Chorlton Folk Club is a weekly event on a Thursday night held in the upstairs room of South West Manchester Cricket Club (Ellesmere Road M21 0SG).

Chorlton Folk Club was founded in 2002. A proper folk club – no amplification, an ethos that encourages anyone brave enough to get up on stage. Not just folk, there’s some traditional, some unaccompanied, but lots of acoustic blues and rock, and, increasingly, singer-songwriters.

Since the start, the Folk Club has got busier, peaking at well over 100 for two of our festival Dylan nights. Most weeks now, there are so many players that everyone gets to play only one song – maybe a couple for whoever finishes the night. And the standard has got higher and higher.

Every Thursday – 9.30 start, finish at 11.30

There’s no bar upstairs to disturb the music – you go downstairs where MPA costs only £2.65 and Guest Beers are £3.

Most nights are singers’ nights (£1.50 including entry into the raffle) with occasional guest nights (£2.50).

The Team

An enthusiastic MC and the club’s founder, Jozeph Roberts (former member of The Out) has been on the Manchester music scene for decades… Poet and songwriter Copland Smith or songwriter/performer Gordon Whitelock deputize as MC if Jozeph is away.

Previous guests have included:

Tom Paley, Virginia Barrett, Gabriel Minnikin, Donal O’Connor, Stanley Accrington, Gus Glynn, John Kelly, The Baker and The Butler (John and Pete respectively), Jeff Warner, Mark Greer and Clive Mellor (Lonesome and Penniless Cowboys), Dominic Collins, Ann English, Lazybones…

Current regulars include:

Mississippi Jon Beech, Phil Robinson (and Big Ron), Sandra Martin, TG Elias, Mark Greer and Clive Mellor (as above), DBH, Mark Simpson, Mat Gray, Lucy Ridges, The Bailey Sisters, Banjo John, Richard Frisson and the Fridge Poets, Tom Mitchell and the Thumps, Mickey Van Gelder, Sally Paradise, Mark Abraham, Pat Clarke, KeepthechangeBob, Lucy Bennett, Michael Seal, Boz Hayward and many, many others…

The club has participated in Chorlton Arts Festival, Chorlton Book Festival and the Not Part of Festival.