✨ A Spectacular Evening of Traditional Scottish Entertainment ✨
Join us for an unforgettable night featuring:
- Fine dining menu crafted for the occasion
- Live performances from MC and poet James Fairbarin, piper Fergus Fairbairn, accordion player Dr David I Hall, and fiddler Irvine McLevy – scroll down to see their biographies!
- A lively ceilidh to finish the evening in true celebratory style!
You are welcome to bring a table of 10, or book in smaller parties – we will seat you on shared tables.
- Time: 6.45pm for 7pm prompt start
- Tickets: £95 per person; places are strictly limited.
- Booking is via this link: https://buytickets.at/leanderclub/1962265
- Please let us know about dietary requirements at the time of booking; call us if you have any questions on 01491 575782.
MENU
Starter
Cullen Skink
A traditional creamy Scottish soup of smoked haddock, potatoes, and leeks.
Main Course
Balmoral Chicken
Succulent chicken, served with buttery leeks and tatties, curly kale, and a rich whisky sauce.
Haggis available on the side if preferred.
Dessert
Tipsy Laird Trifle
A classic Scottish trifle with whisky-soaked sponge, custard, and raspberries.
To Finish
Tea, coffee, and handmade truffles.
THE CAST
Dr David I Hall has been playing the accordion since he was a boy in Manchester. He led the Manchester Scottish Dance Band for several years: they produced five CD recordings of Scottish dance music and broadcast on BBC Scotland’s Take the floor. He features regularly at balls and dances all over the UK and the Continent and has played in Japan, Canada, the USA and New Zealand. Dave is equally well known for his prowess as a teacher of Scottish and Highland dancing, running high-octane classes and weekend schools while regularly being on the faculty of the annual Summer School in St Andrews run by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. Dave works for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and has served in Africa and the EU with shorter stints in Washington DC. He is a member of the Caledonian Club where he relaxes in his rare spare moments.
Irvine McLevy started violin lessons as a small child and after just two weeks was taken along to his local Strathspey and Reel society in Kilmarnock (where the first edition of Burns’s poems was published in July 1786). Ever since, despite dalliances with classical and other genres, he has maintained an interest in the history and performance of traditional Scottish fiddle music and the instruments on which it is played. To his wife’s dismay, he has a large collection of both. He joined a ceilidh band in his teens and found it a reliable way to increase his income as they were out at gigs most weekends. In one early fiddle competition he came second, but that was no shame as the winner was Alastair Fraser, the current doyen of Scottish fiddlers and a professional musician. Tonight Irvine will be playing a fiddle with 17th century origins which he has restored himself. Having thought he had retired after more than 30 years in the Home Office, Irvine is currently Digital Curator for Early Modern European Coinage at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Fergus Fairbairn started on the chanter at age five after watching a May Morning display of Scottish dancing to the piping of p/m Roger Huth, a former member of the Scots Guards Pipe Band. Fergus learns with Steve Duffy, another former Scots Guard and currently Pipe Major of the Scots Guards Association Pipe Band. Fergus‘s style closely follows the Guards’ and he plays steady tempos allowing time to add more or less ornamentation depending on the context. Now 19, Fergus pipes for dancing and for every event from weddings to funerals. Fergus is proud to wear his grandfather’s Ancient Armstrong tartan kilt tailored in Perth in 1953. He is a member of the Oxford Gliding Club at Weston-on-the-Green and is a whiz on ice skates. He has yet to skate AND play his pipes but we feel that day cannot be distant.
James Fairbairn has been reciting Burns since he was in his teens. James was born and brought up in Hong Kong but his Glaswegian parents were at pains to ensure he was aware of his Scots cultural heritage and Burns songs were a staple of his early life. Although he was at a boy’s boarding school in Perthshire, the annual school Burns Supper was a joint event with GIRLS which was a great incentive for him to ensure that his recitation would be chosen. James has been president of the Burns Club of London four times and next Friday will mark the end of his 17-year tenure as chairman of the Caledonian Club’s Burns Committee. Burns‘ life and poetry infuse his life though he has restricted himself to three children by only two different women, including his one and only wife. James had a career in merchant banking in Hong Kong and London and for 11 years has worked for a small medical devices company near Oxford. He calls ceilidhs and MCs formal dances with a variety of bands.
