Mananan50: Martin & Eliza Carthy

Adults £25 / Under 18s £2

The Mananan Festival, our annual celebration of the arts, will be 50 in 2026. To celebrate this incredible milestone, we shall be programming some special events throughout the year. When Eliza played here in 2024, she was adamant that we should bring her dad here too. We can’t think of a better occasion!

Martin Carthy is a legendary ballad singer and guitarist who has influenced generations of artists, including Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, while Eliza has been twice-nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and is a multiple-award winner at the BBC Radio Two Folk awards.

In recognition of his illustrious career, Martin was recently shortlisted for the 2025 Mercury Price for his wonderful new solo record Transform Me Then Into A Fish. This album both marks his 84th birthday in May 2025, and offers a full circle moment in his music journey as he revisits material from his very first (eponymous) solo record released in 1965.

A sold out, celebratory Life & Songs Of Martin Carthy concert in autumn 2025 saw folk music’s best loved figure being honoured by a stellar line-up of artists marking every era from his musical career, from Billy Bragg and Graham Coxson to Angeline Morrison. He also received video messages and accolades from Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Robert Plant, Paul Weller, KT Tunstall, Jools Holland, Joe Boyd and more. Martin is one in a million, and it was glorious to see him feel the love and appreciation for him and his profound influence on so many musicians.

Eliza has also been in the studio, upon the occasion of her fiftieth birthday, recording entirely new material for her new project Frenemies, which will be released in 2026. This represents the next stage in Eliza’s original songwriting and will feature many musicians from outside the folk scene with whom Eliza has been lucky enough to work.

This powerhouse pair are still making music together, as they always have. Together, they perform an eclectic range of songs and tunes from their vast family repertoire, drawing from the traditional canon as well as selections from a more contemporary songbook. In this duo format, each artist showcases their unique individual musical talents, as well as highlighting their symbiotic bond, with instinctive and sensitive arrangements and accompaniment for each other.