CityLife

Foyer of fun is free for all

COMEDY, belly-dancing and jazz clarinettist Arun Ghosh (pictured) are among the highlights of a summer season of Special FX, the popular programme of free entertainment staged every Friday in the Royal Exchange foyer.

Guitar-toting funny man Duncan Oakley headlines a stand-up comedy bill when the season kicks off tonight. Guest compere Des Sharples introduces a line-up which also includes John Goodfellow and Mike Newall.

A fusion of Turkish and Kurdish music fills the Great Hall next Friday when Paula Darwish and the Country And Eastern Band present a semi- acoustic set, fusing the spirit of rock with eastern rhythms. These first two Special FX gigs are also part of the Not Part Of Festival which runs throughout the city until July 12.

The entertainment continues on Friday, July 18, when Arun Ghosh returns with his indo-jazz ensemble. His previous visits have attracted large crowds, so audiences are advised to arrive early.

Dr Butler's Hatstand Medicine Band bring their good-time, foot-stomping tunes to the Great Hall on July 25. The Northern Belly Company shimmies back for a second SFX appearance, with authentic Arabic dance on August 1, before Arun Ghosh returns on August 8.

"We started SFX in June last year and the audience has built up and up. We thought it would be a great way to bring people in and to present stuff we might not normally consider for the theatre spaces," says the Exchange's Clare Simpson.

Eclectic

"Because it's free, it doesn't depend on having an audience and the audience is pretty eclectic. Obviously, there are some people who've come in early to see that evening's show and I suppose that sometimes they're a bit bemused by what they see.

"One of the catalysts has been that people asked `how can we get the hall to be more interesting and more exciting with more people coming through?' We also have this wonderful Steinway piano that never really got used and now it does. The performers love it!

"We've also set out to contact groups who might not normally come to the Exchange and, where possible, to interact with whatever's going on in the theatre.

"We do get some people who come regularly and some of them come on their own.

"There was one lovely instance of a lady in her fifties who said that she wouldn't normally dare come to something like Arun Ghosh on her own in town but that she feels comfortable doing that at the Exchange because it's `her kind of place'."

Special FX entertainment is free. All entertainment runs from 6-7pm in The Great Hall, Royal Exchange Theatre, with cheap drinks from 5.30-7pm.