Thanks to those who came to Book Club last week. If you weren’t there, we missed you! We had a good chat about ‘The Tuppenny Hat Detective’. Definitely worth a read, particularly because of the historical picture it paints of life in post-war Sheffield.

December Book Club

We decided on the books for the next few months. Our December Book Club is on Wednesday 8th December (2nd wednesday in December as usual) 7.30-9pm at Crucible Corner and we’ll be chatting about ‘Sister’ by Rosamund Lupton. It’s a current Richard and Judy Book Club book and we chose it because it has a snowy scene on the front and it looked wintry! You can get it pretty reasonably for £3.49 via the Richard and Judy website if you click here or through amazon for £2.99 if you click here.

Future Books

Here are the books up until March, chosen by Book Club members last week. Get them on your Christmas list!

Wednesday 12th January
‘The Fingersmith’ by Sarah Waters

Wednesday 9th February
‘The Long Song’ by Andrea Levy

Wednesday 9th March
‘No & Me’ by Delphine de Vigan

Look forward to seeing people on 8th December!

Rachel and Emily

Be sure to come on down and help us squeeze a few more drops from this summer.

For one month only, VOX will be held  in The Shoebox at The Riverside (5-8pm, Sunday 29th August), up the stairs at the Riverside. When you arrive, just make your way upstairs and you’ll find us on the right. We’ll be back down in the bar in September.

August sees the musical return of Ben Underwood to VOX. BENJAMIN UNDERWOOD wowed us a year ago to the day when he last performed at Vox. With beautifully crafted, softly strummed, tenderly written gems of songs, he is one of the most respected artists on the Sheffield acoustic scene.

Listen here: http://www.myspace.com/benjaminunderwood

HUGH WALLER will be making his Vox debut, but we’ve heard great things about him. Describing himself as a folk singer minus the Aran sweaters and sticking his finger in his ear, he is influenced by Martin Carthy and Nic Jones, and is a regular at Fagan’s.

He apologises for being “the wrong generation for myspace”. I guess you’ll just have to trust us….

This VOX will also see the return of Peter Wilding, who will be taking us on a journey into the darkest parts of the human soul through a series of dialogues surrounding a robbery and the subsequent fall-out. Be prepared for some gritty drama.

To take advantage of the extra wallspace provide by the Shoebox upstairs at the Riverside, we’ve got Alice Bailey displaying her photographs exploring the sweeter parts of Sheffield life.

As always, we’ll have the usual supply of excellent beers and happy faces to light up the last Sunday evening of August.

See you there!

Reply to the Facebook event here.

We met in August to chat about ‘A Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde. Not quite as much of a page turner as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo but lots to chat about.

For our September book club, as we’ve never done an autobiography, we’re reading ‘Lucky Man: A Memoir’ by Michael. J. Fox. The best way to get a copy cheaply is through the new and used books on Amazon. The link is here.

We meet on the second Wednesday of each month at Crucible Corner (opposite the Crucible) 7-8.30pm. The September date is Wednesday 8th September. If you’ve not been before, please feel free to drop in and see what you think.

Also, date for your diary – Book Club and the Monkey Butler Improv Comedy group who are also part of Vox Sheffield, are doing an event as part of the Off the Shelf festival in October. It will be a performance reading of a new book written ‘The Colour Papers’. This will take place on Saturday 23rd October, 7.30pm at Cafe Piazza near the Cathedral and will raise money for Book Aid International who send books for children to places including Sierra Leone. We really need help with planning, publicity etc. so if you fancy helping out, let me know and I’ll be arranging a planning get-together soon. We’ll also be reading this book for our October book club.

Hopefully see you for book club in September! Happy reading!

We meet on the second Wednesday of each month at Crucible Corner (opposite the Crucible) 7-8.30pm. The August date is Wednesday 11th August. If you’ve not been before, please feel free to drop in and see what you think.

Hopefully see you there! Happy reading!

It starts at 8pm sharp in the Shoebox Studio which is upstairs in the Riverside (Kelham Island). It is completely free so come along, make yourself comfortable and allow Monkey Butler to serve you up some Improv comedy.

This is an opportunity for all of our workshoppers to have a go performing improv so it will be raw and untapped. It will include a wide range of standards and lots of different characters and styles.

Monkey Butler Improv Unplugged is going to happen every 6 weeks so make it your regular live improv comedy hit. We aim to collaborate with other comedy acts for every show to make this a variety feast of fun. Again I say it is FREE – you simply cannot argue with this, it is an absolute no brainer – you’ve got to be there.

This Tuesday we are collaborating with a comedy performance piece from Chloe Bezer and Faye Draper about there experience of pregnancy – it is called My Mother Told Me. It sounds like it is going to be brilliant. There will also be some music. Classic.

See you Tuesday.

Come join us at The Riverside on the last Sunday of the month for another night of music, spoken word, live performance and visual art.

Our musical headliner this month is the inimitable ANDREW CLEGG. Cubanas regular, Andrew is Sheffield’s finest Latin guitarist, providing perfect music for a relaxed summer’s evening.

“Fantastic guitar playing. A rare talent, not to be missed.” – Yorkshire Post

Listen here: http://www.myspace.com/andrewcleggguitar

Alongside this, DAVID HAGUE and TIM RALPHS from Sheffield Storyforge will be entertaining us with fantasies of wonder and magic; be sure to bring along your wizened staff and travelling cloak. Storyforge is a monthly tale-telling open-mic night held at The Fat Cat on the third Tuesday of the month. Make sure to ‘like’ the VOX facebook group to keep up to date with this and other creative events happening in Sheffield.

Back by popular demand, we are also very lucky to have our very own MONKEY BUTLER returning with another improvisation set. Make sure to bring your ideas for settings and situations to have them act out live and unrehearsed on stage!

As if we didn’t have enough already, Sheffield Photographer ALICE BAILEY will be displaying and selling some of her latest photos from the local area.

This month we’ve even got ourselves into the Olympic 2012 Weekend programme, so be prepared to come along and join in with not only Monkey Butler, but also some of our charity awareness work; it’s well worth a look.

PLUS the usual good beer, company and surroundings that we have come to expect from our wonderful hosts at The Riverside.

Why on earth would you want to miss it?

So, lets try another one! We’ll be meeting on Wednesday 14th July, 7-8.30pm at Crucible Corner to chat about ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘ by Stieg Larsson. There aren’t any library copies so we’ll need to find it ourselves. We had some ideas for future books. If anyone has any suggestions, just email them to me.

I look forward to seeing you on 14th July! Happy reading!

Rachel
rachel@voxsheffield.com

We’ll be discussing ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running‘ by Haruki Murakami.

We have 10 reading group copies from the library if you’d like to borrow one. Just email Rachel.

They’ll be more information up shortly about the venue, we meet at 7pm though.

Vox Night is ONE! It’s hard to believe, but in May we’ll have been at The Riverside for a whole year. So, to celebrate we’re planning a very special night indeed of the best acoustic music, poetry and art Sheffield has to offer.

Musical luminaries include…

LOUIS ROMÉGOUX – To quote some friends of ours – half France, half Buckley, all Sheffield. Louis has, simply, the best voice in the city. Tender songs of love and loss, accompanied ably with a beautifully restrained guitar style, and sometimes if you’re lucky an accordian or an autoharp too.

“An amazing musical talent … Jeff Buckley with even more romance” – Sandman Magazine

Most of you will already have heard of him, I’m sure. But if you haven’t, listen to some tunes here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Louis-Romegoux/7685592001?ref=ts#!/pages/Louis-Romegoux/7685592001?v=info&ref=ts

ANDREW DUXFIELD has been a friend of Vox since he played at our first event, and it’s only right that he’s back for our birthday. Bringing exceptional skill on the guitar Andrew is one of Sheffield’s most distinctive blues players.

“A Sheffield master of folk and blues numbers with an exceptional guitar style, bringing a dynamic sensibility rarely heard outside classical playing to a blend of covers and original instrumentals.” – Now Then magazine

http://www.myspace.com/andrewduxfield

Since it’s inception, Vox has proudly championed musicians just emerging on the Sheffield scene that we feel are worthy of putting on a stage – so with that in mind, we’re welcoming MICHAEL NARES to make his Vox debut. More info on him soon.

Our own Ollie Francis will be hosting the spoken word portion of the evening, and as usual, he’s brought together some of the most talented poets in Sheffield to read for you. More details will be posted soon, but to whet your appetites, we already have confirmed:
MATT BLACK, STAN SKINNY, JAMES OPUS and MATT MACATEER. Spectacular!

Vox is very proud of its sister organisation MONKEY BUTLER, who meet weekly (Tuesday nights in the upstairs room at The Riverside, feel free to join them, they’d love to have you. Yes, you!) to be creative with improvised comedy. They were a massive hit when they performed at our comedy special in February, so they’ll be back to set the tone for the evening, and probably make you join in too.

http://www.voxsheffield.com/events/monkey-butler/

AND we’ll be displaying the work of local artists…
AND it’s free…
AND The Riverside has one of the best selection of beers in Sheffield…
AND we support good causes close to home and further away…
AND we might even have a cake. (and maybe a barbecue – TBC)

THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT. WE NORMALLY DO VOX ON A SUNDAY. THIS TIME IT IS ON A MONDAY. GOT THAT? A DIFFERENT DAY TO NORMAL. IT’S A BANK HOLIDAY, THOUGH, SO DON’T WORRY, YOU WON’T BE AT WORK. MONDAY, RIGHT? GOOD.

(This is because most of us will be at Land Festival on the Sunday. It looks amazing, has some of Sheffield’s best bands playing, and is really cheap too. Find out about it here: http://landmusicevent.wordpress.com/)

See you on Monday 31st for a prompt start at 5pm!

RSVP to the Facebook event here.

Musical headliners this month are THE CRANKS. One of our favourite bands in Sheffield, their foot stomping brand of folk is sure to make you move. They were tremendous when they performed for us in October, we’re very excited to have them back.

Don’t take our word for it, listen here: http://www.myspace.com/thecranksinsheffield

Plus, we’re also very pleased to be welcoming back W.P.K. WILLIAMS. Pretty new to the Sheffield scene, he performed a stunning debut show at Vox in January and we’ve been keen to get him back ever since. With delicate songs reminiscent of Kings Of Convenience or Joy Zipper, this will be a good show.

Listen here: http://www.myspace.com/abstraccas

Spoken word this month includes poetry by DAVID GREEN and the next installment of The Cloud Girl, by our own OLLIE FRANCIS: Frederick The Unhappy Wax Crayon.

Plus:

Work by local artists on the walls
Beautiful riverside location
Tremendous range of beer
Supporting local, national and international charities

AND it’s FREE!

See you on the 25th.

RSVP to the Facebook event here.