Will you look at this place? Gorgeous lighting throwing a regal glow up the walls, two hundred friends chatting in the pews, sparkles and smiles all around, mulled wine scents tugging at noses. The Downend Folk & Roots Christmas is, simply, one of the best nights of the year (and not just because it always marks the end of the school term). It has, for lots of us, replaced Noddy's yell of “It's Christmas!!!!” as the festive starting gun.

 

Entirely fitting, then, that BRYONY GRIFFITH & ALICE JONES are our guests this year. They are as Yorkshire as a good strong cup of tea and are brimming with feelings of fireside and friendship, of harmony and happiness. Griffith plays fiddle, Jones tenor guitar and when they sing together you can feel the crackling warmth of a really good pub hearth.

 

 

They are wonderful company, filling the space with stories, poking gentle fun at one another and spreading a festive radiance to all corners. The ‘ollins and the Ivin is a northern take on an old song. It is as honest as the day is long, Griffith’s voice strong and rooted in place. Fiddle and guitar snow-drift around, the thickest, cosiest blanket imaginable. Equally, Hark, How all the Welkin Rings takes the familiar and sprinkles it with Parkin crumbs. Jones’ voice is high, reaching heavenwards, until joined by Griffith when they glide together.

 

With her tongue, more-or-less, in her cheek, Griffith describes much of their festive album, Wesselbobs, as "full of Yorkshire misery, of children and begging". The Yorkshire Wassailing Song falls, nicely, into all three categories. It might be sombre but it has a strange, kaleidoscopic refraction that those weird, wintery 80s TV dramas had as their soundtrack. Think Box of Delights with added piano-y drones. Time to Remember the Poor also keeps those most in need firmly in mind, although it is accompanied by Jones’ rubber trousered body percussion (she spent the evening dressed as a most spectacular Christmas pudding, complete with remarkable holly head-dress).

 

 

There's cheekiness, too, in The Tailor's Britches and Change for a Guinea. Both are wonderfully sprightly, light-hearted and have exuberance spilling out of them, like an over-stuffed pie. The fiddle and their harmonies twirling joy through the church as the foolishness of men is held up for amused ridicule.

 

The Downend faithful sing buzz-ily on Hagman-Heigh, piling up festive treats into a great throne of goodies, while a gentle guitar ushers in the fuzziness of Christmas. Griffith’s fiddle sounding as though it were being beamed in from a Yorkshire ale-house, from centuries ago.

 

This is the very essence of a Downend Christmas. There are nods toward the Solstice, to remembering others, to friends and to the spirit of Christmas itself. It is all utterly magical.

 

 

The only thing that could possibly make it better is the traditional Downend appearance of Bristol's greatest folk choir, HEARTWOOD CHORUS. 

 

Almost thirty-strong and just as glorious as ever, they sing beautifully. Layers of twinkles dusted across songs that are winter-y rather than simply Christmas-y. They breathe as one for I'd Rather Be Tending My Sheep, three female soloists exquisite but the whole choir purring like a drowsing cat. There just aren't enough superlatives for John Tams’ Snow Falls but it is a beacon of Solstice hope, a heart-bursting glory, while Hail Smiling Morn is just heavenly and comes with the promise of brighter days once the year has turned. No one does Christmas quite as well as Heartwood do, God bless them. 

 

In these days when it feels like almost anything could be called a tradition, the Downend Folk & Roots Christmas show is, truly, the most wonderful time of the year. Merry Christmas everyone.

 

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