Roundabout at Grasmere Village Green

Kristy Stott, Theatre Editor

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Roundabout

13-15 September 2018

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Roundabout at Grasmere Village Green Fat Roland
© Dominic Simpson
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The Paines Plough Roundabout is a vivid and immediate pop-up theatre – the UK’s first ever fully accessible and portable plug-and-play theatre. The spaceship-esque amphitheatre can be transported and assembled in each new place it visits using only an Allen key. If you’ve never been in the Roundabout – please read on – there’s a truly magical performance for everyone inside this unique space.

Paines Plough launched Roundabout in 2014 and every autumn the award-winning in-the-round auditorium tours the UK with the very best of new writing, aiming to reach places and communities that would not normally have access to new plays.

The event is being organised by Kendal’s Brewery Arts Centre which has hosted Roundabout in Kendal and Grasmere since 2015 and this year the Roundabout will visit the Grasmere Village Green. Pitching its tent on Moss Parrock, the village will play home to three world premieres, written by three of the most distinctive and entertaining new voices in British theatre: Georgia Christou, Simon Longman and Vinay Patel.

Simon Longman’s Island Town is a bittersweet story about friendship, hope and dreams of escaping a dead end town; Sticks and Stones is written by the BAFTA nominated Vinay Patel and is an incisive satire on the modern condition and finding the right word; suitable for space cadets aged five and up, Georgia Christou’s How To Spot An Alien is a rip-roaring space odyssey, full of friendship, fun and flying saucers.

Roundabout, which takes place on the village green opposite Heaton Cooper Studio in Grasmere, also brings music, mirth and spoken word to Cumbria this year. Join Britain’s funniest housewife, in Barbara Nice Does Grasmere, for a ramble around Grasmere before a stand-up show in the theatre. With performances from poet Fat Roland,  alternative folk band Whiskey Moonface and comedian Justin Moorhouse, Roundabout offers a fantastic cultural experience in picturesque Grasmere.

Where to go near Roundabout at Grasmere Village Green

Cumbria
Shop
Sam Read Bookseller

Award-winning small bookshop in the Lake District. Est. by Sam Read in 1887. Run by Will Smith and Polly Atkin.

Allan Bank, Grasmere, image courtesy of Visit Cumbria
Cumbria
Museum
Allan Bank

Once home to William Wordsworth, this historic villa now combines a small, informal art gallery with a giant indoor mural space.

Forest Side Restaurant
Cumbria
Restaurant
Forest Side Restaurant

We love the fantastic Forest Side Restaurant. Attached to the historic Forest Side Hotel in Grasmere, this is one of the best places to eat in Cumbria.

Dove Cottage, Grasmere, image courtesy of venue
Cumbria
Museum
Dove Cottage

Dove Cottage is where William Wordsworth lived and wrote, and where the Wordsworth Trust continues that work today with poets in residence and public programmes.

Cumbria
Museum
Wordsworth Grasmere

From book launches to writing groups to poetry nights, there’s always something going on at Wordsworth Grasmere.

Cumbria
Museum
The Wordsworth Museum

Next door to Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s first family home, is the Wordsworth Museum, which houses an unsurpassed collection of the Wordsworths’ letters, journals and poems.

The Merzbarn today, courtesy Littoral Arts Trust
Cumbria
Gallery
Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbarn

Tucked away in a remote corner of the Lake District is Kurt Schwitter’s Merzbarn, an artistic epitaph to the avant garde ‘godfather of modern art’.

The Armitt Museum
Cumbria
Gallery
The Armitt Museum

Full of interesting and unusual objects, The Armitt is a museum that shares the history and heritage of Ambleside and its people.

Cumbria
Restaurant
Fellini’s

Fellini’s does fancy ‘Vegeterranean’ food and films. What better way to treat yourself after a hard tramp in the Lake District?

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