Jennifer Reid

Jennifer is a performer of nineteenth century Lancashire dialect and Victorian broadside ballads.

Jennifer has an Advanced Diploma in Local History at Oxford University.

She researches nineteenth century music to educate, perform the songs live, deliver talks and workshops and to contribute to the field with funded research projects

Her work has taken her to Venice, Croatia, New York and lately Bangladesh, where she tested the idea that the Industrial Revolution had never stopped, it had just moved to Dhaka. She spoke at the first ethno musicography conference on the Indian sub-continent about her research into Bangladeshi and Mancunian weaving songs. She is currently consultant on the University of Leeds and Science Museum project ‘Congruence Engine’.

Jennifer researches ballads and applies them to modern life. You may have seen her on the television in both factual and entertainment programming. Jennifer plays the character of Barb in Shane Meadows’ period drama The Gallows Pole.

Jennifer Shaw

Jenny Shaw is best known as the presenter of the Handed Down podcast, an affectionate and often irreverent exploration of the traditional songs of the British Isles. A singer, multi-instrumentalist and storyteller, her fast paced live show pulls the audience into the lost worlds of the past with songs, tunes and tall tales.

As a young musician she was a member of the Hull band Mediaeval Fete, alongside Zinta and Ramona Egle (Camine, Jacob’s Ladder) and has since been involved with folk clubs and sessions in Hertfordshire, East Yorkshire and South Gloucestershire. She launched Handed Down in 2021 and performed her first live show based on the podcast at the Folk at the Folk Festival in 2022.

Doors open at 7pm with Performance from 7:30pm.