By Fanny Charles

Salisbury’s Celebrate Voice festival marks two firsts this year – the English debut of the glamorous Wilson’s Piccolo theatre and the first Celebrate Comedy evening, headlined by award-winning film actor and veteran comedian Dave Johns.

Celebrate Comedy is at the Piccolo on October 31, at 7.30pm. Dave Johns, the star of Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, and one of the shanty-singing fishermen in Fisherman’s Friends, is one of Britain’s most respected and best loved comedians, with three decades of gigs at comedy clubs and festivals worldwide. At Salisbury, he comperes a starry line-up with Andy Askins and The Raymond & Mr Timpkins Revue.

Andy Askins is a diminutive figure who exudes an air of vulnerability as he steps up to the microphone armed with a guitar and a cheeky grin. It’s an overwhelmingly misleading demeanour which serves to heighten the impact of the killer lines that he delivers. Andy, who was named “best UK stand-up comic 2018,” was recently seen in BBC One’s The John Bishop Show at the Hackney Empire.

The line-up is completed by the “pop music based pun-lunacy” of The Raymond and Mr Timpkins Revue, whose show involves an overload of velvet, super-slick prop manipulation, and sandal-based choreography. It is indescribable and undoubtedly inimitable!

Dave Johns and The Raymond and Mr Timpkins Revue.

There is more wit and music on October 26 in a cabaret evening – Piaf, with Caroline Nin, and the Broadway star Miss Hope Springs. The Parisian-based chanteuse, Caroline Nin, performs her internationally acclaimed interpretation of the French musical icon which has been a sell-out all over the world, from the Sydney Opera House, New York’s Metropolitan Rooms to the Edinburgh Festival and Ronnie Scott’s.

Winner of Broadway World’s 2019 Best Cabaret Act, recovering showgirl Miss Hope Springs was once the toast of Las Vegas. Now she’s down on her luck and highly medicated. Join her, live at the piano, as she dusts off an array of all-original toe-tapping show tunes, finger-snapping pop and heartrending ballads from her fabulous vintage repertoire and presents her unique brand of ‘sit down’ comedy.

All the events at this year’s Celebrate Voice, from October 25 to November 2, take place in the pop-up theatre, set up in the Marketplace. The Piccolo was first seen at Edinburgh Festival. For bookings and more information visit www.celebratevoice.co.uk