Saturday 30 November 2024

Beware an encounter with the Turon and Mari Lwyd beasts as you enter St Mary’s Churchyard for a night of tales of folklore and mysterious creatures. Keep your wits about you as you hear stories of English mummers plays and Austrian Krampus runs, to modern pagan rituals at Stonehenge and the night in Finland when a young girl is crowned with candles as St Lucy – a martyred Christian girl who also appears as a witch leading a procession of the dead.

Folk musician John Kirkpatrick will sing to the spirits in the churchyard as you arrive and lead you into the candlelit church where author Sarah Clegg awaits to take you on a journey through midwinter to explore the lesser-known Christmas traditions.

Ghastly and ghostly, Clegg looks at the origins of midwinter mythologies, and with accompaniment from Kirkpatrick and Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk brings to life an unsettling tale or two. After all, a little darkness never hurt anyone, did it?

Head into orbit without the danger (and the price tag) with Chris Lintott, as he leads an astonishing tour of the key astronomical events of the past century, and reveals how many of them have come about by accident. Lintott, presenter of the BBC's Sky at Night programme, takes us to space to look at how the Universe is ever-changing and how new technology is showing us this changing sky. But amongst all this technological development, he gives a rundown of the accidents and human error that have occurred in the pursuit of asteroids, pulsars, radio waves, new stars and alien life.

Lintott is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Oxford, where his research ranges from understanding how galaxies form and evolve, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He is Principal Investigator of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for anyone to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, The Crowd and the Cosmos. In 2023, he was appointed the 39th Gresham Professor of Astronomy, a post that dates back to the 16th century.

Experience a remarkable audio journey by heading deep into an undersea world, all from the comfort of St Mary’s Church. Wildlife filmmaker and writer Tom Mustill and musician and Human Instruments co-founder Vahakn Matossian present a soundscape of recordings from a ground-breaking underwater listening station, three miles beneath the waves of Monterey Bay Canyon.

There, underwater landslides rumble and distant rain at the surface can still be heard as a fizz, and the seas teem with the sounds of dolphin megapods, hunting killer whales, the bleats of Gray whale calves to their mothers, the mysterious booms of Fin and Whales and of course, the complex and enchanting songs of the Humpback Whale. Mustill’s team spent six months gathering 350 new bioacoustic tracks from scientists around the world, many never heard before, making them into a soundscape journey from the perspective of seven different whales.

Glyn Edwards recites from and discusses his collection In Orbit, which examines grief, loss and toxic standards for boys and men. Narrated by a man who receives news of a beloved teacher’s death, In Orbit covers the man’s past, present and future, all of which seem to be punctuated by the same intense grief. Edwards’ collection is a deeply moving account of losing a person you love, but not shying away from remembering them.

Edwards works as a teacher in North Wales and is a PhD researcher in ecopoetry at Bangor University, considering the role of poetry as activism in the wake of the Anthropocene. He is a contributing editor for Modron, a journal for environmental writing, and the Wild Words feature for North Wales Wildlife Trust. He is a former winner of Wales’ Teacher of the Year, and has created educational resources for the Welsh Government, the WJEC and Poetry Wales. In Orbit won the People’s Choice Award at the Wales Book of the Year 2024 Awards Ceremony, run by Literature Wales.

Spend a raucous night out in the company of Jim and Nancy Moir, as they share their weird and wonderful adventures of tracking down birds so Jim can paint them. Under the name Vic Reeves, Jim is one of the UK’s best known and most successful comedians. But since leaving behind the comedy persona that made his name, Moir has spent his time focusing on a passion from childhood: birds, and creating beautiful paintings of them. Moir shares his excitement about painting birds with his wife Nancy, and the pair’s hit television show Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy Moir is about to be commissioned for its third series. Join the couple for this exclusive event as they give an insight into their adventures tracking down and painting birds of all kinds and tell stories about the lives of our feathered friends. Moir and Nancy speak to publisher John Mitchinson of Unbound, which has published Moir’s paintings in the books Birds and More Birds.

Moir is most famous for his work as Vic Reeves alongside Bob Mortimer, with TV shows including Vic Reeves Big Night Out, The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer, and the comedy quiz show Shooting Stars. He is also a successful artist and he exhibits regularly around the world.

Nancy is an actress and television presenter, best known for her roles in Love Actually, Catterick and Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy.

Cellist Maxim Calver first gained public recognition as a BBC Young Musician 2018 Grand Finalist and Strings Category winner, where he made his concerto debut with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Since the competition he has been in high demand as a soloist across the UK and Europe.

Hear him play a programme that includes Bach’s much-loved Cello Suite No.1 in G major, Gaspar Cassadó’s 1926 Suite for solo cello, which combines traditional Spanish dance rhythms with elegant, fluid melodic passages reminiscent of French style, and a rare performance of George Crumb’s Sonata for Solo Cello from 1955.

Be brave, be bold, and join Danny Robins as he leads you on his real-life investigation into the paranormal. Prepare to be chilled to the bone as Robins recounts modern-day ghost stories, all of which are entirely true… No ghost hunting experience required, but an open mind is a must. Robins is an award-winning British writer, broadcaster and journalist. He created the hit BBC podcasts The Battersea Poltergeist, Uncanny and The Witch Farm, and the Olivier Award-nominated West End play 2:22 - A Ghost Story, which is now playing in countries around the world. The hit TV show of Uncanny was broadcast in October 2023, and has been recommissioned for a second series. In his new book Into the Uncanny, Robins uncovers the truth behind modern-day ghost sightings and explores the power of paranormal experiences. Robins is in conversation with journalist, writer and documentary maker Nicola Cutcher.