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The Arts Barge Project is very proud to present… The Galtres Festival Cabaret, with your hosts… Anarchist Storyteller Martin Riley, Hippy Poet Rory Motion and musical comedy duo Bush and McCluskey, bringing you two evenings of top quality variety performance including the Djangoesque Jazzmundo, vintage rockabillies The Jitters, the mysterious magic of Bernard Yak, the mesmerizing acapella voices of  Lennanshees and the bizarre and improbable Madam Laycock and Her Dabeno Pleasures.…..the lineup, the mystery and the music goes on…

The new cabaret stage is a first for Galtres Festival, and marks an attempt to broaden the scope of the Festival beyond the music stages. "This is a really exciting new development for us," said festival director James Houston. "There's going to be a lot of mad stuff happening and we love that. A lot of people will be heading to the big stages to watch the headline acts, but my money's on the cabaret big top being packed out - this is a very alluring line-up."

For a taste of what we mean check out this biog lifted from Madame Laycock's Myspace page:

"Many Years ago Madam Laycock was invited to a birthday party. She arrived to find the place had been burnt down.The birthday girl had made the mistake of inviting 'Franz' the mutated freak, who likes to watch things burn. He was found in the wreck still playing his accordion. Local newspapers said the event was so horrific, no one returned to the town again and the small road leading to it was shut off.

"Madam Laycock took pity on the freak and gave him a warm bath. After her best efforts, Franz remained burnt and strangely happy in an insane way. Madam Laycock was pregnant at the time, she gave birth to 78 children, which were reared in nests in a dark forest on the outskirts of the town by a flock of crows. One child survived, 'Sparrow'. Now Sparrow plays trumpet and Glokenspiel in the band.

"Vim the Voodoo grandma on drums just appeared one day mysteriously. She has never spoken to us and we dont know how to get rid of her. Legend has it that one day she died, but she fell into an old well and drank some cursed water. From that moment on she has been getting younger and younger. We have noticed that she is shrinking. At night she goes somewhere...locals say she runs a late night furniture store, but only selected clientelle can visit. Who knows what Vim gets up to.

"The Moshkabushka Doll on violin was rescued from a terrifying wind. We found out she was a part of a large touring orchestra, but the conductor was mad and had drugged up all the musicians and they had to play continuously with no food or drink. When she tried to stop he grew angry and accidently blew some of them away. Poor Moshkabushka has a terrifying doll-like appearance, her playing is beautiul but we have to remind her to stop from time to time."

Not to be missed ...