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Every July for 45 years, Lambeth Country Show has filled Brixton with sheep-shearing, wood-whittling, potent local cider and live music. Sadly, the festival of countryside pursuits won’t be going ahead in its usual home of Brockwell Park this year. But, if you’re sad at the prospect of a summer without puntastic vegetable competitions and scarecrow standoffs, don’t worry – the show is being taken online instead.
All your favourite aspects of the fair will be part of the virtual edition taking place on Saturday July 18 and Sunday July 19 – the weekend the event would have gone ahead.
The highly anticipated Vegetable Sculpture Competition, where the great and good of popular culture are lovingly recreated out of turnips and swedes, is going digital along with the other usual flower show competitions. This year people will be asked to submit pictures of their entries online, which will be shown to the public via social media – that means no humongous queue to get into the vegetable marquee this year!
Old favourites like the scarecrow competition and sheep-shearing demonstrations are also going virtual, as will the usual cookery demonstrations, local-themed talks and craft market. There’ll also be virtual music performances from reggae singer Earl Sixteen, Lambeth Wind Orchestra, South London Samba drumming ensemble and Ukulele Choir. Even the legendary Chucklehead Cider, whose huge milk-container-sized helpings of booze are usually drunk all over the show, will also make an appearance in a short video.
You may not be able to feed an alpaca, cuddle up to a guinea pig or bask in thumping soundsystems blaring out reggae, but this is certainly the next best thing. And we’ll all be eagerly waiting to see if this year’s vegetable whittlers can beat these fantastic veggie sculptures from 2019.
The Virtual Lambeth Country Show takes place Saturday July 18 and Sunday July 19. Take a look at the full line-up on Lambeth Country Show’s website.
If you fancy entering any of the online competitions this year, you can find the entry forms here. The deadline to enter the Flower Show Schedule is Wednesday July 15 (11pm) and to enter the Vegetable Sculpture, Scarecrow, Recycled Garden and Best in Show competitions it’s Friday July 17 (3pm).
Another Brixton institution is going digital: Brixton Academy is putting on a series of virtual live gigs.
Find more London events you can stream online now.