This weeks happenings

MISCELLANEOUS

ARNSIDE Football and Cricket Club will be raising funds with a car boot sale on Monday on the War Memorial Field, in Arnside, from 6am. Inquiries after 6pm please on 01524-761943.

THE K Village Whitsuntide Fair takes place in Kendal on Saturday through to Monday.

THE Cumbria Wildlife Trust returns to Greenbank in Sedbergh for the second of two open garden events this year. Glorious summer blooms will be on show and you can pick up a fragrant bargain at the plant sale from noon until 4pm. Entry is via Joss Lane. Call 015396-25453 for details.

STALLS, a barbeque, games and fancy dress will be on offer at the Sawrey May Fayre on Sunday. The 2pm procession will lead from Near Sawrey to Far Sawrey, where the 2004 May Queen will be crowned as village children dance around the maypole.

CONCERTS

ONE of the UK's finest vocalists, the versatile Midge Ure, will perform at the Platform in Morecambe on Saturday from 8pm. With an ongoing showerstorm of achievements as a writer, singer, record producer, music and video director plus a string of hits to his name, Midge will be performing solo and acoustic. For details, call 01524-582803.

SATURDAY J39+, The Muffwigs and The Heat will play at Monroe's Bar in Workington from 9pm. For more information, call 01900-602122.

UNDERGRADUATE and postgraduate student singers from St Andrew's University Madrigal Group Choir will perform at Kendal Parish Church on Sunday. With evensong from 6.30pm and the concert from 7.45pm, a wide selection of unaccompanied choral music from the past 800 years will make up the evening.

THE eccentric Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart present a unique concert of English Roots Music on Friday night at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal. The action starts from 8.30pm, call the Box Office on 01539-725133.

PUNK rock legends the UK Subs and the Filthy Lookers will play a gig at Milnthorpe Memorial Institute on Monday from 8pm.

UNLESS you have two left feet, an evening of old-time and easy sequence dancing will take place at Grange's Victoria Hall on Sunday from 7.30pm-10pm. Call 01229-861549 for details.

THE opening concert of the Summer Sunday season at the Edwardian Bandstand in Grange will feature Kendal Concert Band on Sunday. Conductor Jim Quincey will lead a varied programme of music from James Bond and West Side Story, to theme tunes from the Pink Panther and The Flintstones.

OFTEN compared to Joni Mitchell and Beth Orton, singer Kathryn Williams will be gracing the Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room (Kendal) on Sunday. From 7.30pm, the evening will feature music from her hit albums Dog Leap Stairs and Little Black Numbers. Call 01539-725133 for booking details.

AN evening of sacred, secular and world music, celebrating the human voice together with instrumental pieces will take place on Sunday at Cartmel Priory from 8pm. Featuring Nothing to Prove, Five in a Bar, Adrian and Pam Self and Levens Choir soloist Julie Eckersley, there will be something for everyone.

THE Stranglers and Goldblade will play a Bank Holiday gig at Maryport Civic Hall on Monday from 7.30pm. For the Box Office, call 01900-602122.

EXHIBITIONS

ESKDALE School's 11th Annual Art Exhibition opens for three days from on Saturday. A variety of pieces will be on show and available for sale in aid of the school. Call 01229-717700 for details.

THE latest exhibition, featuring five artists in a dynamic display of colour, texture and light, opens at the Pinfold Gallery in Bowness from Saturday until Monday, July 5. Call 015394-42929 for details.

THE Eden Artisans' Exhibition, displaying applied art and fine art form local craftworkers and artists, will once again be open to the public on Saturday above the Tourist information Centre in Kirkby Stephen.

PEOPLE, Places and Things, a diverse exhibition of contemporary textiles by the talented members of Cheshire Textiles, is the current offering at Sedbergh's Farfield Mill. Featuring a richly assorted mix of media, the inspiration for the pieces come from everyday life and namely people, places and things. Call 015396-21958 for details.

CONCERNING Animals by Paul Hill, is an intriguing exhibition at Kendal's Brewery Arts Centre which takes a slanted look at the human world through the relationships we have with our pets. The master photographer, who has worked on such publications as The Guardian, The Observer and the Radio Times, has captured images from dog chews to baby's dummies and images of animals as both killers and victims. For more information, call 01539-725133.

THIS year marks the centenary of the Lakes Arts Society - founded by W.G. Collingwood, the secretary to the better-known John Ruskin. To mark this auspicious anniversary, an exhibition of works by some of the founder members (including Collingwood, Arthur Severn, Cuthbert Rigby and W.L.Turner) will be on show at The Ruskin Museum in Coniston until June 6. Call 015394-41164 for details.

A CENTURY of Lake District art from 1850-1950 is currently on display at Anthemion, The Antique Shop at Cartmel. The stunning exhibition, "o'er dale and hill", features familiar scenes immortalised in oil and watercolour by the likes of William Mellor, W.L. Turner and Edward H. Thompson. It is open from 10am to 5.30pm. Call 015395-36295 for details.

IN Brantwood's Severn Studio, you can currently see an exhibition drawn from the estate itself. Artist-in-residence Jill Rock has spent four months at Coniston's stately home collecting and painting on natural found objects to make an assemblage of pieces for the exhibition In the Spirit of Ruskin. Meanwhile, in the Old Dining Room, Ruskin's Romantic Tours 1837-1838 is a collection of sketches done by a young Ruskin when travelling around the Lakes with his parents. 015394-41396.

A THOUGHT-provoking and stunning exhibition is on show in The Brewery Arts Centre Warehouse in Kendal. By the formidable Aidan Shingler, Only Smarties Have the Answer makes a powerful visual statement about the abuses of the psychiatric system with a sense of humour and pride. For details, call 01539-725133.

THEATRE

VINTAGE comedy comes to Grasmere Hall as Grasmere Players present Relatively Speaking by Alan Ackbourn. Complete with the music and mini-skirts of the swinging sixties, the amusing show can be seen from Friday until Sunday and again on Wednesday from 8pm. Call 015396-35627 for details.

A COLOURFUL and vibrant show telling the story of The Crazy Gang and how leaders Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen met, takes to the stage at Forum 28 on Thursday from 2pm. The Flanagan and Allen Story is a vital part of English Theatre History and is a must for all theatre lovers who enjoy the shows of yesteryear. Call 01229-820000 for details.

ANOTHER evening of fun-packed, side-splitting comedy comes to the Platform in Morecambe on Friday night when Tony Law and Chris Addison team up to perform a live stand-up show. Both regulars on the UK comedy club circuit and with an excellent reputation for being downright hilarious, the show starts at 8pm. Call 01524-582803 for details.

CLOSER, an award-winning compelling study of love, sex and betrayal, comes to the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal on Tuesday from 8pm. Patrick Marber's portrait of 1990s sexual politics is a shocking, brutally honest journey into the depths of the human heart and has been highly acclaimed by some of the industry's finest. For details, call 01539-725133.

ROCK theatre in the form of The Meatloaf Story arrives at the Lancaster Grand on Friday night for two evenings of brilliant raw tunes including Took the Words, Bat out of Hell, Anything for Love and many more. Call the Box Office on 01524-64695.

BUZZ Hawkins, writer, producer and voice of The Bradshaws, brings the cult radio and TV series to life on stage on Friday night at Forum 28 in Barrow. The wickedly funny show is set in the days of pounds, shillings and pence, tin baths and condensed-milk butties. The show starts at 7.30pm, for details call 01229-820000.

TALKS

TO coincide with Hannah Frank: A Glasgow Artist - the main exhibition currently showing at Lancaster City Museum and Art Gallery the artist's niece, Fiona Frank, will give a talk about her talented aunt's art, life and family on Friday at 2pm. Call 01524-64637 for details.

AN illustrated lecture on the life and times of Captain John Noel, Everest pioneer, soldier and explorer, will be given by his daughter and biographer Sandra Noel at Rheged, near Penrith, on Saturday from 8pm. A one-course supper and a showing of Everest; The Top of the World, is also available. Call 01768-860005 to book.