Your guide to local entertainment and events.

MISCELLANEOUS

IN aid of the North West Air Ambulance, the Bridge Inn at Tatem (near Lancaster) is the venue for a number of fun, and unusual, activities on Friday and Saturday from 7pm. The fun will begin with a Golden Oldies disco, sure to have you heading for the dancefloor, and there will also be a slave auction, live folk music, every kids favourite - pooh-stick racing, maggot races and more. Call 015242-21326 for details.

WINDERMERE Steamboats and Museum are holding a Classic Motor Boat Rally this weekend. The colourful event will welcome a raft of fine vessels from across Europe and runs until Monday. To find out more, call 015394-45565.

A STEAM and Vintage Rally takes place at Fairholme, near Blackpool, this weekend (Saturday and Sunday 10am-5pm). As well as steam engines, rollers, vintage cars and an auto jumble, there will be stalls, crafts and entertainment. Call 01253-702292 for details.

AN evening dedicated to Old Time and sequence Dancing will take place at Grange's Victoria Hall on Sunday from 7.30pm. Call 01229-861549 for details.

THE amazing Titanic adventure slide is just one of the treats in store for the kids (and young at heart) at Beetham Sports on Saturday. From 1pm, all the family can be entertained on the field opposite the Wheatsheaf Pub with fell races, Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling, morris dancing, stalls and a kid's Football Factory.

WINDERMERE Festival's Opening Weekend (Saturday and Sunday), on the Glebe at Bowness, will include Battle of Britain Memorial flights, red arrow displays and the RAF Falcons as well a fair, flight simulator and other entertainment.

THERE will be fact and fiction and paperbacks galore when the National Trust Lake District Members Club holds its annual book sale at the Conservative Hall in Grasmere on Wednesday (9.15am-3pm).

CONCERTS

FOLK artists, George Fox, Johnny Collins and Kate Howden are just some of the talented team who will be performing at the Hardraw Gathering this weekend. With clog dancers and a varied musical programme, the folk festival begins on Friday and runs until Sunday at The Green Dragon at Hardraw (near Hawes). Check out the www.hardrawgathering.co.uk website for more details.

THE 20th Lake District Summer Music Festival starts on Saturday with a concert by the Chilingirian Quartet at the Coronation Hall in Ulverston (8pm). As well as Mozart and Dvorak, one of the musical highlights will be Janacek's Intimate Letters. For details of this and other performances scheduled over the next two weeks, call the Box Office on 0845-6442144.

THE King' will be well and truly alive at Blackpool Opera House on Friday when Billy J. McGregor and Alan Wearmouth present the Elvis Collection. The rock n' roll tribute begins at 7.30pm. Call 01253-292029 for details.

YORK choir the Ebor Singers will play at Kendal Parish Church on Sunday evening from 7.30pm.

MUSICAL duo Bayou Seco will present a lively night of toe-tapping dance tunes and cowboy songs from the southern states of America when they play Barrow's Forum 28 on Friday from 8pm. With the vocal talents of Jeanie McLerie, who also plays a six-string fiddle, and Ken Keppeler on the accordion, banjo, fiddle and harmonica, the popular two are sure to deliver a great evening. Call 01229-820000 to find out more.

THURSDAY sees the Mortimer Brass Ensemble play a lunchtime concert at St John the Evangelist Church in Lancaster. It starts at 12.45pm, call 01524-582803 for details.

BARITONE Brian Lancaster will be accompanied by pianist Hugh Davies when he plays a concert of music for a summer evening at Hawkshead Parish Church on Tuesday (8pm).

THE "greatest summer pop party ever", Bring it On, will fill the Coronation Hall at Ulverston with the sounds of Britney, Busted, Blue and Beyonce on Thursday (6pm) when cool tribute bands, including DK*UK, take to the stage. Call 01229-587140 for booking details.

THEATRE

An open-air performance of La Boheme, the treasured and moving opera by Puccini, will take place at Holker Hall, in Cark-in-Cartmel, on Friday night from 8pm. Centred on the tragic love affair between a seamstress and a poet, and with a fine score, this should be a real treat. For booking details, call 015395-58328.

FANS of Shakespeare should get themselves along to Carnforth's Leighton Hall on Friday at 7.30pm for an al fresco performance of Twelfth Night. The lively comedy will be performed by the renowned Festival Players theatre Company, and should be a colourful, worthy way of starting your weekend. For details, call 01524-734474.

THE indiscretions of a philandering nobleman are revealed in Mozart's popular and uplifting opera, The Marriage of Figaro, on Saturday at 7.30pm in the grounds of Holker Hall (Cark-in-Cartmel). Call 015395-58328 for details.

EXHIBITIONS

A COLLABORATION between various youth groups in Lancashire has led to an interesting new exhibition, I Want a Place to Be, at the Folly gallery in Lancaster. 01524-388550.

PART of the Lake District Summer Music Festival, a Summer Music Exhibition of works by Cockermouth born artist Dorothy Bradford opens at St Martin's College in Ambleside on Sunday. It is open from 10am-4pm for the duration of the festival (until August 14).

AN exhibition of all things Yorkshire will be on show at Ingleborough Community Centre in Ingleton on Sunday for Yorkshire Day. There will also be stalls and a whole host of craft activities and demonstrations on offer.

A MAJOR exhibition celebrating the creative skills of Tim Stead is showing at Barrow's Dock Museum. With sculptures, furniture, photography and poetry, the wood-workers talents are worth a view. The exhibition is open from Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and weekends from 11am-5pm. For more details, call 01229-894444.

A THREE-DIMENSIONAL exhibition of Lake District paintings by Bowness-born artist, John Hewitt, opens at Preston Patrick Gallery, Crooklands on Sunday. Call 01229-773380 to find out more.

TALKS

THE Wordsworth Summer Conference, a two-week treat for literary fans, scholars and students which explores every aspect of Romantic studies, kicks off tomorrow (Saturday). With conference days including lectures, seminars and discussions of research papers, you could learn a lot. Call Jessica Wordsworth on 01865-557552 for more information.

OWEN Sheers, the writer and broadcaster, will join poet Kathryn Gray for this week's Wordsworth Trust talk at the Thistle Hotel in Grasmere on Tuesday, from 6.30pm.