Christmas arrived at Bournemouth Folk Club in sparkling style with this perfect gift of wintry songs and stories.

Even the weather played its part as we shook the frost from our boots at the door and settled in with a mulled cider in the starkly beautiful St Ambrose Church to reflect on the winter cold, Christmas and the turning of year in a perfectly pitched festive gig.

Lady Maisery are three impeccable musicians – Hannah James, Hazel Askew and Rowan Rheingans – with immaculate voices and exquisite harmonies. Awake Arise is the album of wintry, festive songs and readings they made in collaboration with Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith, celebrating ancient traditions and the hope that gets us through the darkest time of the year.

For this Christmas gig they were dressed in velvet and glitter and joined by Kit Hawes on guitar and vocals, his voice adding depth to their harmonies. Jimmy was also due to be there but was ill – I’m absolutely sure his presence adds an extra layer but such is this band’s class that the combination we had felt perfect and exactly as it should be.

Evocative songs about birds and nature, wassailing, and Christmassy Laurie Lee readings combined with old folk carols, some from the Sheffield pub tradition, made for a joyful, reflective and wonderfully atmospheric evening.

Lady Maisery’s wide range of instruments – fiddle, banjo, harp, accordian, melodeon, and Hannah’s inventive range of percussion – along with their very different but skilfully blended clear voices, brought a magical quality to this ancient and new music.

Winter Berries was an 1827 list of our natural forest ornaments set to music (in a style reminiscent of Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow), Da Day Dawn is a Shetland fiddle tune traditionally played at first light on Christmas Day, The King is about that unlikely king of the birds, the Wren, and Peggy Seeger’s Heading for Home is about the gentle transition into the winter of life.

We moved through Christmas and winter to a Cornish Wassail and the promise of spring, with William Morris’s Hope is Before Us set to music by Hazel.

As well as the Awake Arise songs we heard the beautiful Birdsong from Lady Maisery’s new album Tender. They left us with a very Christmassy Sweet Chiming Bells singalong – and if that didn’t get the audience in the festive spirit then nothing ever would.

  • In spring 2023 Bournemouth Folk Club moves to St. Andrew’s Church in Millhams Road, Kinson with a programme including the acclaimed Jim Moray on his 21st anniversary tour (May 13), preceded by Tom Moore & Archie Moss, plus The Last Inklings (March 4) and Bryony Griffith and Alice Jones, plus Thom Ashworth.

For more information or to book, visit https://bournemouthfolkclub.com/ Debbie Moore