:: Talking Musical Revolutions with Suggs,
Saturday August 27, Space Theatre, Bangor, 8pm
,MADNESS frontman Suggs will be in conversation with longtime friend and Madness follower Gavin Martin to talk about his journey from council estate urchin to one of the most popular singers in British pop.
The Nutty Train has travelled from Dublin Castle to Buckingham Palace, from The House of Fun to The Liberty of Norton Folgate – and all points in between – and it's pulling into Bangor for one night only.
Video clips, anecdotes and jokes will all be used in tracking the mad man's progress.
:: The Damned, Saturday August 27, Marine Court Hotel, 8pm
PUNK is on the menu in a special evening celebrating the 40th anniversary of the birth of punk.
The Damned were the band who released the first British punk single (New Rose), the first punk album and were the first punk band to tour the USA.
Featuring original members Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible, The Damned will play all the hits from their 40-year career.
It's fitting that they play Bangor during the Open House Festival/BBA Punk Weekender, as the town is arguably the birthplace of Northern Ireland's punk scene with the first recognised punk gigs in The Trident (now Wolsey's).
Support comes from XSLF, featuring former Stiff Little Fingers members Henry Cluney and Jim Reilly, with classic material from the first two SLF albums.
:: Pintsized Surprise, August 19 to 27, Fealty's Back Bar, Bangor, 8.30pm.
NOTTINGHAM based touring theatre company The Pintsized Theatre Company makes its triumphant return to Open House festival after an impressive debut in 2015.
Central to the company’s philosophy is that theatre provides a forum in which strategies to deal with local issues can be explored, discussed and developed.
Pintsized Surprise combines the magic of theatre and the excitement of mystery, inviting you to see a surprise comedy short – just long enough to drink a couple of pints.
Like The Mousetrap, audiences are asked to take a vow of silence about the surprising ending, to avoid ruining it for future audiences.
:: Alexei Sayle, Sunday August 7, Marine Court Hotel, 8pm.
IN 1971, comedians on the working men's club circuit didn’t know what was about to hit them: a 19 year-old Marxist art student.
Through the next decade, Alexei Sayle would be a clerk in a DHSS office, one of London's bottom ten freelance illustrators, a school dinner lady and college lecturer, before becoming the original MC of London's first modern comedy club, The Comedy Store – when the landscape of British comedy was altered forever.
The 63-year-old Liverpudlian may no longer be wearing the button-popping suits that became his trademark during his days at London's Comedy Store, but he still has plenty to say.
This year he published his second autobiography recounting his experiences with Alternative Cabaret, The Comic Strip and The Young Ones and his friendships with the comedians who, like him, would soon become household names.
Thatcher Stole My Trousers, charts his years from the early '70s through to the 1980s, a time when comedy and politics came together in electrifying ways.
This event will be a unique and beguiling blend of social history and memoir.
:: For full programme details and tickets visit Openhousefestival.com.
