Keswick Plus

Book a break in Keswick, the Lake District, for this half-term holiday.

There are plenty of things to do in Keswick this Spring Bank Holiday, for all the family:

• Design your own 21st century Robot crafts at the Keswick Pencil Museum
• Visit the Lake District Wildlife Park during Love your Zoo Week
• Take a walking tour of Keswick town with 10 short scenes depicting our colourful history
• Come and have tea with Maisy Mouse at the Theatre by the Lake
• Call into the Viridian Gallery and view their latest exhibition 'Nature in Stitch'
• See a play at the Theatre by the Lake
• Wander around Portinscale on 2nd June - and enjoy their Open Gardens plus Cream Tea at the Village Hall
• Have an action packed time at Rheged
• Play in Whinlatter Forest or have a picnic at the Cinema

It’s all about interaction and trying something new at Rheged in Penrith this May half term holiday. Whatever the weather throws at us there’s so much to get stuck into, have a go at a cookery class or a dance workshop, learn some Bushcraft skills or simply enjoy the audience participation at the family theatre production.

High energy performing arts group Razzamataz get the week underway with Pop Dance workshops, teaching fun dance routines to the latest pop hits. These workshops finish with a performance for family and friends and take place Monday 27 May at 11am, 12pm and 2pm (ages 4 – 7) and 3pm (ages 8+), tickets £4.

For those with an adventurous streak local company Reach Beyond Adventure are getting hands-on with Bushcraft skills workshops, Tuesday 28 May. So come and try your hand at Archery (11am & 3pm), Fire Lighting (12pm) and Camp Cooking (2pm). The cookery continues on Wednesday 29 when the Rheged Chefs will lead the ever popular Children’s Kitchen with some fruity summer recipes. For ages 5 and up there are sessions at 10am, 1.30pm and 3.30pm, all tickets £5.

Not just for the kids, Llama Karma Kafe are bringing a bit of Mammal Magic to Rheged on Thursday 30, a lovely opportunity to meet some amazing animals up close. 11am, 12pm and 2pm, all ages are welcome and tickets are £5.

And so the week ends on Friday 31 with feathery antics as The Big Wooden Horse Theatre Company returns to Rheged with fun family production ‘Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus’! The friendly bus driver delivers one simple instruction when he leaves the bus for a short while, “don’t let the pigeon drive the bus”, but what will that clever pigeon do to persuade you? A lively show packed full of original music, fun, laughter and lots of audience participation, it has all the ingredients required to entertain the children (and the adults!) this May half term. Showing at 11am and 1.30pm, an hour of pure family fun for ages 4 and up, tickets £6.50.

Local mum Helena Davies, who brought her family to Rheged earlier this year, said “My three children Isla, Emily and Alex absolutely loved the Big Wooden Horse’s last production Stuck. They got totally involved, especially Alex who was singing and dancing in the aisle! We can’t wait to come again”

Throughout the week there will be a free children’s ‘safari trail’ to solve, inspired by the incredible ‘Wildlife Photographer of the Year’ exhibition showing in the Gallery@Rheged. The exhibition is the world’s premier photography competition and features all the winners and finalists from 2012 as announced at the Natural History Museum back in October. The breathtaking and inspiring images have been submitted by professionals, amateurs and children and can be viewed daily 10.30am – 4.30pm until 23 June, entry £2, under 16s free.

If you feel inspired to get stuck in with any of our activities this school holiday then you can find out more at www.rheged.com or book by ringing 01768 868000.

Keswick Street Theatre begins it’s 16th season of bringing the history of Keswick alive on Tuesday 28th May, with performances taking place at 7.30pm on Tuesday evenings for the next 7 weeks.

Each week the audience will enjoy 10 short scenes of "potted pantomime", depicting snippets of the towns’ history in a unique and humorous style during this walking tour of the town centre. Two new scenes will be included in this year’s season – “The Abraham Brothers”, and “Silent Movie” – both written by Bob Bryden. These new scenes will be performed every week from 4th June onwards.

Another change for this season is that the role of Town Crier will be “swapped”, with Graham Simons now taking on responsibility for the role, and Bob Bryden standing in as “reserve” where necessary.

All of the Street Theatre scenes are staged by a number of local amateur actors, who bring to life a variety of local characters spanning the past 450 years. Performances will take place every Tuesday until the 9th July. Whilst there is no need to pre-book (tickets are £3.00 per adult, accompanied children free), tickets this year can be purchased in advance from Keswick Tourist Information Centre.

All profits from Keswick Street Theatre are donated to charity, and following last year’s collections, cheques will be presented in June to Pets Lifeline, and also the appeal for Keswick BMX Track.

For further details, further comment, or pictures, please contact Graham Simons (Keswick Street Theatre Secretary) on 017687 80915, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

25th -31st May is Love Your Zoo week – something the Lake District Wildlife Park is busy preparing for in time for the half term holidays. As well as special activities, the park is also extending their Keeper Experience to adults.

Throughout Love Your Zoo week there will be regular keeper talks which include updates on conservation work – and visitors will also be asked to nominate their favourite animal. Last year the most loved animal was won by the Meerkat mob – closely followed by the Ring Tailed Lemurs.

This year the park will be offering the chance for visitors to feed mealworms to the Meerkats in exchange for a conservation donation. The Meerkat activities have proved so popular that the park has extended their exclusive Keeper Experience* so adults as well as children can take part, giving them a chance to groom tapirs, prepare enrichment toys for the Meerkats and enjoy feeding Lemurs.

Other activities taking part during Love Your Zoo Week and the half term holiday include photo competitions, quizzes and trails highlighting new areas of the park like the African Plains exhibit.

Keepers will also be posting video on face book explaining what they love about their animals and visitors will get chance to vox pop what they love about the park.

You can follow the activities on the Lake District Wildlife Park Face Book page or www.lakedistrictwildlifepark.com

Theatre by the Lake’s Summer Season opens with two diverse plays

Theatre by the Lake’s latest Summer Season opens on 25 May and promises the usual much-praised programme of six contrasting plays ranging from pure entertainment to intense tragedy. The two opening plays set the style: there’s a madcap wartime farce in the Main House and an intimate and gentle modern drama in the Studio.

The season begins in the Main House with Philip King’s classic farce See How They Run! True to the genre, it includes plenty of running, some spectacular falls and more than one instance of trouser-dropping. However, director Abigail Anderson is keen to stress that the play is family-friendly and has more to offer than Benny Hill-style ‘running gags’.

“There’s a lot of verbal wit in it; there’s banter and other kinds of humour, which make the play more subtle and sophisticated than some farces.” The play is also quite Shakespearean in its reliance on disguise and mistaken identity. In fact, it’s famous for an abundance of vicars (real and otherwise), culminating in the exclamation “Sergeant, arrest most of these vicars!”.

See How They Run! is set in wartime 1943 and was written in 1945 when the country was still in the final throes of war – King describes reading the first reviews over Spam sandwiches and tea. Anderson recognises that this production may come at a difficult time for some of the audience too. She stresses the importance of humour during challenging times: “Everyone needs a good laugh. There’s something special in the experience of coming to a theatre to enjoy laughing with 400 other people.”

The first play in the Studio could not be further from a genre famed for its silliness. Vincent in Brixton is an intimate drama by Nicholas Wright, which was written in 2002 and won the Olivier Award for Best New Play the same year.

It begins with the little-known fact that Vincent van Gogh lodged at a house in London for 3 years in his early twenties. He loved the city and wrote to his cousin singing its praises: “In every part of the city there are splendid parks with a wealth of flowers such as I’ve seen nowhere else.”

From 1873 to 1876 van Gogh stayed with Ursula Loyer, her daughter Eugenie and a number of other lodgers at 87 Hackford Road in Brixton. The house was recently put up for auction and was bought by a Chinese art collector. He apparently bought the property (for £565,000) because he couldn’t afford one of van Gogh’s paintings.

Though little is known about what went on inside the house, Vincent in Brixton imagines the story of van Gogh’s stay and his decision to leave. With a cast of only 5, this beautifully-nuanced play is perfectly suited to the 100-seat Studio.

Both See How They Run! and Vincent in Brixton open on Saturday 25 May at 8pm, with previews on Friday 24 May at 8pm. They are joined by J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls and Jacobean tragedy ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore in June, and the final two plays in this season of six – 18th century comedy She Stoops to Conquer and modern drama The Shape of Things – open in July and August respectively. From August, the six plays are performed on alternate days; this means that audiences can see all six in just one week.

Big discounts are available if you book for more than one show – call the Box Office on 017687 74411 and ask about our Season Tickets. Tickets for individual plays can also be booked online at www.theatrebythelake.com.

Maisy Mouse Tea Party!

Sunday 2nd June 2013

Come and meet Maisy Mouse at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick!
Enjoy a sing-along storytime, make mouse ears and eat scrummy party food!
Tea parties are at 12.30 and 3pm on Sunday 2nd June.
Tickets available from Bookends, 017687 75277, for £5 (includes
refreshments and £3 off Bookends purchase over £10).
Please book in advance.
Suitable for children aged 2 – 5 years.

Lake District Wildlife Park Tapirs are a hit on World Tapir Day

Saturday 27th April was World Tapir Day – an annual occasion celebrated at the Lake District Wildlife Park which is home to a pair of Brazilian Tapirs called Muffin (female) and Rio (the male). World Tapir Day is a popular event, with thousands of people following it on Face Book. The Tapir pair at Bassenthwaite attracted the attention of Face Book fans across the globe as well as being a huge hit with visitors to the Lake District Wildlife Park.

Brazilian Tapirs are herbivorous mammals, native to Central/Southern America. Whilst they look like they should be related to a pig or a hippo, their closest relations are actually horses and rhino’s! The pair at the Lake District Wildlife Park were both millennium babies - Muffin born at Southport Zoo and Rio at Linton Zoo in Cambridge.

During the World Tapir Day weekend the Tapir Talks were extended and Keeper Matt Browning provided guests with fresh vegetables to feed as treats – as well as a few pieces of banana to satisfy their sweet tooth!

Muffin and Rio were also given a foodie football to play with and extra-long grooming sessions. Matt said “Tapirs are naturally quite shy, but Muffin our female is very affectionate and has a really sweet nature – she loves having her tummy tickled and is a real hit with guests who groom her as part of the Keeper Experience.”

Pictures and video were posted on the World Tapir Day face book page as well as the parks own page with instant success. Richard Robinson, Park Manager said “we know from past experience that people have a real soft spot for Tapirs so we wanted to make sure we added plenty of pictures. We didn’t expect them to go viral so quickly. Within a couple of hours we reached over 6,000 Tapir fans with comments coming from as far as the Czech Republic, California, Mexico and Brazil.”

Breeding in captivity is difficult, but the keepers at the Lake District Wildlife Park are hopeful and are working as part of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP). They have recently given Muffin and Rio more river access and privacy, encouraging them to breed. If successful, the calves will be born camouflaged with spots and stripes.

You can follow the Tapirs on the Lake District Wildlife Park Face Book page or www.lakedistrictwildlifepark.com

When: 20th April- 2nd June open daily 10 am to 5 pm
The Viridian Gallery are plaesed to host an exhibition of recent machine embroidered pictures by Mary Taylor.

Artist's Statement
'I am a Textile Artist living and working on the edge of the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales and Morecambe Bay. The patterns and colours of these diverse landscapes inspire much of my work.
I love the ever-changing light and the pattern of the seasons in our natural environment.
I design and create pictures, by layering fabrics, applying heat and then densely machine embroider the resulting textured surface, to create unique pieces of work.
I have a studio, where I create and sell my work, within Farfield Mill Arts and Heritage Centre near Sedbergh.'

Follow us on Twitter @ViridianGallery
13 St. John Street, Keswick 017687 71328
www.viridiangallery.co.uk
www.diane-gainey.co.uk
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open daily 10 a.m. – 5p.m

For details see: http://www.keswick.org/what-to-do/shopping/viridian-gallery/

Keswick Midsummer Festival is on Sunday 30th June 11.30am-6.30pm.

Musical entertainment from a range of local bands, choirs, dancers and a brass band; strolling performers; children's entertainment; food and charity stalls and tables and chairs to sit and enjoy the fun.

A great midsummer festival with fun for all the family.

www.keswick.org for more details.

Saturday 2nd March - Sunday 14th April
‘In the Wild’
PHILLIP ALLDER

Saturday 20th April – Sunday 2nd June
‘Exciting Lines’
New pen and wash work by
MARY TAYLOR

Saturday 8th June – Sunday 21st July
‘All Fired Up’ An exhibition of quirky ceramics by
SIMONE LOUISE CERAMICS

Saturday 27th July – Sunday 8th September
‘Flowers and Colour’
Floral paintings in Acrylic, Ink and Chalk by
JAN SOPER

Saturday 14th Sept. – Sunday 27th October
‘Enduring Pattern’
Imaginative Pencil Drawings by
MARTIN COPP

Saturday 2nd Nov. – Sunday 31st Dec.
‘Traces in the Landscape’
Mixed media paintings reflecting the legacy we have left on
the environment through architecture, archaeology, agriculture and industry by
BILL TAYLOR

January – February 2014
‘Winter Exhibition’

Viridian Gallery 13 St. Johns Street, Keswick, Cumbria, CA12 5AP. 017687 71328 www.viridiangallery.co.uk
e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

For more details see http://www.keswick.org/what-to-do/shopping/viridian-gallery/