Author: Darren Worrow

Featured Image: Gail Foster.

Features extracts from reviews by Andy Fawthrop, Ian Diddams and Madelaine Blake.

Does it ever stop?! The weekend is upon us again. I think I might need to skip this one, not getting any younger, and besides I did enough laughing, dancing and meeting interesting people over the past fortnight, thanks to Devizes Arts Festival…..

Celebrating its fortieth anniversary The Devizes Arts Festival really was amazeballs this year, and between our dedicated team of writers we managed to cover a fair chunk of it. Which we will now look back on with a cheap shot clipshow style article, like a nineteen-seventies TV Christmas Special!

So it leaves me to thank all the volunteers at Devizes Arts Festival for such a brilliant job, and making us feel welcome. And our writers, Andy, Ian and our new writer, Madelaine Blake. Thanks also to photographer Gail Foster for her use of the NRWO gig images.

Devizes Arts Festival kicked off like dancing shoes on Friday 31st May with London’s premier salsa orchestra, Salseology. Sacha Dench’ Journeys of the Human Swan and Beatrice Nicholas was showcasing African American classical composers on the following Saturday. Unfortunately we arrived fashionably late, I was busy with Rowdefest, so apologies for missing the opening.

By Monday, Andy is first out of the starting traps, and bangs out three-in-one reviews, all writing related. The first was a new feature at Devizes Arts Festival, the Have-A-Go Workshops, this one by Bath Spa’s Steve Tuffin, of whom Andy reported, “led a very practical class on how to go about writing a personal memoir, or indeed how to approach any form of creative writing. In what could have been a dry, dusty and boring subject, Steve presented a very lively, interesting and, yes, absorbing couple of hours.”

Anthony Horowitz’s “A Life In Murder” came next, to which Andy raved. “Horowitz proved to be a loquacious and captivating raconteur. He had plenty of anecdotes and examples to give, peppering his replies with humour and witty asides.”

And Becky Grey’s “How I Became A Ghost Writer” finished the trio, which Andy called a “sandwich of literary delights.” I couldn’t convince any of our writing team into covering some Sunday walks, and Jemma Brown’s singing country workshop. Not the most energetic bunch, and if you’d hear them sing you’d be thankful!   

By Tuesday I thought I’d better get on the act, and attended a lunchtime recital with Fábio Fernandes. Being honest I didn’t expect much, I mean, it’s just a lunchtime recital, right? How wrong was I?! St Andrews was packed, and Fábio, well I called him “a virtuoso. He came to Devizes to educate as well as entertain, and he did both delightfully.”

Thursday, Andy covered photographer Nick Upton’s Behind The Lens; My Life in Wildlife Film-Making & Photography, saying, “this talk was a great sweep across Nick’s career over 40 years, and covering over 30 countries, but it illustrated not only the man’s undoubted technical and related skills, but also his obvious passion for nature, especially those projects closer to home in the UK.  These included working with hedgehogs, harvest mice, dormice and the re-introduction programmes of cranes, great bustards, otters and beavers.”

While we’re talking beavers…. ermm, I went to see the Scummy Mummies show on that very same Thursday, reporting back that “you’ve never heard so many Prosecco corks popping from the Corn Exchange. It sounded like machine-gun fire in there, aimed directly at testosterone.”

Obviously I had pre-gig reservations, but by the end, I wrote, “as a geezer, you’d be forgiven for assuming this sounds excruciating, and this was certainly my pre-concern too. For if such a format was performed by anyone other than comedy geniuses, I’d still be of that opinion, but it wasn’t. This duo have the timing of The Greenwich Time Ball, are improv masters, and unless you were a subject on Louis Theroux’s Manosphere, wherever your testosterone balance lies, you cannot escape the simple fact that the Scummy Mummies are absolutely and undeniably hilarious.”

If Andy went for the more calming option, Clare Durham and Paul Martin’s “Collecting; An Art, A Hobby Or A Compulsion?” at Wiltshire Museum, reporting it as “a very entertaining session, and another of those little gems that keep the festival running,” he soon donned his gladrags for Robert Vincent, and besides being unaware of his music, Andy called it: “The vocals were soulful, insistent, yearning. The musicianship was spot-on. The songs were meaningful, well-constructed and simply wonderful. It’s been a while since I was this impressed by a band I’d never even heard before, but I was well won over. I was already on 9/10 by half time, and a no-questions 10/10 by the time we got round to the encore.”

They let me out on Saturday, for London-based Celtic folk-punker five-piece Man the Lifeboats. At a gig unlike their usual they might’ve misjudged the crowd. I said, “Man the Lifeboats realised not to judge a book by the cover, the reward for an accomplished and lively band at Devizes Arts Festival, will be these matured attendees rising from their seated positions and gyrating to their irresistible beats like middle-age never happened; and many did, because Man the Lifeboats were stompingly outstanding!” And they were, a great night that one.

Late out to bat, Ian strode confidently to the stumps with Howzat? The Six Sixes Ball Mystery” by Graham Lloyd at Town Hall, calling it “a fascinating talk about _that_ ball, the alleged lies and repeated falsehoods, and the litany of names surrounding it all.” Glad he did that one, I’m not out for cricket.

Andy hit back with a great ball, Bob Holman’s Have A Go: Phone Photography workshop, which was “another one of those little DAF gems which gave our good citizens a chance to actually “have a go”, rather than just sit back passively and be entertained.  And this was definitely not entertainment, much more instructional in nature.”

Ian delivered on former world champion poetry slammer Harry Baker, one poem of which “brought a tear to my eye and a lump in my throat as it echoed feelings of my own for over thirty years now.”

Andy went to Swing From Paris, only to find they were actually from Gloucester and Worcester, but still, he said, “we got two highly entertaining sets of jazz, swing, waltz and gypsy rhythms mostly from the 1930s through to the 1950s, but also featuring tunes from as far back in the 1890s and forward into the 1980s.  There was plenty of humour and self-deprecation throughout as Fenner talked us through the provenance of each number.”

Next, though it was my turn again, on the comedy….

“Milton neurotically fumbles with the microphone stand, but not his wordplay. As is his bed hair, any emotional instability or self-doubt is part of the act; he has us under his spell from the off. You couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the absurdity of his thought-process. I’m now of the opinion his manipulation of language and layered humour is second to none currently in comedy. He has nearly as many relatives as jokes, each one with their own punchline funnier than the next.” That was me, I said that. I took all the prestigious gigs, and this one was utterly hilarious, Milton Jones, and Adele Cliff were so, so funny!

Just when Andy, Ian and myself  thought we had this under the thumb, in comes our new writer Maddie Blake to, not only drastically lower the age demographic of our dedicated team, but also provide us with a brilliant review of Bath artist Karen George’s sketching workshop at The White Chalk Gallery.

“What made this workshop so special,” Maddie wrote, “wasn’t just the chance to improve my drawing skills, but the atmosphere that was created within this group. Everyone appeared so eager and inviting, it was such a wonderful experience to create new friendships and share stories with those with similar interests in the arts. Despite varying levels of experience, the workshop felt accessible to everyone, and no one felt out of place. This workshop didn’t pressure you to create something ‘perfect,’ but something that captivates your enjoyment and experience of the workshop.”

Thank you, Maddie, and welcome to our exclusive and sometimes elusive writers team! So good was this review, I invited Maddie to come to the finale, Nothing Rhymes with Orange, but being I had a personal angle on this one, reporting on this finest Devizes musical output since the Hoax, I really wanted to write it myself. What a great finish to one of the best Devizes Arts Festivals yet.

“Last night proved Nothing Rhymes with Orange are at the top of their game, as they switched old with new seamlessly, and strived to become the universal name we locally knew they could from the very beginning.”

I also said, rather a lot, about the future of the Arts Festival. With a matured demographic in attendance, generally, I try to illustrate how diverse and accepting it is for all ages. The Gen Z fanbase turned out for NRWO, the elder Arts Festival regulars did too, and everyone was kind and courteous to everyone else. That is the magic of the festival, and I hope those younger took home the notion that the festival isn’t a Saga Holiday, and welcomes all!

There were obviously a few events we couldn’t cover, and I apologise to those involved for this, but we tried to capture as much as possible. It was a wonderful year at the Arts Festival, and we look forward to seeing how they might top this one!

If writing these was a competition, though it’s not, for the record, the highest hitting review was Andy’s one on Robert Vincent, followed by Andy’s three-in-one writing workshops, I made level pegging for the third best for the NRWO review, with Maddie’s sketching workshop review, then my review of Scummy Mummies pipped Milton Jones to the post for the fourth highest hitting article.

But we don’t worry about hits here; I couldn’t pick a personal favourite, oh, okay, go on then! It had to be between Milton Jones and Nothing Rhymes With Orange, of course. For Andy, who, let’s face it, did most of the hard work, picked Robert Vincent and Swing From Paris. “But I also thought the various have-a-go events were pretty good. Oh. That’s three!” 

That’s okay Andy, have three, or more. Interesting though; Arts Festival team, the workshops did prove to be a welcomed addition. Same again next year?!