IMAGE CREDIT: Jan Barron, Bay Hotel, 2015
The pilot Pevensey Arts and Literature festival, billed to take place in the summer of 2018 is busy looking to anchor down key venues in the locality that will play host to the small festival.
“Four Workshops and a Fanfare” aims to tap into the artistic and literary heritage that sits here just underneath the rich soil of the locality.
Christina Rossetti picnicked as a child in the grounds of Pevensey castle. C.S Lewis reveals in book two of his world classic childrens series of books about Narnia that the family name in the five titles, is the High Norman spelling of Pevensie.
Kipling in Puck of Pook’s Hill makes the Eastern Gate of Pevensey Castle, ‘England’s Gate’ and in Pevensey Bay, three roads are dedicated to the names of significant members of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
Organisers point out that in relation to the Goons Show, there are rich pickings here with the literary heritage. The show is littered with references to Pevensey and the Bay and one famous episode, ‘The Pevensey Bay Disaster” even has the name in the title.
The episode, which had to be postponed for broadcast because of a real train crash in Kent on the same day, was broadcast nine days later.
Both Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan were here in the early to to mid-fifties, taking a break from the gruelling live schedule of the Goon Show which was written and performed weekly.
Organisers are relatively sure that both Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers would have visited the Bay Hotel and are busy studying diaries and biographies to see if the Bay Hotel gets any honourable mentions.
The Ethel Wood Centre is named after community activist Ethel Wood, she was cleaner to Peter Sellers when he holidayed here in Beachlands.
Organisers of the pilot festival, which includes key figures that developed the Dickens Festival held at Christmas 2015 in Pevensey, see the Bay Hotel as being a perfect setting for the Goons workshop and talk for the pilot festival in 2018..
“We think the Bay Hotel would be perfect for the workshop, which will be led by a national figure linked to the Goon Show, with all the quirky glorious spirit of Pevensey Bay in evidence in abundance”, commented the team.
“We also see a renewed vigour in the new management of Karen Hudson at ths Bay Hotel. She has an understanding of what the essence of Pevensey Bay is all about with regard to promotions, so we are hoping that the Goon Show element of the pilot festival, sited in the Bay Hotel, is going to be a winner.
TIckets to the pilot festival, with the input of Wealden Council, elements of Pevensey Parish Council, and two national arts organisations go on sale Easter 2018, with options to attend single talks or a three day ticket which will include all the talks and local accommodation to suit.
The idea, organisers say “is to get a little mix of experts from across the country in their field, bring them to Pevensey and the Bay, where national writers are known to have had a connection, create a buzz and enable residents and visitors to enjoy the series of workshops, talks and events that capture something of the spirit of Pevensey and the Bay.
“Nationally known writers and artists have lived and worked here for over 200 years, we want to see their contributions noted in the form of a festival, there is something rich in the soil here, that is why they came”
Organisters say that they hope the mix will also create a buzz for visitors as well ‘as Kipling fans mixing with Christina Rossetti fans and Goons fans mixing with Narnia nuts”.
Organisers are aiming at a low price tag threshold of £8:00 for each of the five talks, with a day-stay ticket for all three nights that will include accommodation to suit.
They say :”if we get 100 people to the first pilot festival, we will be pleased and the festival could then move to an annual status maybe”.
The central point for reference with the pilot festival is to be the Royal Oak and Castle Inn, in Pevensey, which has already tapped into rich literary history with a performance by nationally acclaimed actor, Nicolas Collett playing Shakespeare in “Your Bard” which was presented in the round in the public house to a sell-out audience in 2017.
Organisers say tha the ‘fanfare’ final element of the pilot festival is to be a dedication to the Peveney Pageant of 1908, which saw over 25,000 people coming to the event, with a talk to be given about the original manuscripts, billings and reports and pricings of the Pageant which have been discovered in a national archive.
The Bay Hotel workshop and talk about the Goon Show as part of the pilot Pevensey Arts and Literatrure will be an all day event in the heart of the quirky original grand dame of the public house and hotel. There will be a single ticket to the event as well as a day-stay ticket for three nights that will include accommodation at the Bay Hotel.
Organisers are hoping to attract a national figure with links to the Goon Show to host the talk that will be part of the pilot festival at the Bay Hotel.
