Tramlines Festival Announces Second Wave Of 2022 Acts

Alex Gibbon on 4 February 2022

Tramlines, Sheffield’s biggest city-based music festival has announced its latest round of music acts and the full comedy lineup. The 2022 event will mark the 13th edition of South Yorkshire’s biggest party and take place at Hillsborough Park in Sheffield from Friday 22nd to Sunday 24th July.

Joining the party is Bad Boy Chiller Crew, Lady Leshurr, Alfie Templeman and Kelis, alongside more exciting additions including Crawlers, Bleach Lab, Baby Queen, The Clockworks and Elvana.

Also, comedy will be returning to Hillsborough with a huge line-up including headliners Jason Manford, Russell Kane and Seann Walsh. This latest wave of new acts will join headliners Sam Fender, Kasabian and Madness with over five stages of music, a family-friendly area and a genre-spanning line-up of performers including everyone from internationally acclaimed acts to grassroots talent.

Alongside this latest line-up announcement, Tramlines also reveals that Weekend tickets have sold out with 95% of the festival’s tickets now sold, with only an extremely limited number of Day tickets available. Day tickets for Tramlines are priced from £50 plus booking fees and can be purchased alongside VIP ticket options from www.tramlines.org.uk. Sign up for ticket alerts here: https://bit.ly/TL22SignUp.

Tramlines 2022 takes place following an exceptional event in 2021 where the festival took place as part of the Government’s Event Research Programme. It was the largest festival in Western Europe to go ahead since lockdown restrictions were eased and marked a national celebration of the return to live music.

Kelis is back in 2022 for the first time since joining us on the Ponderosa back in 2017. The multi-award winning artist is bound to be dropping classics such as ‘Trick Me’ and ‘Millionaire’. British rapper Lady Leshurr also makes a return to the festival, bringing her expert lyricism and freestyles, best known for her ‘Queen’s Speech’ series.

Alfie Templeman finally gets his opportunity to grace Hillsborough park after having to cancel his appearance last year due to isolating. The ‘Happiness in Liquid Form’ singer, who said he was “gutted” in missing out on his slot last year, will appear on Saturday alongside newly announced Liverpool rock-group Crawlers and London alt-rockers Bleach Lab.

Joining Friday’s line-up is Baby Queen, who brings her hazy alt-pop hits to Sheffield’s biggest party. While Galway four-piece The Clockworks join the bill to add a post-punk twist to what will be the start of another memorable weekend. Also joining the Line-Up for 2022 is Bradford bassline collective Bad Boy Chiller Crew, bringing with them even more genre-spanning sounds to Tramlines Line-Up. Sunday will see a performance from Elvana, an Elvis fronted Nirvana tribute band. Unfortunately due to scheduling issues, The Snuts (Friday) can no longer join us at Tramlines 2022.

Comedy has become a mainstay of the festival and in 2022 Tramlines has secured some huge names kicking off with Seann Walsh who headlines on Friday. Seann is a multi-award winning performer with a growing list of TV credits including QI, Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity Juice and 8 out of 10 cats. Sean is joined on Friday by Scott Bennett, Michelle Shaughnessy, Alisdair Beckett-King, Vince Atta and host Danny McLoughlin.

Saturday headliner Russell Kane is a UK household name due to numerous TV appearances as a guest and as a presenter of his own shows including 2016 travel doc Stupid Man – Smart Phone. Joining Russell on Saturday are Tom Ward, Karen Bayley, Harry Stachini, Jack Gleadow and host Matt Read.

The Sunday showcase is headlined by Jason Manford, well known due his tenure as team leader on 8 out of 10 cats, his numerous presenting roles and his appearances in West End musicals such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Producers and Sweeney Todd. Also appearing on Sunday are Ivan Brackenberry, Lily Philips and host Emmanuel Sonubi who has been hotly tipped by both Jason Manford and Russell Kane.

Timm Cleasby, Tramlines Operations Director said, “I’m beyond excited for Tramlines 2022, Our first announcement was ace and now this? You had me at Kelis and Elvana… The return of Lady Leshurr too, just mega. Add to that Jason Manford, Seann Walsh and Lily Philips I’m gonna need more hours in my weekend.“

“I know a good joke when I steal one”: An exploration of plagiarism in comedy

Benjamin Forrest on 7 February 2021

The issue of ‘joke thieves’ and plagiarism in comedy has become somewhat of a regular discussion in the past few years, with perhaps the most prominent example being American comic Amy Schumer who was exposed as having plagiarised a vast array of jokes from other comics such as John Mulaney, Kathleen Madigan and Wendy Liebman (among many others). It is important to note that joke theft is not a new issue, by any means. The 1993 Denis Leary special ‘No Cure for Cancer’ is widely regarded to have completely ripped off the act of legendary comedian Bill Hicks – both the Denis Leary and Bill Hicks performances are currently available on Netflix so you can see for yourselves how similar the two are. Further back than that, the 1973 National Lampoon stage show ‘Lemmings’ was accused of stealing a joke from Monty Python. So why is plagiarism in comedy much more prominent nowadays? It is difficult to say for sure, but the ease at which content is viewable on the internet means that if Amy Schumer tells a joke very similar to a joke Wendy Liebman told in the early 90’s, the likelihood is that there’s a video of that performance online. Thus, perhaps joke theft is not a much more important issue these days, it is simply easier to identify.

Schumer has faced very little in the way of consequences in spite of the overwhelming amount of evidence of thievery. Her new show ‘Expecting Amy’ is a hit on HBO Max, two of her stand-up specials along with her film ‘Trainwreck’ are still available on Netflix and she has won multiple awards from Critics’ Choice to an Emmy. It does not seem morally sound that Amy Schumer, and many other plagiarists, are allowed to create a successful and illustrious career based upon the jokes of other comics who are left to fall into obscurity. Denis Leary still enjoys an incredibly successful career as a writer and actor thanks largely due to the success of his ‘Cure for Cancer’ special, whereas Bill Hicks died in 1994 with only a handful of stand-up specials and an unaired Letterman performance to his name. Seemingly joke theft is not regarded as a big deal, when questioned on Leary’s plagiarism, Hicks quipped “I stole his act. I camouflaged it with punchlines, and to really throw people off, I did it before he did.”.

Many have argued that nobody can really own a joke, they are in the public domain and hold no real value. Stand-up legend Stewart Lee tackled this idea brilliantly in his routine about Joe Pasquale stealing a joke from Irish comedian Michael Redmond, and I believe the sentiment of that routine still rings true. Furthermore, in an industry as hard to break into as stand-up comedy, it is ludicrous to have to accept mainstream comics ripping-off jokes from more obscure acts – that probably will not find themselves on Live at the Apollo or Mock the Week or any other of the one-size-fits-all comedy programmes being thrust unto the viewing public by the BBC – as an inevitability. Aside from anything else, it is lazy. Plagiarism just goes to portray a lack of creativity or originality which, ultimately, will have a detrimental effect on comedy as a whole by limiting the success of new and original comics.

As a journalism student, I know how seriously plagiarism is taken in my field as well as many others such as science or music. Does it not, then, make sense for plagiarism in comedy to be taken just as seriously? It is an incredible injustice, yet it seems to be constantly shrugged off as a mere annoyance. A written joke should be held in the same regard as any other artform. The Verve made no money from ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ because it sampled an orchestral version of a Rolling Stones song, yet Amy Schumer is allowed to continue her ridiculously successful career built off the back of telling other people’s jokes, does that seem fair to you? Stop supporting the hacks. 

Review: Dash and Lily

Anushka Searle on 4 December 2020

Dash & Lily is an American Christmas-based rom-com Netflix show based in New York City. The show is based on the young adult book series by Rachel Cohen and David Levithan, with the first book being Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares. Unsurprisingly, the story surrounds the protagonists Dash (Austin Abrams) and Lily (Midori Francis). Lily, encouraged by her brother, creates a book of dares that she hides in a bookshop next to her favourite book, in the hope that it will be discovered by her perfect match. Of course, Dash discovers the book and so the show follows the protagonists as they travel around New York while trading dares, dreams and desires.

If you are a fan of a good cheesy Christmas movie, then you will absolutely love these 8 episodes of pure Christmas fun. Dash & Lily gives you those soppy feel-good feelings that make your heart heavy – think a combination of The Holiday, Love Actually and A Christmas Prince. Whether it’s a crush, a partner, or a long-lost love, this series will immediately make you dream of that special someone. This series brings forth those warm, fuzzy feelings of love, and isn’t that what we all want to feel this year… love.

Of course, like most cheesy Christmas films, or rom-coms in general, some things are a tad far-fetched and unrealistic. It is unlikely that 17-year olds (where the drinking age is 21) would be able to get in a club hassle-free and with no ID checks. It also seems very far-fetched that these teenagers, Lily in particular, would have so many connections in New York to help them plan all their great dares. However, if the story were to follow a more realistic route than we would have a very boring story, where the notebook would never have been found and our protagonists would barely leave the house, spending most of their days sleeping until 2pm. So, bring on the unrealistic relationships for us all to idealise this Christmas!

Even if you don’t usually enjoy Christmas, this show will still be enjoyable, as it is not all Christmas joy and tackles the seasonal blues too and Dash himself doesn’t even like Christmas! Let’s be honest, after such a rough year I think some cheesy comfort watches are in order, we all need a little escapism. So, make yourself a deluxe hot chocolate, pop on Dash & Lily, and enjoy this love letter to New York.

Oh, and if that wasn’t enough the Jonas Brothers also make a cameo appearance!