THE HERALD FRIDAY JANUARY 20 2017


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49 Entertainment Roots reggae mash-ups in Aber Electric musicians perform in Lampeter LAMPETER will be treated


to a fantastic performance from The Hicksters at Victoria Hall next Friday (Jan 27). Ploughing a deep furrow of


Aber rugby club: Hosting another roots reggae mash-ups evening


SKARUMBA return to Aberystwyth’s Rugby Club next Saturday, January 28, for the first of their monthly roots reggae mash- ups.


At the start of a busy 2017,


Skarumba will be bringing the finest selection of roots-inspired music that West Wales (and further afar) has to offer.


Performing on the night will be the


mighty Miss Mitten, bringing warmth and shine to the glum winter month.


Uncle Funk will be stepping up


with a 2tone ska session on the night as well, with DJ Pupa Jam representing the Pembrokeshire roots scene There will also be resident


Skarumba DJs performing throughout the night, giving you a lively dance session to shake off those winter blues. This Friday (Jan 20), Skarumba


will be hosting a warm-up dance at The Angel Inn, Aberystwyth if you would like to go along to that too.


Americana and Celtic Country Blues, The Hicksters repertoire is truly electric. With five-part vocal harmonies, fiddle banjo, bass and drums, audiences are captivated by their infectious enthusiasm. The band formed in the summer


of 2014 when a group of Aberystwyth musicians came together at the last minute as a scratch band for local music venue Rummers Bar. The night was such a success that the band were asked to play a regular night. Next weekend, The Hicksters take


to Victoria Hall’s stage, with support from ShutUp!, who perform post- punk folk tunes lovingly fashioned in Lampeter itself. Make sure you get down to see


these two wonderful bands because you will be sure to regret it otherwise.


Award-winner performs Houdini play TOURING for a third time,


and calling in at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on February 9, Daniel Llewelyn Williams is bringing ‘A Regular Little Houdini’ back on the road. In Newport, south Wales, a


tenacious young dockworker’s son, smitten by Harry Houdini’s amazements, dreams of a life of magic. He wants to ‘escape’ a suffocating, impoverished future and unlock his shackles; the brutal Welsh working- class reality of Edwardian Britain. With his head full of folly, his parents struggle with their son’s eccentricity, but, he doggedly trains himself to emulate his hero on the industrial detritus in the bustling docks. His relentless ambition finally


brings him face-to-face with the world’s greatest showman - along with one of the most terrifying events in British industrial history. Is it possible to follow one’s


dreams in a world where poverty weighs you down like mud? An enchanting story that blurs the lines between childhood imagination and the cynicism of adulthood, ‘A Regular Little Houdini’ is an extraordinary tale of hope, determination and magic! Set in the sprawling urban slums


of the south Wales docklands at the turn of the last century, ‘A Regular Little Houdini’ is a coming of age, Cinderella-story about a young boy from the docks who seeks change. Filled with youthful imagination, joie de vivre and a very real danger brought about by the reality of working-class industrial life, the play is inspired by the author’s family stories and the true to life visits of Houdini to Newport. The master showman and self-


Daniel Llewelyn-Williams: Performing ‘A Regular Little Houdini’


publicist twice came to working-class, industrial Wales. He had an affiliation with the town of Newport; himself an immigrant Hungarian Jew, from the melting pot of industrial USA, he recognised the passion of the urban slums. In America, his audiences were


strongest in these areas because he represented the ‘immigrant success story’ and they worshipped him for it. Newport, the buzzing industrial


hub, was his springboard into Europe and while there, his publicity stunts, involving the police, their cells and an illegal jump off Newport Bridge, immortalised him in the eyes of a local


boy and landed him on the front page of national newspapers. Writer and performer Daniel


Llewelyn-Williams, who recently won ‘Best Actor’ at the Wales Theatre Awards and is currently playing Dr Rhys Thomas in Eastenders, comes from a family of dockworkers and storytellers. His family yarns of the dockside, plus Houdini’s folklore, plus the Newport Docks disaster of 1909, plus the building of Newport Transporter Bridge in 1906, plus Daniel’s own story of becoming an entertainer, all come together to create this fabricated tale of a young boy with an irrepressible spirit.


The Hicksters: Taking to the Victoria Hall stage next Friday


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