Chelsea Buckthorp

Lincoln Inspired will celebrate its first birthday with a special performance from music patron, Elliott Morris on November 1.

In May this year, Lincoln Inspired attracted more than 5,000 people to a festival full of books, comedy, music and the general arts.

Inspired is a not-for-profit organisation, and relies largely on business sponsorship and public donations in order to meet its running costs.

This November, the team will launch a series of fundraising events to help with the costs of staging the second Lincoln Inspired from May 6-11.

On November 1, it will kick things off with a Birthday Bash at Lincoln Drill Hall.

This musical celebration takes place a year to the day since the festival was first officially launched.

Inspired music patron and local guitar hero, Elliott Morris (23) will be marking the festival’s first birthday with the launch of his own new EP.

Elliott will unveil Shadows and Whispers, which features arrangements of traditional songs as well as two of his own compositions, Eyes and Smoke and Mirrors.

He said: “It’s fantastic that the day of the worldwide release coincides with the Birthday Bash.”

As well as touring with his own music across the UK and Ireland, Elliott Morris feels privileged to be involved in bringing some great musical talent to Lincoln as part of the Inspired festival.

“It was great just being included in the festival but when I realised what it involved to be a patron I felt really honoured. It means a lot to me to be able bring artists to Lincoln and show the city some great acts.”

He will be performing alongside critically-acclaimed folk artists David Gibb and Elly Lucas.

The two BBC Young Folk Awards 2011 finalists have supported acts such as Cara Dillon and Jez Lowe.

Elliott said: “I am really looking forward to sharing the evening with David and Elly. We’ve played a few shows together in the past, including at a festival in Yorkshire earlier this year.

“They were very happy to get involved and I’m looking forward to playing with them again this weekend. It is going to be a great night, there is going to be a real party atmosphere.”

Festival Director Sara Bullimore added: “Our first ‘official’ birthday seemed a great excuse for a party and to remind everyone that we are aiming to present another, even better, Lincoln Inspired event next year.”

More fundraising events will take place over the next few weeks, including an evening with Inspired science patron and local author Paul Money at The Collection on Sunday, November 17.

He will be giving a talk and signing copies of his new Nightscenes publication for the coming year.

The Birthday Bash starts at 8pm and tickets, priced £8, are available from the Drill Hall Box Office on 01522 873894 or online at Lincolndrillhall.com.

For more information on Lincoln Inspired events, or about how you can get involved in fundraising or making a donation, visit the festival website at Lincolninspired.co.uk.

Lincoln-based Chapterhouse Theatre Company is about to embark on its fourteenth year of touring the UK and Ireland with open-air performances of classical adaptations.

Chapterhouse will be touring over one hundred different venues across the UK and Ireland with six adaptations of well-known classics; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles, Twelfth Night and The Wind in the Willows.

This year, it will be opening the season with a special performance of Pride & Prejudice at Bolingbroke Castle, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s most popular novel.

Script writer Laura Turner said she felt honoured to be a part in the 200th anniversary of the story: “It was a huge privilege to script my own version of this classic love story and I feel even more privileged to have it touring this year.”

Laura is a Lincoln-based writer who’s worked as a playwright for Chapterhouse since graduating from the University of York in 2009. She is excited to be kicking off the tour in her home county.

“I was not lucky enough to study Pride & Prejudice at school or university, but have read the novel several times, so I was thrilled to be asked to write an adaptation of it for the stage.

“I have tried to represent the original text as faithfully as possible and I hope anyone who goes to see it enjoys spending an evening with Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.”

Samantha Hopkins played Elizabeth Bennet in last year’s production of the show. This year, she rejoined Chapterhouse as a member of their Shakespeare cast, and used the opportunity to play her cross-dressing role in Twelfth Night to get her hair cut off and also do her bit for charity.

She said: “I had a wonderful time touring with Chapterhouse last year. I had the opportunity to play one of English literature’s most famous heroines, Lizzie Bennet.

“I grew really fond of Lincoln and it’s lovely to be back. It feels like home now!”

She added: “Viola spends the majority of the play disguised as a boy and this will be a bit of a challenge for me, because I’m quite a girly girl in real life, but I can’t wait!

“A friend of my family was recently diagnosed with cancer and she had to cut her hair. She donated it to the Little Princess Trust, who make wigs for children with cancer and when I realised that I would be cutting enough off the length of my hair, I thought I’d like to do the same.”

You can catch Chapterhouse Theatre Company’s range of Lincolnshire performances at various venues:

• Pride & Prejudice: June 13 at Bolingbroke Castle, Bolingbroke
• Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles: July 21 at The Petwood Hotel, Woodhall Spa
• The Wind in the Willows: July 28 at Elsham Hall, Brigg
• Pride & Prejudice: July 4 at Gainsborough Trinity Theatre, Gainsborough
• Pride & Prejudice: August 18 at Elsham Hall, Brigg
• Twelfth Night: August 25 at The Petwood Hotel, Woodhall Spa
• Pride & Prejudice: August 30 at Belton House, near Grantham

For more information on any of the performances listed on Chapterhouse’s 2013 summer tour visit the Chapterhouse website.