Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, Wed 3 December, 2025, 7.30pm

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Open the season of goodwill at the 'Cumbrian Christmas Cracker’, a nostalgic evening of seasonal readings, memories, food history,  poems, dialect and music from author Alan Cleaver (A Lake District Christmas), host David Felton (Countrystride) and a line-up of special guests.

 

Rewind time to the days of the village Waits, when snow filled the valleys and ice froze the lakes. Take a winter walk down Lucy Gray Lonning, visit the Keswick ‘old folk’s do’ and go skating on Derwent Water with Hardwicke Rawnsley, enjoy Cumberland dialect past from Naddle's own John Richardson, explore the Cumbrian trade in rum and spices, and delve into the Christmas songbook as our musicians strike up a selection of traditional local tunes. 

 

Christmas jumpers are optional as Alan and the Countrystride team unpack a stocking of seasonal gifts featuring memories of past days, reports of seasonal mischief and merrymaking, records of pies eaten in Buttermere, letters from the Western Front… and the inevitable fire-side ghost story....

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Featuring: 

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Alan Cleaver: Alan is an author living in Whitehaven. With his wife, Lesley, he has published a number of books on ancient footpaths. His latest, The Postal Paths, looks at the routes walked by rural postmen and women. In 2021 he compiled the anthology, A Lake District Christmas. Alan spent a career in regional journalism, latterly as deputy editor of The Whitehaven News. When Alan is not walking the fells or writing about them, he practises bookbinding and calligraphy. 

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John Crouch: John – a Cumbria resident for over 40 years, former mayor of Allerdale and regular contributor to BBC Radio Cumbria and Cumbria Life – is a well-known chef and cookery teacher, promoting local dishes and ingredients. John will take us on a journey through the history of Cumbrian Christmas food, featuring the Roman festival of Saturnalia, the Whitehaven trade in rum and spices, the Wordsworth family and Mrs Beeton’s local connections.

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Sue Allan: Cumbrian writer and cultural historian Sue researches, presents and publishes on the county’s folk music, folk traditions and dialect, and in 2020 wrote the book The Cumberland Bard about dialect poet Robert Anderson. A former morris, clog dancer and ceilidh band musician, these days is she is more often found giving presentations on folk music and dialect around the county. Having worked in a variety of roles in local radio, TV and community arts over many years, Sue is probably best known today as a freelance arts writer for Cumbria Life magazine.

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Mike Willoughby and Carolyn Francis: Mike and Carolyn are south-Cumbria based folk-roots musicians committed to the rejuvenation of Lakeland traditional dance music and song. For 30 years they have played together in ceilidh band Striding Edge, as well as developing Lakeland music and song with numerous community groups and schools. Mike sings and plays melodeon and bouzouki, while Carolyn sings and plays fiddle and border pipes. In The Christmas Cracker they celebrate all things Cumbrian and Christmas, with a mix of seasonal songs, tunes and spoken word performances steeped in the Cumbrian tradition.

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David Felton: Our host for the evening is one half of Countrystride's presenting/production duo and main man at Inspired by Lakeland, publisher of, among other titles, the award-winning Forty Farms, Cumbria: 1,000 Years of Maps and A Lake District Christmas. He is currently working on a new book title: Christmas in Maps & Infographics.

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• ​Tickets available from theatrebythelake.com/event/cumbrian-christmas-cracker/

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