Crab & Bee's Matter of Britain
Crab & Bee's Matter of Britain is a radical retelling of British folklore - these aren't the familiar tales of medieval manuscripts, they are stories alive in place – overheard in pubs, found on village noticeboards, and whispered through the landscape itself.
Find links to buy the book below or come and see Crab & Bee perform the stories throughout May & June 2025 at the following venues...
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MANCHESTER – Sunday 4th May
Ascension church, Hulme
with Loiterers Resistance Movement
2pm – round walk
3:30pm – 5pm performances & readings
JUST TURN UP!SHEFFIELD – Monday 5th May
Airy Fairy
2pm – 8pm performances & readings
GET TICKETS HEREPLYMOUTH – Friday 9th May
37 Looe Street
Exhibition - all day
7pm – 9:30pm performances & readings
GET TICKETS HERE
CARDIFF – Monday 12th May
Llanrumney Hall
with Commonwealth Theatre
Afternoon workshops TBC
6pm – 7:30pm performances & readings
GET TICKETS HERE -
TEIGNMOUTH – Friday 16th May
@ Folk Preservation Society
Afternoon sessions TBC
6pm – 9pm performances & readings
GET TICKETS HERESTROUD – Sunday 18th May
@ Trinity Rooms
7pm – 9pm performances & readings
GET TICKETS HERESTROUD – Monday 19th May
Daytime walk & picnic
RESERVE A PLACE HERE
BIRMINGHAM – Thursday 22nd May
@ Kilder Craft Beer Bar
with Voce Books & Walkspace
7pm – 8:30pm performances & readings
GET TICKETS HERE
EXETER – 9th to 14th June
@ Devon & Exeter Institution
Exhibition
JUST TURN UP 10am – 5pm
EXETER – 14th June
@ Devon & Exeter Institution
2pm – 3:30pm performances & readings
GET TICKETS HERE -
GRASSINGTON – Sunday 22nd June
DETAILS TBC
WHITBY – Monday 23rd June
@ Jet Black Jewel
DETAILS COMING SOON
NEWCASTLE – Wednesday 25th June
@ Estate Tea Co
7pm – 11pm performances & readings
DETAILS COMING SOONWEARDALE- Friday 27th June
@ Westgate village hall
DETAILS COMING SOON
TODMORDEN – Saturday 28th June
@ The Folklore Centre
3:30pm performances & readings
DETAILS COMING SOON
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Crab & Bee's Matter of Britain: Mythlands of Albion, by Helen Billinghurst & Phil Smith
Regular price £12.00 GBPRegular priceUnit price / per -
Crab and Bee postcard bundle by Helen Billinghurst
Regular price £6.00 GBPRegular priceUnit price / per -
Crab & Bee book and postcard bundle
Regular price £16.00 GBPRegular priceUnit price / per -
Crab & Bee tour: Sheffield ticket (5th May)
Regular price From £3.00 GBPRegular priceUnit price / per -
Crab & Bee tour: Plymouth ticket (9th May)
Regular price From £3.00 GBPRegular priceUnit price / per -
Crab & Bee tour: Exeter ticket (14th June)
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Collection: Crab & Bee
Books and art by Phil Smith (Crabman) and Helen Billinghurst (Bee)
Crab & Bee is a collaboration between Helen Billinghurst, painter and walking artist, and Phil Smith, writer and performance maker. Our collaborative work reflects our shared interests in alternative cultures, ecology, folklore and walking in different landscapes. In 2019 our project Plymouth Labyrinth – an extended walking and making project with different community groups and partners across Plymouth – culminated with an exhibition at the RAAY gallery, Stonehouse.
We have given workshops in Cardiff, Huddersfield and Salford, presented papers at conferences including that of the Royal Geographical Society, and have performed a number of diagrammatical pieces at a variety of venues, from the Royal Conservatoire Scotland to the Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography. These have included A Jubilee Scrying, Life and Death Walk, Nets, Webs & Carrier Bags, Boatburn Finale, Around The Hills, Séance For Stonehouse, Leadworking, and Patterns, Diagrams and Place Stories.
Triarchy Press published our essays and poems as She Is The Sea and our book The Pattern. We have made short films for The Box and UNFIX Festival. We were co-organisers with Claire Hind of the Walking’s New Movements conference at University of Plymouth in 2019, and with Claire were editors of Walking Bodies (Triarchy Press). Helen’s solo exhibition Walking Diagrams was shown at the Roland Levinsky Building in 2019. Phil’s most recent publication is Albion’s Eco-Eerie: TV and Movies of the Haunted Generations (Temporal Boundary Press, 2024).