An evening of music and magic with Leon Rosselson and Ian Saville is on offer at Folk at The Maltings next Friday, June 3.

Herts Advertiser: Ian SavilleIan Saville (Image: Archant)

Entitled Where are the Barricades the evening gets underway at 8pm in the Maltings Arts Theatre, St Albans

Leon has been at the forefront of songwriting in Britain for over five decades. In the early days of the folk revival, he was a member of the Galliards with whom he made numerous radio and TV broadcasts and concert appearances.

He started writing songs seriously in the early 1960s and from topical-satirical they broadened out to take in everything from music hall to French realist song and experimenting with different song forms.

As well as performing all over this country, he has toured North America, Canada, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Australia. He has published two songbooks and released 13 CDs plus a 4CD box set of 72 songs, spanning 50 years of songwriting.

Ian began conjuring at a very young age and around 1979, he started developing a “socialist magic” act, using magic tricks and ventriloquism to present and celebrate a socialist view of the world.

The act, in its several variations, has been performed in theatres, cabaret clubs, festivals, as well as conferences, demonstrations and on picket lines throughout Britain and abroad.

Opening the evening will be Bob Wakeling and Ellie Hill who have been playing together for around four years, building a repertoire of largely traditional songs arranged around their two voices, fiddle, guitar and banjo.

Bob is well-known for his repertoire of traditional songs and ballads and songs of social comment and both he and Ellie, a five-string fiddler and harmony singer, are involved in the Watford folk scene.

Tickets at £10, students £8, under 16 £6, are available on the door or in advance online, by phone on 0333 666 3366 or in person at St Albans Tourist & Information Centre on 01727 864511.