Following the success of a 44-date tour across the UK and Europe, Bridport-born musician Douglas Dare is returning to where it all began.

The former Sir John Colfox Academy student will be holding a homecoming gig at St Peter's Church in Eype on Friday, February 3, performing music from his latest album 'Milkteeth'.

This is a conceptual album on the theme of childhood memories, and explores the experience of a his early years growing up on a West Dorset farm, surrounded by land, animals and extended family, yet feeling a sense of 'otherness'. 

Album highlight, 'Red Arrows', is sung in a familiar nursery-rhyme like round and flips an otherwise unsettling childhood memory into a joyous recollection of the Red Arrow planes flying over Denhay Hill, near the family farm in Broadoak.

Douglas has been touring across the UK, Europe and US for over eight years, selling out venues and performing at festivals but has not, until now, returned to play a headline show in his hometown. 

Having been educated at Symondsbury Primary School, Beaminster School and the Sir John Colfox Academy, he left Bridport in 2008 to study at the prestigious Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, which culminated in a one-to-one songwriting session with Sir Paul McCartney.

Encouraged by his success in Liverpool, Dare quickly attracted the attention of London-based record label Erased Tapes. It was here that Douglas met and ultimately collaborated with label mates Nils Frahm and Broadchurch composer, Olafur Arnalds. 

He went on to release his debut album 'Whelm' in 2014 to critical acclaim. A regular on BBC Radio 6, Douglas has been named for 'Album of the Day' twice with both his second album 'Aforger' in 2017 and 'Milkteeth' in 2020. 

In 2017 he was asked to contribute a re-interpretation of 'Dance Me To The End Of Love' to the Leonard Cohen exhibition 'A Crack In Everything', at the Contemporary Art Museum of Montréal, which went on to show at The Jewish Museum in New York before opening at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco in September 2020.

He was invited by Robert Smith to perform at his Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre in 2018, followed by the David Lynch-curated Manchester International Festival alongside Anna Calvi in 2019.

Unable to tour during the pandemic, Douglas turned his hand to composition with his music featured on both BBC and Netflix dramas, and even lent his voice to Disney's post-pandemic television advert singing 'Someday My Prince Will Come'. 

He will be performing at St Peter's Church in Eype, near Bridport, on Friday, February 3 from 7.30pm. Tickets are available at douglasdare.com/live