Comedy and fashion come to the Cambridge Roar festival
The popular festival of events continues to attract top names in entertainment.
The line-up for the comedy night on Friday, September 22 includes Phil Wang, Alun Cochrane and Adam Hess – all of whom are well-known faces on the stand-up circuit and on TV – and Lou Sanders, who has been named in Vogue, The Sun, TimeOut, London is Funny and on Dave TV as one of the top comics to watch out for.
Lou is no stranger to performing in Cambridge. She told the Cambridge Independent: “I’ve done some great gigs in Cambridge – had some lovely times there. I did also die really bad at [comedy club] Jongleurs Cambridge, but we won’t dwell on that...
“And I did a gig at the university ball, or that might have been Oxford actually – I get them confused. I’ll sort that out before the gig, don’t worry.”
Discussing the themes she will be addressing on the day, Lou said: “Shame – body shame, drinking shame, sex shame. I talk about genitals but in a very highbrow way, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
Lou believes no subject should be off-limits when it comes to comedy, though with some provisos. “It’s the way you approach it,” she suggested. “Sometimes it’s the off-limits things we need to be talking about.
“We definitely shouldn’t avoid talking about trickier subjects – I talk about alcoholism and rape in my new show – but it all depends how someone approaches it and their intent.”
Lou’s favourite comedians are Zach Galifianakis, Katherine Ryan and Bo Burnham.
On her plans for the rest of the year and beyond, she quipped: “Hey, let’s all just try living in the moment, yeah?”
The House of iKons Cambridge Fashion Show is on Saturday, September 23. This catwalk event benefits local charities – including Arthur Rank Hospice, East Anglian Air Ambulance and Cambridge United Community Trust – and provides the opportunity to experience a taste of London Fashion Week in Cambridge.
House of iKons is known for offering a platform to unique and talented new designers, evidenced by the daring and show-stopping designs seen on the runway. House of iKons has previously worked with names like Beyonce, Nicole Kidman, Paris Hilton and Katy Perry.
Pop-up shops will give visitors the chance to see a wider range of designs close up before the show or to buy something afterwards.
Entertaining guests at the two shows – one at 2.30pm and one at 7pm – will be Lydia Singer, an exciting singer-songwriter who has recently brought out an EP entitled Just Being 15.
Lydia, who is just 15, has been writing music for about two years. She has performed in iconic UK music venues such as Ronnie Scott’s, Notting Hill Arts Club, Cargo Shoreditch and Box Park Croydon, and has been hailed as “the UK’s answer to Ariana Grande and Hailee Steinfeld.”
She told the Cambridge Independent: “I love fashion, and it’s so cool to be able to perform on stage with models and be in designer outfits. I’m so excited; I love being backstage, seeing what goes on behind the scenes and stuff like that.”
Lydia, who turns 16 in November, has been singing since the age of nine, when she won her first music competition. “The first time I was in a recording studio I think I was about 11,” she recalled, “and I was recording with somebody who’d co-written a song for me with Rob Davis, who wrote Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head.
“It was an awesome experience, and the track was called Meteor.”
Commenting on the Ariana Grande comparisons, the modest young star exclaimed: “Amazing! Ariana Grande has been my idol for ages – her vocal range is just insane and I can’t even describe how amazing her voice is.”
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