Doncaster Folk Festival
Stephen Taylor
I’ve only been to Doncaster once and I had a Very Bad Day. As the snow melts and the green shoots peek out, I could be tempted back by the sheer loveliness of the local line-up at this year’s Doncaster Folk Festival. Part of the city’s Hothouse festival which encompasses comedy, theatre and music, the Folk Festival weekend had brought together a bunch of artists (with reassuringly crappy websites – never trust a folk musician with a flash site, they’re not suffering for their art enough) from Yorkshire and across the east.
Highlights include cream-smooth folk string duo FYRISH, close harmony group Hissyfit, rollicking electric folk rock foot-stompers from The Duncan McFarlane Band, Ukrainian folk dance ensemble Musicians Orlyk, old favourite Bill Caddick and perhaps the pick of the bunch Little Sister, an eclectic all girl group from Brum dishing out Irish, Welsh and klezmer tunes, as well as sweet slices of twangy Americana.
To kick the event off there’s a grand Ceilidh on the Friday night with music from Pierrot, and to tie the 2 nights of folk together there are workshops, singarounds, morris dancers and traditional English mummers plays from Colby Plough Jag.
