He’s not what you’d typically expect to find at Worthy Farm
Glastonbury Festival 2025(Image: WireImage)
We hear all about the headliners taking to the big stages at Glastonbury, but there’s one unlikely star from last year’s festival who’s heading to Manchester next month.
Viral sensation and school teacher James B Partridge has become the UK’s most beloved bringer of school assembly nostalgia, playing his Primary School Bangers sets featuring the likes of He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands and Give Me Oil in My Lamp, to which he says the audience usually ‘starts going nuts’ to.
Following sold out shows in 2024, a field-closing Glastonbury set last summer and his Big Christmas Assembly tour, playing to tens of thousands and selling out venues up and down the country, he’s set to hit the road again.
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His most ambitious Primary School Bangers tour to date will see him perform in a handful of intimate 2026 preview shows in Coventry, Gloucester, Barnstaple and Crewe, before the main spring tour kicks off mid-March.
James B Partridge performing his Primary School Bangers set at Glastonbury 2025(Image: James B Partridge)
Tickets are already selling fast for the shows, including Manchester’s date at the Albert Hall on Monday, March 16.
Speaking before his performance in the theatre and circus fields at Glastonbury – where he also played some school disco songs from the early 2000s, including S Club’s Reach – James explained how what started as a few playful performances for his pupils grew into a nationwide phenomenon.
He said: “I teach music in primary schools and during the dark days of the lockdown I was doing online lessons and I was putting videos up for my pupils to sing along to.
“One of the first videos I put up was a video called My Top 10 Primary School Assembly Bangers – and that kind of kicked off and people kept commenting song requests and I eventually made a show out of it.”
Primary school teacher and performer James B Partridge(Image: Rebecca Johnson)
Explaining why people seem to love his shows so much, James added: “A lot of us have really fond memories of our primary school days, they’re kind of really care free, whereas now we might have a lot of worries. Just having that kind of pure innocence of the songs that you sang as children is really a great nostalgia.”
The new nationwide tour will see James ‘bring even more of the songs that defined our childhoods’ to some of the UK’s most iconic theatres and concert halls.
The audience is told to ‘expect classic school-day singalongs, heart-on-sleeve nostalgia, and the infectious joy that has made James a national favourite’.
A spokesperson said: “With recent appearances on Chris Evans’ Virgin Radio Breakfast Show, BBC Radio 2, The One Show, and Songs of Praise: The Big School Assembly Singalong, James has proven that his mix of humour, heart and harmony strikes a chord with audiences of every generation.”
For ticket prices and to book, visit the website here.
He performed a field-closing Glastonbury set last summer(Image: James B Partridge)
2026 Preview shows
- 27 Feb Coventry Warwick Arts Centre
- 28 Feb Gloucester Guildhall
- 1 Mar Barnstaple Queen’s Theatre
- 2 Mar Crewe Lyceum Theatre
Primary School Bangers Spring 2026 Tour
- 14 Mar Gateshead Glasshouse
- 15 Mar Scunthorpe Baths Hall
- 16 Mar Manchester Albert Hall
- 3 Apr Colchester Charter Hall
- 4 Apr York Barbican
- 6 Apr London Barbican
- 7 Apr King’s Lynn Corn Exchange
- 8 Apr Bury St Edmunds Apex Theatre
- 10 Apr Watford Colosseum
- 12 Apr Southampton O2 Guildhall
- 14 Apr Northampton Derngate Theatre
- 15 Apr Woking New Victoria
- 16 Apr Swansea Grand Theatre
- 18 Apr Bristol Beacon
- 19 Apr Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
- 20 Apr Blackpool Winter Gardens (Arena)
- 21 Apr Edinburgh Assembly Rooms
- 23 Apr Peterborough New Theatre
- 24 Apr Birmingham Symphony Hall
- 26 Apr Reading Hexagon