Buskers, Street Entertainers in Northampton, Northamptonshire*

Places to find public entertainment

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• Al-Jay the busker!!!
• Another person from the number 1 Bus Route must be mentioned. Happy Black Guy. He is always extremely happy and says "Good morning everybody!" in his beautiful Jamaican accent every time he gets on the bus. He talks to people about his wives, offers your girlfriend a chance to take his hand in marriage and then asks the whitest guy on the bus which part of Africa he is from. Best time to spot him is on the Number one bus from Rectory Farm at around 10am - On his way to church. <--- Stalker I know.
• Nobody has mentioned Pink Man! - The man who wears a pink hat, tshirt, bag and carries around a pink radio with him. Most often seen on the No. 1 bus route (a lot of you upper class people may not see him).
• There's a guy in a straw hat plays guitar and sings,smiles kindly,say's "thankyou very much" when "tipped", and, speaking for myself; he aint' half bad.Put your money in the guitar case, keep music real, he does.
• 50P Lil......she will do ANYTHING for 50 p!
• 50p Lil
• There is a man who stands outside M&S in the early hours dressed somewhat like the mad-hatter and playing solely Bob Marley songs on his guitar...worth a listen surely if you're out at that time!
• There is a man who goes into town every day and plays songs my mum likes, i like some too. he is there all the time but he is not crazy. the old lady with the keyboard who just plays demo's - crazy and crao. the old nen that sit outside the library and rant about domesday. ??
• smurf the bmxer with red and blue tyres!
• Billy Connolly a.k.a buss stop man, now in the Jesus Army, with cut hair, no wellies anymore and a nice new pair of DM's.
• The bloke in the piss stained suit always drinking cider and getting run over is called Johnny Roache and/or roadrunner! The little asian lady who offers her body for fags is not 10p Lill, it's actually 50p Lill! One of my personal favourites is the homeless bloke out side waterstones always shouting big issue please sir/maddam. Another weirdo is the old tramp geezer with white hair who starts off asking you for 10p for a cup of tea, then a fag, then another 10p for matches, then money for a whole pack of fucking fags! Beware, this old cunt remembers a face, give in once and you'll always be pestered by him!
• Some mad-arsed four-or-five man band playing Appalachian pan-pipes music or something like that, complete with amplification. Always set up outside Marks and Spencer, usually on a really busy Saturday afternoon. As for eccentrics, the notorious '50p Lil' is still at large, you can spot her laying a cable in the Drapery most mornings with a fag and a can of lager on the go.
• The big issue man outside waterstones is funny! big issue please sir/madam??? 50p Lill makes me laugh aswell- always scrounging around for a fag, even offers you a blow job for one The drunk bloke everyone talks about is Johnny Roach a.k.a roadrunner, always pissed on cider, ginger beard, piss stained suit and touching the floor-very funny!!!!
• Ha well there is a lady who sits there with a keyboard and plays the demo and has the cheek to actually put a bowl in front of her for money! is she taking the piss? A guy sometimes plays the guitar-my bofriend asked if he wnated it tuned for him but he refused. i thinkhe likes his guitar out of tune.
• Ok where do I start. There's a lady that plays her demo on her keyboard and expects peopele to give her money. Cheeky sod. there is a guy recently who plays a battered out of tune classical guitar on Abby St and sings along-he is AWFUL. No joke. I offered to tune his guitar for him but he declined. Not like I was gonna nick it-it's a piece of shit. Even a tramp wouldn't nick it. Get the winos and tramps out of town.
• Skinner, the scruffy, semi-bearded, occasionally mohican-wearing Irish folkie busker who usually sits banging out some old Pogues tune or other on the Market Square...used to be in the punk group Tarantism, so he's quite famous I suppose!
• Mr. Raven...usually seen wearing face make-up red or white and has a long ponytail, excluding the ponytail hes bald. Often seen in julian graves, around sol central. Apparently he's quite friendly...
• two rather trampy looking dudes who like touching ladies legs in REVOLUTION.. GROSS!
• Cat lady and her organ, Ciderman, prat in the Hat who only knows Red Red wine. That bloody bunch of Peruvian nose flautists who seem to follow me everywhere.
• 50p lil and the old lady with a keyboard who has a little postman pat sitting on her knee. classic.
• '50p Lil', an elderly Indian woman often seen laying a cable or having a slash in the street when she's not getting smashed on cheap lager or bugging passers-by for change. Some old loony who plays the accordion whilst cursing under his breath.
• The wino selling big issue every time you are in town and at night he spends his earnings on some crappy Wine or Baby Cham or sumthing. "BIG ISSUE SIRE"
• the tramp which animal shoes, a fox and rabbit i thing, whu wishs u happy and plays a umm wot its called accordian, by grosvenor he great
• That girl on Abbey street with two colours in her hair... she sings like a godess!
• the bald man who is always drunk. he's a great laugh.
• This is the birthpalce of one Andy Woolmer. The man who single handedly destroyed Hereford Uniteds return to the football league. If you see this man then please call him a cheat, a c**t, a w****r. The most arrogant man in the world. This guy deserves no respect off anyone in northampton and every effort should be made to drive this man out of town. This man is a disgrace to the people of northampton and should be hounded out of town.
• Excellent busker with keyboard. Wears big fluffy animal slippers.
• One of my favourite local northampton characters is cowboy kev aka 'the boss-eyed simpleton' I have followed his career since the early days of him, unhindered by musical talent, singing the irish rover in the frog and fiddler karaoke competitions and have always found him highly entertaining. In a town where clubs and pubs often have strict dress codes and burly bouncers to enforce them our kev waltzes unhindered from pub to pub and just like the littlest hobbo every stop he makes he makes a new friend. Always dressed in his trademark stetson, mickey mouse tie and waistcoat with the obligatory sherriffs badge he can often be found in the barrats and even was cajouled into being sponsored to sit in a bath of baked beans for children in need. A real local hero who does a lot of good work for both charity and street comedy. Kev is a throwback to a bygone age, unfortunately though it's a prehistoric one.
• lol, they are all the way down abington street. what can i say i cant choose a fave they are all great!!!
• Feline groovy. The (two)tone-deaf cataplectic keyboardist is Maureen Cook, who used to work in the drawing office at Express Lifts(deceased) until she gave it all up for a life of selfless devotion to super furry animals & sub Wild man Fischer street entertainment. A regular writer to the Chron, she has also been known to correspond with Hollywood star Doris Day on matters animal. Sadly Doris has never turned up on a Saturday arvo to add those missing & much-needed vocals to Maureen's performance. That'd make the Socialist Worker sellers pig sick. Mo & Do a go-go! We can only dream. Que sera sera!
• that crowd of belly dancers that appear now and again.
• ahaha, the cat lady! She has been there since the dawn of time I swear. Someone please get Whiskas to sponser her and her collection of strays. I remember once I walked past her and she had the demo song playing on her keyboard whilst she pretended to press down the keys. Most other times she plays one note at a time with one finger.
• John, famed consumer of cider, has now moved on to Lambrini. Title contenders for his White Ace crown are Michael (scruffy hair and beard, very abusive) and Tam (bald, scottish and very funny!) All three can be seen drinking together at top venues like Regent Square and the Piss up bus stop!!!
• The bloke with the bottle of Cider we fondly call Cherr as he's ginger and has a VERY red face. He's harmless enough but I wouldn't let small children near him. 50p Lil is well-known for not wearing shoes and barely being coherent. The Cat Lady is tiny and plays her keyboard all day. She owns two houses full of cats and gives all her busking money to the Cats Protection League.
• Delia Derbyshire, who performed the original Doctor Who theme tune.
• Melvin the Tramp! You know, the one that used to hang out in St.Giles churchyard(in a drunk as fuck state)and approach 14-year-old stoner girls, put his arm around them and say "you're my daughter" to them!He eventually got moved on to London by the cops/council/whatever!
• The war memorials and the benches outside the central library usually play host to a ragtag bunch of pikeys, alcoholics, tramps, druggies and dossers, but steer clear unless you're prepared to cough up a quid to save your life! Some bloke on Abington Street playing Verve and Stone Roses songs is a newcomer and I can see definite potential there.
• The guy who runs the Music Mart has a funky hair Do'
• How could you possibly have this site without including Frank who walked around Semilong and surrounds singing years ago.There were rumours that he used to be a solicitor but had a very bad car crash which affected him There must be people who remember him. The kids often used to make fun but they all had a soft spot for him. He was part of my childhood-is he still going? Anyone else remember him? He had character!!! A real legend around our way. Fond memories. How about 'Quaker Oats' who used to push a pram and then updated it to a shopping trolley full of bric a brac inc plastic flowers . She was called Quaker Oats because she wore a big black hat very like the man on the porridge box. P.S. Great site-love the submissions haven't laughed so much in years.
• John the old red faced drunk AKA old Reddy has a house in the town centre i think he shares it wit 50p lil who by the got robbed out side my mates house the other day theres also a NEW busker in town out side the co-op bank who also sing the same verve song THATS AN EXCLUSIVE
• 50p Lil, Your Muerrrrrrrrrrrrrm, that grey haired gimp that teaches social science at NSB, Veldrac the dirty greebo and the crossed eyed woman who sells fags in the co-op. Not forgetting Carol Fielding and her amazing ability to keep us entertained for hours.
• Ha ha, theres so many I don't know where to start. Theres Red faced man, tumbledown, Cider dude (whatever he's calling himself these days), although I haven't seen him about for a few weeks now. Hmm, slightly worrying. I think I'll start a campaign to find Johnny the alco. So if any of you inbreds out there see him post it on this site and you'll win a prize. (Okay theres no prize, god, whadda ya want from me).
• The bold transvestite that hangs around Weston Favell Centre, very scary.
• Speaking of tramps, the pride of Northampton, Kris Kristofersson seems to have found his way into our pantheon. Having overdosed on mescaline following another of his crappy films he has taken to wearing wellington boots and scouring the streets of Npton for dog ends, ocassionally spotted offering support to the cat lady and receiving the odd BJ(without, to completion; see punternet.com) from 50 lil behind Debenhams.
• Keep a keen eye out for career benefit claiming pugilistic in-breds, mainly from the Kings Heath area frequenting the Grosvenor centre bus station cafe. Especially the rather odd looking 'Munster' family sporting home made tattoos and distorted phizogs. Characters straight from Viz, i'm sure. A social anthropologists hunting ground. Any comments?
• I would like to lament the exhausting break in the career of the stalwart of pub buskery Steve "Skidblazeson" Blaze after injuring his lifestyle with negative equity and lashings of cheap booze. Think on.
• The dude that everyone in northampton knows and loves. We call him Phil Mitchell and he's great entertainment, his blood must be 90% proof. Oh how i could see the world through his eyes for just a few minutes. Have a bet with your mates as to when he'll die, i reckon August 2003.
• There's an alco that walks around in a dirty brown raincoat and occasionally sports a ginger beard. He seems to grow it quite long then shave it all off and start again. Always carries a 2 litre bottle of White Lightening, has a red face and frequently has a few cuts and bruises about the head, presumably as a result of him falling over somewhere whilst mashed.
• Cider man, the red faced blokey with the big ginger beard and his trousers always tucked into his filthy socks, you'll recognise him by the stink of booze that oozes out of his pores... The Crazy Cat Lady, the one who plays a little keyboard outside Marks & Sparks, she has a sign saying "Give cat food"... Angel, the homeless guy in the army clothes who sits on his jacket outside Waterstones and bums cigarettes off the greebos... 50p Lil, the old Korean lady in the colourful clothes who waves and talks incoherently at you... The crazy black guy who preaches really loudly near the statue of the anvil (where all the protesters hang out) and asks girls to marry him... the dude with the beard and the funny hat who plays the accordion outside the Grosvenor Centre... Various buskers hang around on Abington Street... oh yeah that really annoying girl near Millets who always asks me for change, she looks pretty well though, she's got rather expensive-looking clothes for a homeless person - think she's one of those fakers you always hear about, unless someone donated a load of good clothes to her
• oooooh! there's a clown some times opisite ecton brook, made me an octopus once :D
• Various buskers, with some who can play
• all along abington street, especially on a saturday
• you gotta check out the old lady on the keyboard, she is awesome! give her lots of money and she will play your request....very badly....but its worth it!
• abington street i xpect gud tips 4 my singingjesus
• Pete the accordion man who plays a couple of standards whilst growling at the 'geezers'; Stray cat woman who tinkles away on a knackered battery-driven keyboard and always looks freezing (even in the summer); some trampy-looking Irish bloke who thinks he's in the Pogues; a strange, whey-faced youth playing fragmented jazz licks to a boombox accompaniment and the usual highly amusing dossers by the war memorial guarantee an interesting bit of impromptu street theatre for the curious passer-by.
• The scary keyboard cat woman just by the grovesnor centre (abington st entrance) is def the most exciting thing about N'ton.
• There is a peddler who sells names bent out of metal!
• theres a very dodgy 'feed the cats' keybordist, and a lovey and talented penny whistle player... make up your own mind who to throw your change at...
• Dodgy opera guy, that appears every so often. The Native American pipe people and the cat lady.
• The big bearded singer with the milk bottle bottom glasses was always known to us as Ringo Chutney, his rendition of Once In Royal Davids City accompianied by his own clapping, blows the Sally army away every Christmas!!!
• old bloke outside new look with dog in pram..shouts radom mad things at you.. always a big issue seller outside HSBC, always a begger next to Threshers (like I'm gonna give my drink away). loads of mad people down abington street, you can never make a trip down that street without someone saying "its not a questionaire"
• Skinner smells
• You get loads down Abington Street.
• That scruffy git with a badly-tuned acoustic guitar and a repetoire of decades-old reggae numbers (usually seen along Abington Street) is a real riot! He does a perfect impersonation of a raddled, heroin-addicted, talentless alcoholic scrounging for coppers.
• The cowboy who wanders thru semilong and can be sighted in Barretts. He buys 10p lil 10 mars bars, im not sure EXACTLY why!
• funny red faced blokie
• Phil Mitchell is back on the drink and can often be seen with a bottle of white lightning, with the label torn off. Ive never seen him without one which makes me wonder where he gets it, or the money... After hes passed out you can be entertained by the old cat lady, now she has a new keyboard, i think she sold her cats to Flames.
• "Stuff We Can't Fit in Somewhere Else" so smelly
• Every Saturday, a scary bunch of blokes dressed in Mexican peasant clobber and toting pan-pipes and acoustic guitars set up outside Woolworth's playing commendably 'ethnic' music...which is nice!!
• Occasionally a guy with brown glasses does a busking spot on Abby Street, and he knows a good range of driving acoustic rock songs - wish he was there more often, as that 'Al Jay' bloke has become a shambling, drunken mess, scuffling through his usual range of three-chord foot-stompers and expecting pound coins.
• lady with her cat and keyboard
• Mark Bennett is the Ginger Tramp and habitual scumbag you all know and love. He will bend to any perverse whim in exchange for an Embassy No.1
• Definately the Cat lady that plays the Keyboard (badly)for money to buy cat food. And then there's that drunk bloke that stays in the pub until he runs out of money and then comes out into the middle of abington street (usually by the statue) and sings "travelling light" and other great songs such as that!!!
• down abington street at the weekend there are some great acts.
• the big issue seller outside m + s - either a really great ginger bloke (talk to him, he's great!) or a woman with THE best 'big issue' cry you'll ever hear.....like a frog being strangled very, very slowly....
• Watch out for the Scottish piss head who sometimes sells big issue near William Hill - he lies about being on a mission from his Godfather family in Glasgow to kill somebody in Northampton
• Postman Pat, a scruffy tramp with a nice lane in witticisms and entertaining children.
• There is a bloke in a tophat who plays everything in a reggae style but with bob dylan style vocals - got to be seen to be believed - usually in Abington Street.
• Some scruffy hippie with a knackered acoustic who's usually either drunk out of his mind on cheap, strong lager or stoned senseless, bashing out the same three songs every Saturday night in the Town Centre.
• Always loads along Abington Road especially as you walk out of the Grosvenor Centre at the New Look entrance. Its pretty annoying actually.
• those drunk men that hang about the grovners centre are pretty entertaining!!
• You can catch us every Satursday afternoon with our piece of lino and a beat box outside radio northampton, breakdancing
• I have heard stories that the guy who is always drinking from the cider bottle and always gazes into the top of it for hours at a time and then does stretches in front of the offy, allegedly called John, is in fact a street performer. Believe me this guy is great at it, he really does resemble a drunken, scruffy, manky, layabout cunt to the best extreme imaginable.
• The guy outside 'Paper Chain' that sounds like Bob Dylan...the drunk guy-once he was hit by a bus, he just got up again and walked on with his bottle! You've got to love him though- he is a permanent fixture and although he often growls at you he is an endearing figure with his bottle of White Lightning, in his piss-satined grey suit and his butt in the air. Thatr woman with the keyboard trying to raise money for her kittiekats is great, as is the grebbish homeless big issue seller outside waterstones. He is very honest- instead of asking for the price of a cuppa he actually aked for a fag. pleasant guy.
• Outside the entrance of Clock Towers is the normal place these are. It's a pain to get past them all and those leaflet-people.
• Too many. That cat woman's been there for years, but still hasn't fixed her keyboard.
• Okay, cat lady is our No.1 busker, she plays a keyboard for the Cat Protection League or somesuch. She's been doing it for years, in all weather, but doesn't get any better - just plays a backing beat and skirts around a tune very vaguely - perhaps for reasons of copyright. Give her loose change, she's earned it. Ciderman can be found anywhere between Abington and town centre. Red face, maybe bearded, optional scabs from some horrific incident the night before. At least one plastic bottle of cider (presumably) with the label torn off (very important detail). He may dance to buskers, rotate on the spot, or touch the floor. His secret identity is John. Having avoided Ciderman, keep an eye out for a tiny black man in a blazer, who will be shouting about your salvation. Make eye contact and he'll recognize you forever. He may be accompanied by gospel singers. Good for him.
• Too many - it's impossible to get down Abington St on a Saturday without being asked for money about 6,000,000 times!
• The UB40 copyist is one Alan Judd, whose capacity for learning new songs is severely restricted by his knackered short term memory. Yes, boys and girls, drugs are BAD, mmm'kay?
• The Marks and Spencers cat Lady! She rocks! As do the pan-pipers that are appearing on Abington street more and more frequently.
• The mexican dudes opposite M&S, The old woman and her keyboard, Social partys
• Para man......Think he got ran over though
• Some bloke who is fat, has a beard and sings, wearing brightly colored clothes. Mr Tumbledown Irish bloke who drinks lots of cider, then peers in the bottle touches the ground and walks in front of cars.
• I dont know about anyone else but I have always found 10p Lil to be mildly entertaining- she will perform any sexual favoour you want for a mayfair light, so i have been told!!!!
• bearded accordion player whose dog chases skateboards and the old dude calls us lot twats!!!!
• quite alot of them in gold street
• There is the coolest old woman who sits outside Marks and Spencers selling cat food and playing the keyboard. She always looks incredibly cold, plays the same three tunes and seems to live there!
• Yes.. That man on abington sqaure is called John, allways dressed up in his piss stained suit - used to guard 3 bottles of cider at once. Why does he always touch his toes outside the offy?
• BEWARE the precher man, also spotted in BHS restraunt on several occasions.
• Check out the geezer with the massive beard and hair who sings cliff richard songs he also wears thick glasses a true legend. and is that man still drinking graphite on ~Abington square?
• Look out for the guy with a Postman Pat figure stuck to his knee, playing an accordian and carrying around a wicker box of Yorkshire Terriers. He frequents Abington street and is believed to be called Tom. Fame beckons, mate!
• some weird bloke who pretends he's the guy out of UB40 frequents abington street (hey: you're famous now man)

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Last updated: 2012-01-15