>A place for re-discovering the things which make us what we are. For finding the stuff which is often lost, sometimes forgotten – but always welcomed back.

Down the Back of the Sofa is a special place in our memories. It will be created in the big bar on the 4th floor (Blue Side) of the Royal Festival Hall, using museum artefacts, charity shop treasures and a little bit of mischief.

Featuring a specially built set from our inglorious domestic pasts courtesy of Derby Museum; a line-up of surprise guest DJs; Shakespearean Insult Swingball with 1623 Theatre Company; Charity Shop DJ’s Unlucky Dip; Maison Foo’s Memory Gathering Librarians; comics under the bed, and the legendary Choose Your Cheese club nights.

Down the Back of the Sofa: “Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve lost til you find it”

Artefact or Bric-a-brac from Pixelat3d on Vimeo.

Charity Shop DJ Ponders the Nature of Value

Artefact or Bric a Brac? Charity Shop or Museum?

Charity Shop DJ will be looking at how and why we value things.

Join us Down the Back of the Sofa at the Vintage Festival. 29-31 July 2011

Charity Shop DJ at the Vintage Festival 2011

Down the Back of the Sofa is a space created using stuff from Derbyshire charity shops mixed with objects, artefacts and oddities from Derby Museums extensive store. The objects - which tell a familiar story - have all been donated to Derby Museums and this is the first time they’ve been on public display.

Down the Back of the Sofa is a special place in our memories - timeline 1981 We’re here to explore those memories, and to celebrate the story of our everyday lives.

Down the Back of the Sofa is generously supported by the Museums Association Effective Collections Programme

Welcoming the Madness That is Maison Foo

Ever fancied a good fettle trough a Librarian's drawers?!!!

Well, if the answer's yes then you're in for a treat as Maison Foo's Mobile Library will be docking in for the weekend at the Vintage Festival.

The Librarians will be appearing cyber style to collect your memories. So come and see them 'Down the Back of the Sofa', have a good old fettle through their memory filled drawers and add your own to the collection!

Also Featuring

Shakespearean Insult Swingball

Thou roguish hedge-born maggot-pie! Thou wayward onion-eyed strumpet! Thou spongy toad-spotted horn-beast! Thou tottering hell-hated barnacle….

Join 1623 Theatre Company for some fun and games with knobs on.

1623 revive the well-loved family game of the 70s whilst indulging in some choice Shakespearean mud-slinging.

Performed by 1623 of Derby, an award-winning theatre company that's all about seeing Shakespeare differently. This is the British premier of their Swingball show.

Vinyl Distractions with Kate Wildblood and Queen Josephine

Charity Shop DJ has the pleasure of welcoming cult DJs Kate Wildblood and Queen Josephine Down the back of the sofa. Yes the sofa.

All those moments of glorious musical history too uncool to raise a fortune on Ebay or grace the latest Guilty Pleasures compilation. The tunes you discover in charity shops, the collections of the dearly departed or the heartless digital switchover. The tunes that soundtracked a life passed over to eternal shelf life.

Well no more. Charity Shop DJ will provide the Vintage festival goers with a taste of Britain the style gurus would rather forget. Kate and Queenie will be playing an exclusive influences and memories set, delivering tunes that have made them the DJs they are today.

And as they began the hunt for the perfect playlist the influence was more than the funk and disco that deliver the wonder that is house. It’s so much more. The tunes that opened doors to sexuality, escape and love. The tunes we somehow know every single bloody word too. The Radio 2 soundtrack that accompanied the hot summers of the 1970s, the tunes we fell in and out of love to.

The tunes that made us the people we are.

Join Kate and her Majesty on Friday night 6-8pm

The Five Minute Curator

Ever wondered what it would be like to create your own exhibition? Share your own stories and explore your own past?

It's your chance to tell us (to tell everyone) what you think about things, your memories, your loves and hates and your opinions of the stuff that we have brought together from the Derby Museum collection and from charity shops in Derbyshire.

Much of this has never been displayed before.

Take a bunch of labels and a pen and go and explore, write your labels, record your memories ..

The Five Minute Curator is Brought to you by Derby Museums

"Put on your Sunday clothes When you feel down and out,

Strut down the street and have your picture took.

Dressed like a dream your spirits seem to turn about

That Sunday shine is a certain sign

That you feel as fine as you look

Get out your feathers, your patent leathers Your beads and buckles and bows

For there's no blue Monday in your Sunday

No Monday in your Sunday clothes"

Visit Pixelat3d in their photo booth. Re-anact your favourite album. Pose with your vinyl of choice. Join our Gallery!

The Unlucky Dip

It's Everything you Never Wanted - and Worse ..

Dip for the unexpected and transform it into your own work of art.

With visual artist Ola Wilson

Choose Your Cheese

The B-side of Vintage, from 8 pm every night.

Join us for the legendary club nights where you decide what’s played.

With resident DJs Dr Matt, Mistah Toe and Charity Shop DJ, plus some very special guests………

Music courtesy of the nation’s charity shops. Our Secret Histories

Dancing on the Podium of Non-Judge-Mentalism.

A pop-tastic party hit at Vintage 2010 – and back by popular demand!

“ 20-somethings in dayglo shellsuits, 40-somethings in mini-skirts and 30-somethings in tweeds with pipes all doing the Black Bottom together….. this is Westworld with a happy ending “ Mike Flowers of the Mike Flowers Pops

“one of the most fun nights I've had out in ages. Totally ego free.” Leigh Maclea. Vintage party goer 2010

Charity Shop DJ from Pixelat3d on Vimeo.

Click here to have a gander at the Vintage website

Click here to see full line-up and to download the Vintage programme