Opera to be performed at folk festival

The Transports, which was penned by Peter Bellamy in 1977 has been given an update and the folk festival, which runs over the August Bank Holiday weekend, is the only festival where it will be staged in 2017.

The opera is based on an account of two convicts of the First Fleet, Henry Cabell and Susannah Holmes. Cabell received a sentence of transportation for 14 years for the burglary of a country house while Holmes, received a sentence of transportation for an unrelated theft. They were imprisoned for three years before being sent to New South Wales.

While imprisoned they fell in love and had a son. Refused permission to marry, Susannah was to be sent alone in the First Fleet to Australia. When Susannah's son was refused passage at quayside a guard takes pity on her and travels with the baby to London to appeal to the home secretary, Lord Sydney. Sydney, affected by the incident, ordered that Cabell and Holmes should be reunited, married on English soil, and transported together with their son. Cabell eventually became a constable in the new colony and enjoyed commercial success.

The folk opera will be performed on the main stage by a number of leading folk musicians at the festival including Nancy Kerr, The Youngun’s, Faustus, Greg Russell and Rachael McShane.

The festival, which runs from August 25-28 at the West Mid Showground, Gravel Lane, attracts thousands of folk fans from across the country and Europe.

This year bands will include Oysterband, Na-Mara, The East Pointers, The Fitzgeralds, Wood, Wire & Words, Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Goldsmith, Seth Lakeman, Andy Fairweather Low and the High Riders and Faith, Folk and Anarchy.

Further acts will be announced over the coming months.

Other attractions at the festival are a dance tent, arts and crafts for children, a dedicated youth festival where teenagers can learn drumming and circus skills, musical workshops and a real ale tent serving dozens of brews from around the country.

Last year, festivalgoers raised more than £5,700 for Hope House to fund music therapy sessions for children with life limiting illnesses.

The money is raised through the bucket and tin collections, scooter and mobile phone charging and through the Hope House stall and the sale of books, clothes and other activities.

For more information about the festival and to book tickets go to http://shrewsburyfolkfestival.co.uk/