Your weekly what’s on guide for Bedford and the surrounding area from the Bedford Clanger.
Never miss a thing in Bedford ever again. From theatre to film, live music to art exhibitions, The Bedford Clanger what’s on guide lands every Thursday and is the only guide you need to know what’s on and what’s happening across the Borough for the next 11 days.
The Bedford Clanger’s What’s On Guide is kindly sponsored by The Cellar Bar.
Thursday, 9 January 2025
Dancing: Planet Swing featuring T J Johnson & His Band
The Dance Hall, Wixams Retirement Village, Bedford Road, Bedford, MK42 6EA @ 8pm – 10.30pm
Tickets: £12.99
An evening for dancers and music enthusiasts alike. Cashless bar, plenty of seating (night club set up) and dance floor. Book in advance and come along at 7.15pm for a 45-minute dance class in Balboa, one of the original swing dances of the era. For the main event, just turn up – pay cash at reception – have fun, no booking needed.
Friday, 10 January 2025
Live music: Cameo & Bazooka Joe
The Cellar Bar at 8.30pm
Free entry
A double-header at the Cellar Bar, with Cameo performing rock and pop classics, followed by Bazooka Joe banging out the 80s classics including Duran Duran, The Specials, Madness, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Human League to Queen, The Jam, Simple Minds and much more!
Friday, 10 and Saturday, 11 January 2025
Live music: Noasis
Bedford Esquires @ 7.30pm
Tickets: £15
Following four SOLD OUT shows in 2024, Noasis return to Bedford Esquires this week for one giant party and a celebration of one of the greatest bands this country has ever produced.
Noasis is the definitive tribute band to Manchester’s five-piece super group Oasis. Since their formation in 2006 and with over 900 performances to date Noasis has justly earned its reputation as the best tribute on the circuit packing out venues up and down the UK.
With an obsessive attention to detail the band recreates the real Oasis experience with amazing energy playing all the classic songs as if they were their own. This is more than a tribute band this is Oasis from a parallel universe.
With a huge back catalogue from Oasis to choose from the band create huge crowd-pleasing sets taking tracks Definitely Maybe, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, Be Here Now, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, Heathen Chemistry, Don’t Believe the Truth, & Dig Out Your Soul delivering a supersonic show of the very best Oasis anthems.
Saturday, 11 January 2025
Walking: North Bedfordshire Ramblers’ weekly walk
Mowsbury Park Bedford, MK41 8AH @ 10am
Bromham, Northampton Road, MK43 8PE @ 1pm
The North Beds Ramblers have a packed programme of walks this January, including a trip to London. You can find out more about the group on their website. What better way to blow away the festive cobwebs and work off those pigs in blankets?…
This weekend’s morning walk is an all day 11-mile walk into Renhold, Wilden and Ravensden, or choose the afternoon walk towards Stagsden – a 5.8-mile walk alongside Hangar Wood.
Please bring a drink, snack or lunch as the group always stops for a break. Check out the North Bedfordshire Ramblers’ excellent website for further information.
Saturday, 11 January 2025
Recital: Saturday organ recital
St Paul’s church @ midday
Free with retiring collection
This Saturday’s organ recital is by Chingyan Lo. Free entry with retiring collection.
Saturday, 11 January 2025
Talk: The Quarry Theatre Spring Launch
The Quarry Theatre @ 2pm
Tickets: Free
Join the Quarry team for the launch of their 2024 Spring programme. During your visit you can enjoy discounts at the bar, a flash sale on selected events, a presentation about how the theatre came to be and explore areas of the theatre that most people don’t get to see!
Artist Simon Wrigley is exhibiting in the gallery space during January. He will be in the building to answer any questions you might have about his beautiful paintings.
Saturday, 11 January 2025
Classical music: Bedford Young Generation Charity Concert
St Andrew’s Church, Kimbolton Road, Bedford, MK40 2PF @ 7.30pm
Tickets: £10
A concert to raise funds for Home for Good, featuring North Bedfordshire Youth Orchestra & Intermediate Strings.
Saturday, 11 January 2025
Live music: The Workshop Boys
The Cellar Bar at 8.30pm
Free entry
Formed by former members of Los Marbles and Cutting Out, The Workshop Boys have fast become one of Bedford’s most loved bar bands – the soundtrack to your perfect Saturday night.
Sunday 12 January 2025
Live music: Sunday Chillout Session – 80’s Daytime Disco
The Cellar Bar @ 3pm – 7pm
Free entry
Fancy dancing along to some 80’s retro bangers on a Sunday afternoon? DJ Stevo will transport you back in time to an 80’s retro nightclub where night and day literally become one.
What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon!
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Live music: Tuesday lunchtime concert
St Paul’s church, St Paul’s Square @ 1pm
Free entry with retiring collection (suggested donation £5)
This week’s concert features Joidy Blanco Lewis (Philharmonia Flute)
Free with a retiring collection.
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Community Portrait: Reprint Revolution Symposium
The Higgins Bedford, Castle Lane @ 1.30pm – 5pm
Free entry
As part of the Community Portrait exhibition (at the Higgins until 25 February), Bedford Creative Arts is hosting an afternoon of engaging talks and thought-provoking panel discussions exploring critical topics like bias in algorithms, AI-driven visual innovation, the quest for fair representation, and how AI can be harnessed as a powerful tool for advancing arts and culture.
Guest speakers include AI artists Fergus Laidlaw and Arnab Chakravarty, the multi-award-winning digital participation artist John Whall and AI portrait paint artist Andee Collard. The event takes place at the Higgins Bedford and opens at 1.30pm with a chance to look at the exhibition before the first talk at 2pm. The event will run until 5pm, followed by drinks and networking taking place in The Swan Hotel. light vegetarian refreshments will be served prior to the first talk.
Wednesday, 15 & Thursday, 16 January 2025
Theatre: Buretti: The Man Who Sewed the World
The Place Theatre @ 7.30pm
Tickets: from £10
Set in a 1970s TV television talk show format this theatre production portrays the fascinating tale of Freddie Burretti, David Bowie’s close friend and Ziggy Stardust costume designer.
With a befitting musical score, the show reveals Burretti’s toils with 1970s homophobia, events leading up to meeting David Bowie and the legendary 1972 BBC Top of the Pops broadcast.
Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Stevington Cinema Club presents: The Royal Opera’s The Tales of Hoffmann
Stevington Village Hall Court Lane, Stevington MK43 7QT @ 6.30pm
Tickets: £17
Through the haze of the years, a poet remembers the women he loved. But when it comes to matters of the heart, nothing is as it seems. Particularly when the devil himself is involved…
Journeying back to his school days, Hoffmann relives his childhood romance with Olympia, a model student in every sense. Doomed love follows him into adulthood, where the dancer, Antonia, is taken from him too soon. Meanwhile, the sensual courtesan Giulietta has her own secret agenda. As memory and fantasy becomes increasingly blurred, will Hoffmann find the enigmatic Stella before it is too late?
Thursday, 16 January 2025
Bedford Skeptics present: We Were Social Before We Were Human
The North End Club, 60 Roff Avenue, Bedford MK41 7TW @ 7.30pm
Donations appreciated
At the first Bedford Skeptics events of 2025, Dr. Colin Talbot will talk about the evolution of sociality and cooperation in humans and what it means for our social, political and economic institutions.
Group selection (not just the selfish gene) produced humans who cooperated to survive. “It Takes a Village to Rise a Child” in the famous African saying. Which does not mean we aren’t also competitive – sometimes violently so – but without cooperation we would not be here as a species. As Colin wrote in his 2004 book, we are “paradoxical primates”.
Colin is a Professor of Government (Emeritus) at the University of Manchester and a Research Associate at Cambridge. He now lives in Bedford.
Thursday 16 January 2025
Dancing: Planet Swing featuring Mark Keeley solo show
The Dance Hall, Wixams Retirement Village, Bedford Road, Bedford, MK42 6EA @ 8pm – 10.30pm
Tickets: £12.99
An evening for dancers and music enthusiasts alike. Cashless bar, plenty of seating (night club set up) and dance floor. Book in advance and come along at 7.15pm for a 45-minute dance class in Balboa, one of the original swing dances of the era. For the main event, just turn up – pay cash at reception – have fun, no booking needed.
Thursday, 16 January 2025
Live music: Peter Andre in The Best of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
Bedford Corn Exchange @ 8pm
Tickets: £45
Starring Peter Andre, The Best of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is a spectacular high-pitched celebration of timeless music from one of the biggest-selling groups of all time.
This nostalgic musical journey pays tribute to the life and career of those four boys from Jersey, who started singing under a streetlamp but soon went on to become one of the most recognised groups in history.
Featuring a supporting cast of incredible performers from smash-hit award-winning West End musicals, The Best of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons will leave you on a ‘high’ and guarantee you’ll be saying ‘Oh, What A Night!
Thursday, 16 January 2025
Live music: Karaoke
The Cellar Bar @ 9pm / requests from 8pm / Happy Hour 6pm – 9pm
Free entry
The ONLY place you need to be for karaoke on a Thursday night – The Cellar Bar on the High Street. Pure karaoke with over 50,000 songs to choose from.
Perform like a pro with the Cellar Bar’s professional lighting, sound and a proper stage, with the best-sounding performers and acoustics on the High Street. Sing with your friends using multiple microphones and, of course, Cameo and Sarah Ellen hosting your night.
Friday, 17 January 2025
Live music: The Krakens
The Cellar Bar @ 8.30pm / bar opens @ 6pm / Happy hour @ 6pm – 9pm
Free entry
The Krakens are back! This four-piece rock band features Chris Craigen on keys/vocals, Naomi Vranas on bass, Jon Mason on guitar and Seb Hensman on the drums.
Expect to hear hits from Elton John, Queen, Nirvana, Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day and many more.
Saturday, 18 January 2025
Walking: North Bedfordshire Ramblers’ weekly walk
Station Road/Church Street by Railway Station, MK43 0RU @ 1pm
This Saturday’s walk is a six-miler around Lidlington. Please be aware there is a steep start.
Please bring a drink, snack or lunch as the group always stops for a break. Check out the North Bedfordshire Ramblers’ excellent website for further information.
Saturday, 18 January 2025
Live music: Danni Nicholls
Bedford Esquires @ 7.30pm
Tickets: £13.50
Acclaimed singer-songwriter Danni Nicholls will return to the Esquires for an unforgettable evening of live music to welcome in the new year.
Performing a mix of new songs from her forthcoming album plus some classics from her back catalogue, Danni Nicholls returns from Nashville TN for a hometown show with the best local musicians as her band – Sam Barrett, Ryan Barnes and Dave Banks.
Saturday, 18 January 2025
Comedy: Felicity Ward; I’m Exhausting
The Quarry Theatre @ 7.30pm
Tickets: £15
Star of ‘The Office’ (Australia), Felicity Ward returns for her first national tour in six years. In a two-hour laugh-out-loud extravaganza, Felicity Ward talks about something that no one has ever done before – she had a baby.
The show is about pregnancy, and not getting pregnant, and birth, and post-natal depression, and motherhood, and identity, and sexuality, and the disintegration of how things were, and missing home, and Quorn, and transition lenses, and fingering. All the big things. All of them.
Saturday, 18 January 2025
Live music: Bootleg Blondie – ‘The world’s No.1 official Debbie Harry & Blondie tribute band’
Bedford Esquires @ 7.30pm
Tickets: £15
CBGB’s comes to Bedford Esquires with the return of ‘Bootleg Blondie’ this month.
Expect to hear some of the greatest hits across a vast back catalogue including: Heart of Glass, Dreaming, Union City Blue, The Tide Is High, Rapture, Atomic, Hanging on the Telephone, (I’m Always Touched by Your) Presence Dear, In the Flesh, Rip Her to Shreds, One Way or Another, Picture This, Sunday Girl, Maria, In the Flesh, Denise, Call Me and many more.
Packing out venues up and down the UK they are the only tribute to have actually featured real members of Blondie with both Clem Burke sitting in on the drum stool and Gary Valentine taking over bass duties occasionally.
Saturday, 18 January 2025
Live Music: May Contain Nutz
The Cellar Bar @ 9pm / 3am close
Free entry
We’re delighted to welcome back MayContainNutz who entertained us at our River Festival After Show Party back in July. What a fab night that was! MayContainNutz are a 4 piece party rock band from Bedford.
Sunday, 19 January 2025
Live music: Fran Pegg Band plays the Sunday Afternoon Session
Bedford Esquires @ 5pm
Free entry
Fran Pegg and her band return to Esquires for this week’s Sunday afternoon session. With her soulful blues and raspy rock’n’roll, Fran has been compared to Janis Joplin and Etta James.
Sunday, 19 January 2025
Live music: U18’s Open Mic
The Cellar Bar @ 5pm – 7.00pm / bar opens at 4.30pm
Free entry
The Cellar Bar is throwing its doors open to the next generation of Bedford musicians, with a dedicated junior open mic session for under 18s.
Whether you sing, play guitar, drums, or any other musical instrument, or are a band already, you are welcome to take part. It’s a chance for you to perform on a stage in front of an audience with a full pa, drum kit, amps, lighting.
Hosted by none other than Mat Roberts, Mat will be on hand to offer support and advice, as well as doing a few jam sessions of his own.
Under 18’s are welcome in the bar from 5pm until 9pm on Sundays for Junior Open Mic.
At the Higgins Bedford
Exhibition: Rediscovering Black Portraiture
The Higgins Bedford
Free entry
The newest exhibition at the Higgins began as a diversionary lockdown project in 2020 and can now be seen at Kensington Palace, the Bodeian Library in Oxford and now in Bedford.
It features the work of Manchester-born professional opera singer, Peter Brathwaite, who has lived in the Black Tom area of Bedford since 2018.
With all his singing work cancelled during the pandemic, Peter began looking for an outlet for his creative talents and started recreating famous and lesser-known Black portraiture paintings using as props whatever he could find around his house.
It was inspired by the Getty Foundation’s lockdown project, but quickly took on a life of its own, gathering a large international online following. You can explore the project at his Instagram page @peter_brathwaite.
And from Saturday, 18 May, they will form part of an installation at the Higgins Bedford which will lead visitors through the main collections and into Cecil Higgins’ house, with Peter’s interpretation of The Paston Treasure at its heart.
Read: ‘Rediscovering Black Portraiture’ at the Higgins Bedford this May
Exhibition: Edward Bawden & Me
The Higgins Bedford until
Free entry
Brand new work by some of the biggest names in contemporary British art, illustration and textiles are on display at an exhibition at the Higgins Bedford in celebration of the work of one of Britain’s most inventive and influential artists
Entitled Edward Bawden & Me, the exhibition has been curated by Bawden’s good friend, illustrator and printmaker, Chris Brown and also features work by local artists’ collective, the Circus of Illustration.
Read: Star-studded new Edward Bawden exhibition opens at the Higgins Bedford
You can also read the full article in the February issue of The Bedford Clanger.
Every Thursday
Cocktails, Quiz Night & Karaoke
The Cellar Bar from 5.00pm
Pit your wits against The Cellar Bar’s resident quizmaster to see if you can win the jackpot every Thursday from 8pm. £2 per person entry and a maximum of six per team. The winning team will win the jackpot PLUS a round of shots. Followed by Karaoke til close
Every Saturday
Food & drink: Cocktail mixology masterclass
The Cellar Bar @ 3pm / doors open at 12 noon
£30 per person
The Cellar Bar’s resident mixologist, Marley, will explain how to create some outstanding cocktails for your tasting enjoyment. Then, it’s your turn to put what you’ve learned into practice by making (and drinking) three cocktails!
Every Sunday
Live Music: Open Mic Night
The Cellar Bar @ 7.30pm
Free Entry
Every Sunday, join Mat Roberts for the Cellar Bar’s weekly Open Mic night. An opportunity for new and experienced performers to get up on stage and perform.
So whether you think you are the next Tom Grennan or just want a good night of entertainment, head to the Cellar Bar from 7.30pm.
Theatre highlights by Paula Walker
