Alex Reid may have caught the attention as the winner of Celebrity Big Brother on Friday, but up in Cumbria there were a whole set of very different people holed up together.

Folk singers Jez Lowe, Julie Matthews, Boo Hewerdine, Rory MacLeod and Ruth Notman were joined by poets Elvis McGonnagall and Kate Fox on the All Along The Wall Project, in which they all lived in a house together for a week writing, arranging and rehearsing brand new material before performing it all in front of a packed audience on Sunday night.

It was a week which Lowe, who plays at Croydon Folk Song Club this Monday, thoroughly enjoyed.

"It was an amazing experience," he says.

"It's quite unreal to be out of the house now having spent seven days living with these people.

"The performance was also being recorded for a CD so it was quite a task.

"We got though it though and the reaction from the audience was amazing.

"They appreciated what we had done I think and the fact we had chosen to write a lot about the Roman Wall."

Lowe is a busy man, having gone straight from Cumbria to London for the BBC Folk Awards on Monday night and then jetting out to Spain after that.

He's back on Monday though performing in Croydon, where he will showcase some of his new material after a productive year of songwriting.

"I have got a lot of new stuff this year," he says.

"I have been doing some stuff for the BBC's Radio Ballads recently so there is some original material from that.

"A lot of the time when there is political stuff going on it inspires folk writers.

"This past year it's mostly been about the state of the world.

"I feel like the political climate is about to change, though as a socialist I hope not.

"I have always written protest songs and it's good having something to kick against.

"Whenever things are going good, folk artists don't write too many songs."

Jez Lowe, Croydon Folk Song Club, Coombe Road, February 8, 8pm, £8.50. Call 020 8660 5919 or visit croydonfolksongclub.org.uk.