace art. This project invites the public to engage in setting the world record for a painting that has been created by the largest number of artists – which is pretty exciting!

Circus will come to the streets, you can see performance poets in pubs, and there will even be a spoof version of JAWS outside the Picturehouse cinema. Frantic features spectacular acrobatics and dance-theatre, choreographed around a wheel, with a hidden water system for a joyous finale danced in pouring rain. CONFiCo present JOiNT, a playful and curious piece exploring the interplay between individuality, commonality and the body’s facility. Acrobatics, globe walking, dead celebrities, French finesse, trumpeting and mime mayhem make L’Hotel an enchanting show to delight the audience. For kids there’s Tutu Trouble, an exciting original new physical theatre show for children.

At Revelation Ashford, there will be live DJ sets by Huey Morgan from Fun Lovin’ Criminals and BBC 6 Music and Terry Hall of The Specials, warming up festival goers with their music and sounds.

Mr Harper’s Birthday Party

In December 1911 George Harper made an anonymous offer to present the Hubert Fountain to Victoria Park. So as well as all the above, there will be a Victorian-themed Mr. Harper’s Birthday Partyfamily fun day on Sunday 21 July, which acknowledges and celebrates his gift, with games, arts, workshops and music – and the traditional birthday cake races.

Why host Create Platform?

It’s all part of an effort to make Ashford a creative place to be beyond just the Create weekend. “It is really important for the growth of Create, as well as Ashford’s cultural offer, to extend beyond the one big day in the park,” says Chris Dixon, Arts & Cultural Industries Manager at Ashford Borough Council.  “The introduction of Create Platform three years ago has allowed for more opportunities for local artists, as well as generated broader engagement from audiences, venues, and sponsors.”

Originally published on the Create Festival blog.

Catch them with Ash on the following dates:

Tuesday 16th October – The Leadmill, Sheffield, UK
Friday 19th October – SWX, Bristol, UK
Saturday 20th October – O2 Institute Birmingham, Digbeth, UK
Sunday 21st October – Waterfront, Norwich, UK
Monday 22nd October – Parish, Huddersfield, UK
Wednesday 24th October – O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, UK

Gathered in a bunker near London Bridge, are a couple of hundred people to see Self Esteem, the newest project from Rebecca Taylor. The sold out gig at London’s OMeara sees old fans, nwTaylor has been part of the Slow Club duo, along with Charles Watson, for ten years now. But tonight’s crowd are very much here to see her, not the songs of the past.

Kicking off proceedings are Militant Girlfriend, who have a pop punk aesthetic, with short, riff heavy songs and pounding beats. Songs like 2K17 Was For Dickheads hint at a sense of humour through the boisterousness. They fire through a short set, before disappearing off to ‘drink our own body weight in whiskey.’ They seem to be having a damn fine time being angry and rocking out with riotous guitars and loud drums.

Taylor’s solo stuff is more reminiscent of the electronic pop vibe that the pair edged into in their latter years, rather than the early twee folk tunes. Your Wife was produced by Django Django’s Dave Maclean and is full of pulses and glitches over its catchy chorus. OMG is a punch of a beat heavy tune that shimmers with intricacies and brings in brass. Wrestling aches with tension and brooding, even as it flickers with melodies. ‘You’ve got to calm down ‘cos this one’s about all my feelings and terrible stuff’ she says before She Reigns, whilst Your Truth is about ‘shagging straight guys.’

Backed by an all female cast Taylor performs and preens around the stage, oozing sensuality and sexiness. There’s choreographed dance moves and sassy shimmering. Empowered and confident, she tests boundaries and pushes musical limits. Her bold and powerful voice is almost diva-esque, but her on stage banter in a thick Sheffield accent shows how down to earth she is. She ends on Favourite Problem, because she’s ready to go off and get drunk, the sip of a can of Fosters not quite cutting it.

Self Esteem also includes an art project, clothing range and social media brand, and sees Taylor questioning the male dominated world in which she, and every other female, operates in.

Tonight’s gig proves that two heads aren’t always needed to be better.

It all began with some solo demos recorded in her Dana Margolin’s bedroom, before evolving into a five piece band, and Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers takes some remnants of those sessions and sees them ramped up by the buoyant group. They’re a quirky and creative bunch, coming to the project with varying amounts of experience and expertise, but always enthusiasm. Stink Pup (Sam) has been playing drums since the age of ten, whereas Madilda only began her musical career a couple of years ago when handed a bass guitar. Dan, who also calls himself, Snake Leather plays second guitar, and Gorgus started out as a fan with a memory for lyrics, and now accompanies on vocals.

It’s a pointed set of tunes, but not polished. The combination of honest lyrics with a lo-fi musical edge indicates the desire for a touch of authenticity. Ten tracks of grubby fun that effervesce with humour even as they are entangled with subjects of ceaseless drudgery. This is the world of scuffed trainers and burned dinners.

In Danish Pastry they address the dichotomy between the shoulds and the realities, when grey mornings hit you fast than gratitude, as Margolin sings that ‘the first thing I can do / when I wake up in the morning on any given day is say hello / I am alive / but I do not do this / I stumble out of bed confused and upset / that the world exists / and so do I.’ Sorry is a lo-fi piece of pop about finding yourself in a pickle with the awareness that there are hundreds of ways of ‘dealing with this shit / but I think I’ve only got the energy to cry.’ Lemonade simmers with less sweetness than the title might suggest, whilst the quieter Eugh soon turns up the volume as Dana shouts ‘Don’t be a jerk!’ repeatedly.

Released last year on Memorials of Distinction, the album is now out on red vinyl, with the celebrations happening on Sunday 19^th March at London’s Shacklewell Arms.

But, here’s a hint at what might be to come, with a little mix from performers past.  Keep an eye on their facebook page for announcements.