Cheltenham Folk Festival is bigger and better than ever

If you want proof of the ambitions of the organisers of Cheltenham Folk Festival 2012, all you need to do is follow your nose. As you enter the Town Hall foyer, a sweet earthy smell hangs in the air. Follow it and you'll go first through a well stocked CD stall, then down a corridor lined with silk scarves, organic soaps and hand crafted drums. Then you'll be wafted into a hall where you can buy many fine things, ranging from Pagan paraphernalia to silk scarves, fine jewellery and fiddles costing thousands. This year's Cheltenham Folk Festival is a very Cheltenham affair. Like the town that is playing host, it's a high quality, refined occasion. Whether your thing is listening, singing, dancing or workshops, you'll find that what is on offer is as top notch as the surroundings suggest.

Thanks to the endlessly befuddling Cheltenham one way system, I arrive in the main hall a little late on Friday evening. I curse my rotten luck because I've missed a chunk of The Melrose Quartet. What I do catch is damn fine, and Karen from the Bailey Sisters, who I meet at the bar, says its been like that all night. She goes on to state that they were, "My highlight of last year's festival". I counter that there is something about a husband and wife squaring up to each other that adds a certain edge to Nancy and James' performances as a duo, but Karen is having none of it. What we can agree on with is that we just witnessed a class act, well worth catching all of, if you get the chance.

Headlining on Friday night are Dervish, whom I would never normally walk out on, but my curiosity has got the better of me. Fact is, the fine fiddles, the silk scarves and the smellies are where the second stage used to be. I catch the first few Dervish numbers and then, with the sight and sound of Cathy Jordan on the bones to fortify me, I head out into the frosty night to find out where it has gone.

The Playhouse turns out to be just around the corner, and a vast improvement it is. It's an intimate space. You sink into cosy red velour seats and just soak it all up. Its an ideal spot to enjoy the delights of Lady Maisery. Listen to their harmonies and you'll be treating your ears to the drop of the good stuff. It's like chocolate on the tongue or whisky on the brain. What you have are three well dressed ladies who have a well dressed lady's knack of knowing what goes with what. A plucked fiddle sweetly sets off I know my love. Hazel Askew's harp haunts the The Colour of Amber, and Hannah James' clogging keeps us all on our toes. For that extra special sense of mysticism, look no further than Rowan Rheingans' Ban-sitar. It has magical powers, adding an other worldly feel to the very worldly Nottamun Fair. Lady Maisery are fond of the art of diddling: the singing of tunes. My favourite is the diddled Constant Billy, it's very danceable. For a finale we get diddling and clogging at the same time. Then they take their leave of us, having definitely made a few more friends.

Its getting fairly late on Friday night now, well past many people's bed times. With songs such as the stomping All I know, headliners Katriona Gilmore & Jamie Roberts keep everyone lively. A favourite of many is a set of tunes inspired by Badgers, one of which hails from a place called Upper Badger's Bottom. It isn't on Google maps sadly, I've already tried. Jamie plays guitar in a way all of his own, he taps it, thumps it, picks it or strums it however the mood takes him. Katriona's fiddling, to my ear, has a bit of gypsy caravan, open-fire feel to it. Like Lady Maisery, Katriona and Jamie are making the first of many appearances at the festival. They open the final evening concert on Sunday in a packed Town Hall to rousing applause, and seem to be going from strength to strength.

In the day time, The Playhouse offers a choice of workshops. Akin to previous years, many of these are suitably beginner friendly. Squeezebox players are treated to a session by Melodeon supremo Simon Care, and there's a beginners singing workshop called Can't Sing, Won't Sing, run by Jess Arrowsmith. This is followed by another singing workshop, run by Lady Maisery, many of the participants of which turn up at their gig later in the day. It adds a warm, choral feeling to the occasion. Gerhard Cress works his bodhran magic again. He begins by showing you how to it out of the bag, and takes it from there. By the end, a room full of beginners has the basics down, and with a bit more practice they'll be holding their own in sessions with no worries. You can't argue with that.

Session wise, its again a step up from last year. There's a dedicated session space for tunes and for singers, Derek and Mary Droscher are running the Singers Session at The Bell just down the road.

The Cheltenham fringe is bigger this year too, with many artists performing for free around the town. Particular treats are Heretique, who are older, more raucous and definitely more French looking than at their last appearance here two years ago. The brilliant Wynndebagge appears at the shopping centre on Saturday. Lucky shoppers, methinks.

The fringe seems to be a master stroke of marketing. Firstly, it avoids that confined feeling that you sometimes get at indoor festivals. You know it; you step out of the venue, you're back in the real world and it's a bit of a comedown. Not so at Cheltenham. The streets are flooded with morris dancers and with fringe acts out and about, you never lose that festival feeling.

Cheltenham Library hosts a concert on Saturday afternoon. It allows the artists to engage with new people, and to draw them, unsuspecting, into the folk world. They perform unamplified in a small space. Plastic chairs have been laid out, and it's life as usual in the rest of the library. The artists have been chosen wisely, and the audience are enthralled, first by Lady Maisery, then by the Infinite Cherries! whose instrumental prowess never fails to impress.
The tireless Lady Maisery then hotfoot it to get back to the Town Hall in time to open the Saturday afternoon concert. They are followed by Blair Dunlop. Last time I saw Blair, he was playing a Nic Jones number whilst standing on a lorry trailer in the back of a pub. It was a memorable performance and my expectations are high. When he begins with an introspective number about passing his driving test, I fear a self-obsessed nu-folk onslaught of style over substance. I've rarely been happier to eat my words: he picks his tunes well, and has a good ear for a cover. His version of Vincent Black Lightning is particularly well received, and he has a rare knack of arranging tunes for the guitar. Nicely done.

I spend the rest of the afternoon in the middle of Cheltenham enjoying some of the many morris sides who take over the town during the festival. Eighteen are listed in the programme, of all styles and persuasions. Its an exceeding posh town and the locals are lapping it up: good taste, you see.

I arrive at the Polkaworks ceilidh very early in the evening, and dancers are a bit thin on the ground. The Princess Hall has a Harry Potter Ministry of Magic Feel to it, and as if by magic, David Ferrett of the great Ferrett morris dynasty appears. I've never seen him without a partner at a ceilidh and I take my chance to pick his brains about Polkaworks, who he reckons are a class act. He also mentions that caller, Phil Bassindale seems have a magical knack of weighing up a room and pitching his delivery accordingly. At this point, I'm grabbed by a young maiden and forced to Polka. More people arrive, it all hots up and I'm not entirely happy to have to leave and review The Albion Band. They'd better be good.

My mood is lifted by Kathryn Roberts And Sean Lakeman who begin with The Whitby Maid, a slow sultry build up. Kathryn is wearing a black evening dress which would grace the ambassador's reception. She seems to spend less time at the piano than usual . Maintaining a more upfront presence, she sways, shimmies and squares up to Sean and his guitar. They are never more sultry than in their offering of The Lusty Smith, which isn't entirely about farriery, I fear. Elsewhere there are cautionary tales of death, murder and crazy women. Mrs Beaton pops up in one number to lighten the mood then it's back to the death and shagging. They go down a storm. It couldn't have been comfortable for the new line up of The Albion Band, waiting backstage to perform their first ever gig together.

The electric guitars and drum kit that grace the empty stage offer some promise of what is to come. Sean and Kathryn have done a fine job of warming everyone up and the room is bubbling nicely. I'm by the bar and there I meet an Albion fan called Mark. He explains how as a child he discovered the band from big brother and grew up with them. He's excited and a little tense, hoping they'll be worthy of the legacy. Looking around the room, it's an older crowd than is typical of this festival and I imagine that Mark's is a fairly common story. It'll be no small feat for the current line up to fill the shoes of the many who have come before them, and their situation is not helped by the single most un rock n roll intro I've ever heard, from Ashley Hutchings. What should have been, "Hellooooo Cheltenham!" is more "Give the kids a chance, it's their first gig!" It's a predictably sheepish start but they recover well, and win over the expectant crowd with a canny mix of old and new. Mark has had a good time and pronounces them worthy. It seems that his opinion is shared by most in the hall. They're about to embark on a lengthy tour, and they'll go down a storm with the Albion faithful. I wonder if they'll be content playing to crowds twice their age though. Bringing in a new generation will be the real achievement, and it will be interesting to see how they mature. Good luck to them.

Sunday's line-up seems ideally chosen for me and my ilk. Last night at the bar, I'd discovered a cider called 'No Brainer' and found it very difficult to leave alone. Looking round, I see a few others who might be in the same, sinking boat. Luckily, the organisers seem to have thought of this and have planned accordingly. Sean and Kathryn appear again, and they are preceded by Bryony Griffith & Will Hampson, who likewise have appeared a few times already. They seem to have made some friends. The packed crowd is joining in right of the bat, maybe its all those singing workshops. It's very bright and breezy. The Wild Wild Berry is a version of Lord Randall, "whose bird poisons him and he dies." Some might think this too heavy for a Sunday hangover, but with Bryony and Will it's all woven into merry web of life and death. Bryony likes to talk too, and this is dead useful as you can go to the bar and get another round in without missing any of the music. They think of everything here.

Its a treat for fans of old timey Americana next. We're treated to a set by Brian Peters and Jeff Davis, derived mostly from Cecil Sharp's Appalachian collections. Again, it seems perfectly chosen to suit the mood and warms us up nicely for the Sunday Showcase. They do this every year at Cheltenham, and its always a bit of a festival favourite. This year it's Mick Ryan's The Paupers Path to Hope – a folk opera featuring a brass band. It doesn't get much better than that.

Folks tend to stay to the end at Cheltenham, and it's a packed house for the Sunday evening concert, opened in fine, lively style by Katriona Gilmore & Jamie Roberts.

Cheltenham seems to have a special place in the hearts of many who perform here. The Melrose Quartet chose to give their first performance here last year. The Albion Band have done likewise this year, and on Sunday evening we are treated to a rare concert by Tim Van Eyken. Tim hasn't been on the live music scene for a while, having landed a role in Michael Morpurgo's Warhorse a couple of years back. He begins with a traditional song played on a finger picked guitar. His style is vaguely reminiscent of Martin Carthy, with a rounder sort of sound. Elsewhere we get an unaccompanied version of Playing of Ball, then 21 years in Dartmoor, a song about 'going to prison for your girlfriend'. It has a happy feel to it, due in part to his lyrical, almost Moray-esque squeezebox style.

The festival is brought to a rousing close by the brilliant Brass Monkey, who thankfully need no introduction from their dads. They open with The Old Grenadier then treat us to a varied set that keeps our heads swaying and toes tapping until the end.

As I leave, I'm reminded of something Brian Peters said earlier, "Who'd have thought you could have a festival in bloody February, but it works!" He's right, and to my mind, the success of Cheltenham reflects the success of the scene itself. They put folk acts on in the Town Hall and there's not an empty seat. They fill the town with morris dancers and the locals lap it up. People like this stuff, lots of people. Festival highlights? It wouldn't be fair really as there were a lot of good things on offer. I'll just admit that I missed my junction on the way home because of too much diddling behind the wheel. Make of that what you will.

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