A MUSICIAN whose song-cycle won plaudits at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last month is bringing the show to his native Bournemouth.

Barney Ashton-Bullock’s Torsten The Bareback Saint, performed in Scotland by Erasure frontman Andy Bell, will be one of the highlights of this year’s Boscombe Fringe Festival, which started yesterday.

He will be performing the one man show himself today at the Shelley Theatre, just a stone’s throw from his grandmother’s seasonal bed and breakfast in Westby Road, and his mother’s home in Fisherman’s Walk.

“I remember Boscombe being a seaside town in its own right and it being jam-packed every summer until the late 80s,” he said.

“Obviously it’s very much changed and when a friend told me that it is now one of the most impoverished suburbs in the south west, well, I must admit I was sad.

“That is why I am delighted to help this exciting Boscombe Fringe initiative.”

After leaving St Peter’s School and Bournemouth College, Mr Ashton-Bullock honed his talents in music and drama at the former Bournemouth Centre for Community Arts in Haviland Road.

“The BCCA in the 1980s was a crucible from which poured production after production of alternative edgy work,” he said.

“I started attending courses there in 1981 and had my final play produced there in 1995.”

He currently runs record label Strike Force Entertainment.

The Boscombe Fringe Festival runs from September 11 to 14, hosted by arts and addiction charity Vita Nova and other venues including Chaplins and The Cellar Bar and Factory Studios.

It includes theatre, music, live art and dance productions by professional artists, community groups and local residents – many of whom have been affected by mental health and addiction issues.

More information on the festival events can be found at boscombefringe.wordpress.com