WESTBURY’s fortnight long music and arts festival has been praised by organisers and those that attended the various events as people from across the local area and further afield enjoyed a rich selection of music, informative talks and some stand-up comedy.
For the first time, the festival was brought forward from its usual September timing, to take place in July.
There were 31 events in total for people to enjoy throughout the fortnight and new to this year’s line-up was a free special school’s visit by the children’s author and poet Michael Rosen that proved to be extremely popular as well as a well-loved performance by the stand-up comedian Tom Houghton who was also joined by Westbury Festival favourite The Great Baldini and Edinburgh Fringe star Tom Veck.
The Westbury Festival organisers said, “We have completed a successful Westbury Festival thanks to the amazing performances of our talented artists and the enthusiastic support from our audiences. We had a variety of acts from music to comedy, from history to cinema and from poetry to magic.
“We would like to thank the small committee of only eight for their hard work and dedication in organising this event, and our sponsors, Westbury Town Council, Bath Domestic Appliances, Platinum Motors and Heywood House for their generous contributions. Without them, this festival would not have been possible. South West Hearing Care again kindly ran a box office for us in the town and Still Sisters generously supported our finale musical event Gin and Jazz with Newland Homes helping with our publicity costs.
“We are grateful for their support and partnership. The festival finished off with a great weekend of music and comedy together with eight sold out tours of the Army Officer Selection Board led by festival supporter and friend, Andrew Field. We appreciate support from the library, Friends of Victoria Gardens, the local churches, Westbury Heritage Society and local pubs for their events.”
Speaking to White Horse News after the event at Matravers School, author Michael Rosen said, “I try to get out to all sorts of places while I can, so when I was invited to this lovely town to take part in the festivities I could hardly say no! I love doing things like this – I love that you can tell poems to people as it can feel like an anecdote or a bit like stand-up comedy, it can be all encompassing.”
Speaking after the A Bit of Fringe event at The Laverton, comedian Tom Houghton added, “It’s been an absolute delight to be part of the Westbury Festival – this has been my virgin outing to the town and it’s been a stormer. We were treated to a full house in such a beautiful building and the staff and organisers have been superb. Thank you to the crowd who turned up ready to laugh and howl- they’ve been excellent even if one of them was from Trowbridge!”
Westbury Festival chair, Ian Cunningham added, “I would particularly like to thank our committee of Nin Coles, Radek Evans, Debbie Kerfoot, Peter Hiscock, Chrissie Marshall and John Wheeler for their hard work during the festival weeks and the months leading up to the festival and especially, festival friend Leander Morales and GM3 music, who despite resistance to joining a committee, has done a huge amount of work and offered his professional insight because of his desire to support the town. We would also like to thank Brenda and Stephen Pyne who continue to support us as treasurers after leaving the committee.
“We would also like to thank anyone who displayed a poster, handed out a brochure, liked or shared our promotions on social media and, of course, anyone who bought a ticket to an event. Events like a free show from Michael Rosen for Westbury School children cannot happen with financial support. We also thank Westbury Town Council again as a principal sponsor and for the support of their team at the Laverton.
“We hope you enjoyed the Westbury Festival as much as we did. We hope that more people might like to come forward to join the committee – we always get offers of help during the festival itself for which we are grateful, but it is going to be difficult to run another festival of this type without more full-time committee members to put the festival together.”
If this is of interest, contact chair@WestburyFestival.org.uk
