Last year we awarded our ThreeWeeks Brighton Festival Editors’ Award to Jane Bom-Bane and Nick Pynn, not because they have provided us with some of our favourite shows at both the Edinburgh and Brighton fringes over the years, though they have, but for their imaginative and then still quite new Brighton café and venue Bom-Bane’s, which hosted some great shows during last year’s Festival. This year the café plays host to Nick’s always recommended Box of Acoustic Delights, which will contain some very special guests, plus something called Bom-Bane’s: The Musical. To give you the heads-up, we tracked down both Jane and Nick and questioned them…

ThreeWeeks: So, tell us about Bom-Bane’s: The Musical. What can we expect?

Jane Bom-Bane: A typical Bom-Bane’s three-course meal with new songs and music that belong to the evening. And a surprise or two.

TW: And what will be in the Box of Acoustic Delights this year? Who is joining Nick?

Nick Pynn: Three nights of improvisation (because I hate rehearsing) with special guests. The “god of hellfire” Arthur Brown is flying in from Portugal. Electric cello improv genius Bela Emerson next, then the legendary pedal-steel guitar wizard BJ Cole. On the last night I will perform ‘one I prepared earlier’.

JB: I can tell you that you won’t ever hear more exciting music.

TW: Going back a bit; how did you both get into music making?

JB: Singing madrigals round an old harmonium at Catholic Girls’ School in Coventry, then singing 60s pop songs to a nylon stringed guitar in folk clubs and singing into a microphone with local 2-Tone band, The Swinging Cats.

NP: I started by feigning dizziness to get out of going to school. Then I’d play music all day whilst electrifying mandolins I’d plug into the hi-fi. Twenty five years later as a professional fiddler for hire I went to the Edinburgh Festival with The Life & Death Orchestra to accompany holocaust poems, then walked into a job with comedian Rich Hall. That was when I read a review in the paper about Jane Bom-Bane, so I went to see her show. The rest, as they say...

TW: Remind us how the café came into being. And how are you finding the catering business?

JB: I wanted our own venue where I could park my harmoniums and mechanical hats and perhaps serve teas and coffees upstairs. The café and restaurant have taken on a life of their own and grown out of the talented people who work here. I’m still at the lower end of a very steep learning curve in the catering business. It’s a bonus when Nick’s at home; he’s dab hand at mixing cocktails and mending things...

NP: I hide upstairs.

TW: Describe the Bom-Bane’s cafe to those who have never been there before.

JB: You can eat delicious home-made food from a mechanical table upstairs or in a cosy nook downstairs. On certain nights, you can watch a variety of music, poetry, puppetry etc. And we sometimes sing an impromptu song or two at weekends when everyone has been served their main course. We are a café in the day and more of a restaurant at night. If you’re lucky, Nick will be around and lured down to astound you with a birthday tune.

TW: What other projects have you got on the horizon? Are you doing Edinburgh this year?

NP: I’m doing Edinburgh. It’ll be my 11th year, so I’ll have caught up with Jane.

JB: I’d like to develop the musical idea for the café. I won’t be doing Edinburgh this year, which is a shame, but I just don’t have the time. Maybe next year, though.

TW: Jane; we love your hats, how long does it take to make them and do they ever make you wobble?

JB: Thanks. My hats do take a long time to make, and last year’s hat, the Einstein Hat, is very high and certainly makes my head wobble (and my chin, I’m sure). I have to sit on a tiny low stool when I wear it downstairs in the cafe, to clear the ceiling.

TW: Describe Bom-Bane’s in three words.

JB: Bombanic, mate, innit?

Bom-Bane’s: The Musical, Bom-Bane’s, 15, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31 May, 7:30pm (9:30pm), £25 (includes meal), fpp33

Nick Pynn’s Box of Acoustic Delights, Bom-Bane’s, 7, 8, 9, 10 May, 8:00pm (10:15pm), £8.50 (£7.00), fpp35

Jane Bom-Bane and Nick Pynn were awarded a ThreeWeeks Editors’ Award at the Latest Festival Awards at the end of Brighton Festival 2007.