Tom Kitching and Jennifer Reid

Tom Kitching and Jennifer Reid present their new show, ‘Bitter and Mild’, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of their native North West of England, through songs, stories, and a skeletal horse. Flitting between timeless rural Cheshire and ever-changing industrial Manchester, ‘Bitter and Mild’ is a fast-paced, anarchic, singalong ramble and rant through those steadfast and vital traditions upon which we lean as we seek to make sense of the bewildering changes wrought by industrialisation and modernity: singing, dancing, drinking, making giant puppets out of expired farm animals. Having appeared together in BBC costume drama, ‘The Gallows Pole’, and with a shared upbringing that included alarmingly heavy early exposure to the songs of Harry Boardman, and Gary and Vera Aspey, not to mention the explosive exploits of ‘Blaster’ Bates, something like this was bound to happen in the end. Tom Kitching is an author and musician whose work explores the everyday connections between people and place. Born in Macclesfield, he learned to play fiddle in the Harrington Arms in Gawsworth and is a dedicated member of the Alderley Mummers play. With over 2000 gigs under his belt and a flourishing writing career, Tom is highly in demand as a fiddle player, speaker, performer, and teacher. Jennifer performs Victorian and Georgian Lancashire dialect work song and broadside ballads sung on the streets of Manchester. After collaborating with Jeremy Deller at the Venice Biennale in 2015, she has performed internationally and locally to support communities to express their identity and heritage by understanding global capitalism through song. She performs, researches, collects, teaches, writes, sings and talks to make sure the tradition is preserved in a way that everyone can access.