We are delighted to present another packed programme for this year’s Frome Festival. Once again, there is the broad mix of events which has come to be synonymous with the Festival. At the heart of the Festival are arts events; but walks, talks, and workshops covering a wide range of interest and activities, make up a significant proportion of what is on offer.
The Frome Festival is a true community event, involving many people from the local area, participating as performers, writers, artists, tour guides, glass blowers, gardeners and more.
Once again, we are to host some of the best artists and performers in their field, including our artist in residence, the violinist Tamsin Waley – Cohen, and Frome’s celebrated young saxophonist Josh Arcoleo. It is also a great year for comedy, with appearances by Mark Thomas, Phil Hammond, Shappi Khorsandi, Ade Edmondson and Phil Jupitus lined up. Cult figures like Ian McMillan, Hank Wangford and the North Sea Radio Orchestra appear as part of a terrific line up at Rook Lane Arts.
Rock headline act Reef and the acclaimed World Music act JuJu featuring Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara, are exciting additions to the programme at the Cheese and Grain.
Watch out too for the new adaptation of John Fowles The Collector at the Merlin Theatre; and performances all week at the Granary, the Cornerhouse, the Griffin and the Olive Tree.
This year, thanks to a generous donation of their time, by local web development group stellasoft, who designed and built it, we are launching a new look website. For the first time, the site includes fully searchable event listings. Just visit the LINE UP page under our WHAT’s ON menu or simply use the event finder in the right hand column on every page of the site.
The Frome Festival is a charitable trust, and dependent on commercial sponsorship, and a grant from Frome Town Council to survive. Our thanks go out to all our supporters, volunteers, and underpaid freelance staff for their contributions in keeping the Festival going year on year. The biggest financial contributor by far, however, is the public, who buy tickets for events.
We wish you all a great Frome Festival 2012.
Martin Dimery, Creative Director