THE group who can claim to have reinvented the art of a cappella are appearing at The Alban Arena on Sunday night.

Finnish foursome Fork were a smash hit at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe and produce every sound, from vocals to rock guitar riffs and basslines, by the human voice without backing tapes or hidden singers.

Fork give a repertoire of contemporary covers their own unique vocal twist, from the harmonies of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida to the intricacies of their Gaga medley as well as their own dance mix of recent club classics.

Since their live debut in 1996, Fork have appeared at numerous events from the New Year’s Party at Helsinki’s Senate Square to the Monte Carlo Film Festival and the SoJam Festival in the USA as well as shows in Dubai, New York, St Petersburg and London.

They come on stage at 8pm and tickets are £15, available from the Arena box office on 844488 or online at www.alban-arena.co.uk

Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom comes to The Alban Arena with four shows next Tuesday and Wednesday, March 27.

Adapted from the animated pre-school children’s television series set in an enchanted magical kingdom with fairies, elves and insects, The Little Kingdom, where everyone is very small, is home to Princess Holly and her best friend Ben Elf.

Holly is a young fairy princess who is still learning how to do magic properly and sometimes her spells don’t work out quite right. Ben is an Elf and elves don’t do magic but they are very good at making things. He doesn’t have wings like Holly but he flies on the back of Gaston the Ladybird.

In the musical adventure, Ben and Holly help Gaston clean up his messy cave, they go on a trip to The Big World with tooth fairy Nanny Plum and still have time to plan a surprise for King Elf’s birthday party, complete with an unplanned jelly flood.

Performances are at 1pm and 4pm next Tuesday and at 10am and 1pm next Wednesday and tickets are £13.50 with under-16s £11.50 and a family ticket £45.

Top-selling author of women’s fiction Jodi Picoult will be giving a talk at The Alban Arena next Saturday, March 30.

Eleven of her previous titles have been number one best-sellers in the UK and she has sold over six million novels in the UK alone. One of her novels, My Sister’s Keeper, was made into a film starring Cameron Diaz, and three of her other novels went straight into TV films.

Jodi’s new novel, The Storyteller, is her 20th novel and involves an emotional journey through the horrors of the Holocaust into the 21st Century raising questions of morality and forgiveness.

It will be published next Tuesday, March 26, and the Arena will be one of the few dates of her high profile launch tour following publication.

Interviewing Jodi on the evening will be Samantha Norman, feature writer, travel writer, theatre critic, film critic and show-business columnist for most national newspapers and magazines before falling into television where she worked as a presenter for many years.

The evening gets underway at 7.30pm and tickets are £23, including a copy of The Storyteller, or £15 without the book.