Fowey Festival 2016 – round up
Everyone agrees that the 2016 Fowey Festival of Arts and Literature has been a huge success. Brenda Daly, the festival director, produced and excellent programme with such a varied content that everyone found events that they could enjoy. Many people have said that it was the best festival yet and it was noticeable that more local people attended events this year than ever before. This is really important because it is a festival for the people of Fowey as well as for all the visitors that it brings into the town.
The festival director is the only paid member of staff and all the hard work that goes into producing the Fowey Festival is carried out by the trustees, stewards and many other people, who are all volunteers, tirelessly working so that we can all enjoy this special time in Fowey.
This year’s highlights included the various Daphne du Maurier events, which mainly took place on 13th May, Daphne’s birthday and as such an important day on the festival calendar. Also very well received were the music events and workshops, including the Bookshop Band, Andy Virr’s singing workshop and the St Austell Town Brass Band and the Fowey River Singers concert. Celebrity names, politicians and broadcasters spoke on a variety of subjects, often to large audiences in the parish church, authors told us about the act of writing as well as about the books they have actually written, and there was an interesting range of guided walks and tours. The Art Trail gets better each year and was a very popular part of this year’s festival.
Veronica Henry talking about her new book How to Find Love in a Book Shop
Al Trenary presenting his talk and tour on the history of St. Fimbarrus Church
Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik with Helen Taylor talking about European du Maurier
If anyone would like to make any comments about this year’s festival, or even write a review, your contributions would be very welcome. You can either contact the Fowey Festival direct (contact details are on their website), you can put a message on the Daphne du Maurier website forum, one message has already been entered there and you can continue that string or start your own, or you can e-mail us at info@dumaurier.org and I will pass your comments on to the festival board.
The dates of next year’s Fowey Festival of Arts and Literature will be announced very soon.