A Winter Odyssey

A Winter Odyssey comes to Queen's Park, Longton on Saturday 12 December, from 3pm to 7pm. It's a free, family-friendly winter celebration put on by Wild Edge Arts CIC, the same team behind the Longton Pig Parade. The whole thing is an outdoor festive market with food vendors, independent makers and traders set up across the park, and it's designed to draw people in during the darkest part of the year to share stories and light lanterns.

This year's edition follows The Odyssey, Odysseus' twenty-five-year journey home after Troy, told through Greek performance, storytelling and puppetry. The centrepiece is a lantern and puppet parade, with giant lantern puppets Asterion the Minotaur and Echo the Eagle built and guided by the puppet masters of Thingamajig Theatre. Domesday Morris returns with dancing and fire, and two choirs, Allsorts Community Choir and Longtonian Singers, sing together as a community family. Longtonian Singers is a newer local choir that started about eighteen months ago.

There's more to it than just watching, too. Artist mentors Paschal Straiton and Danniella Beattie run masterclasses on outdoor performance around Greek mythology, and a Teen Squad of local teenagers helps run the event. If you want to get involved, volunteers are welcome, with a training session for the Teen Squad on Saturday 5 December. Last year's event at Longton Park drew around 5,000 visitors, and the organisers are hoping for an even bigger turnout this time.

It's free to attend, so you can just turn up with the family. The market runs from 3pm to 7pm on Saturday 12 December at Queen's Park, Longton, Stoke-on-Trent (Trentham Road, Dresden, ST3 4AZ).