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There were very good attendances at most Festival events this year, from the opening Summer Exhibition party, which filled the church, to the End of The Pier Show on the final Saturday night, which had dozens of people spilling outside in the interval to eat their fish and chips.
But this fortnight is about participating and performing, as well as packing people in – and the 2006 Festival was a great success artistically as well as in audience terms. More than 200 pictures were submitted for the Art Exhibition and another 200 for the Photographic Exhibition, many of the highest quality. Two dozen people read – and in some cases wrote – poems for the poetry evening. Nearly 30 children and teenagers took part in Pop Idol on the Green and another 30 performed in the Junior Choir musical, Wind in the Willows.
Indeed, there was a real injection of youth this year, most notably on the Friday night jazz evening, re-invented after a year's absence, under the title Two Generation Jazz. Bass-player and Radio 3 presenter Sandy Burnett returned with his highly talented and experienced jazz quartet – guitarist Phil Lee, saxophonist Martin Hathaway and pianist Craig Milverton.
And as a warm-up act, they had the seven-piece Twyford Jazz Band from Twyford Church of England School, who delighted (and surprised) everyone with their highly accomplished and confident performance. At the end, Sandy welcomed the young band back to join in a final number and it proved a terrific finale to a wonderful evening. As Father Kevin remarked, there was a genuine – almost spiritual - feeling of bringing on the next generation, and it was great that there was such a good audience to enjoy it.
There was a similar atmosphere at the two performances of Wind In The Willows. This was a highly entertaining production, with haunting songs and witty lyrics by Roger McGough, prompting lots of laughs from a very responsive audience. It was enhanced by great costumes, imaginative makeup, and wonderful sets and props created by the parents.
Ellie Douglas was a charming Mole, waking up to the delights and dangers of life above ground, while Joe Halford played the reluctantly heroic Ratty with great confidence, rowing his new friend round the church in a stylish-looking boat. Maisie Preston was an irrepressible Toad, arriving on a pogo stick and graduating to a canary-coloured caravan and an elegant car with huge headlights. Helena Bickley was a magisterial Badger and the leather-clad weasels and stoats were suitably sinister.
Much of the credit must go to the young director and music director Sarah McDowall, who coaxed great performances from the junior choir, and the even-younger choreographer Harriet Preston, who was herself in the junior choir just three years ago.
The following Saturday, Harriet was performing with great aplomb in The End of the Pier Show, singing Broadway Baby and Cabaret. In a revival of the traditional Victorian evening, complete with fish-and-chip supper and lots of audience participation, Father Kevin Morris and baritone Ian Belsey entertained a packed Parish Hall with songs from Gilbert and Sullivan and other musical shows.
They were ably supported by Father Graham Morgan and the three little maids – Miriam Morris, Anne Mower and Vicky Brooke, in full Japanese costume and make-up. The production was kept on the road by the unflappable and indefatigable Phoebe Woollam on the piano.
There was a remarkable virtuoso performance from the Serbian classical accordionist Milos Milivojevic in a lunchtime concert at Rosalind Leney's studio in Blenheim Road. It was followed by a picnic in the garden – and once again the sun shone! The following week, there was another fine recital in the studio by Michelle Carte, violin, and Anthea Fry, piano,as well as a concert by Miss Leney's own pupils. There was also a fine House Concert in Woodstock Road, hosted by Louise and Patrick Grattan – and another fine Bedford Park house was the venue for a highly enjoyable wine-tasting and buffet, led by Duncan Ousley and hosted by Jane and Kenny McKenzie.
As well as the annual Bach Cantatas concert, led by Sandy Burnett, there was also a Feast of Mozart to mark that composer's 250th anniversary. First there was a concert of the highest quality from David Juritz, the leader of the London Mozart Players, and fellow-musicians of equal stature – followed by a wonderful supper in the Michael Room. Then, on the final Sunday, Mozart's Coronation Mass was superbly performed by the Festival Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by St Michael's director of music Dan Webb.
Aside from the music, the poetry evening – on the theme Poems for All Seasons – once again proved highly popular, with John Rowe reading from John Betjeman to mark the centenary of the man who was the first patron of the Bedford Park Festival.
One of the real Festival highlights this year was the film night in which John Madden, director of Shakespeare In Love, Mrs Brown and Captain Corelli's Mandolin, talked about his work and career, illustrating it with clips. He was funny and charming – as far removed from the traditional idea of a Hollywood director as it's possible to be – and he was well interviewed by another distinguished Bedford Park director, Simon Curtis. The evening was enhanced by a champagne reception provided by High Road House, the new Chiswick off-shoot of Soho House.
The final weekend brought the festival to a fitting close. Not just the End of the Pier Show and the Festival Mass, but the Photographic Exhibition, once again opened by portrait photographer Vibeke Dahl. And the sun continued to shine for the Festival Mass lunch in the Vicarage garden and the Bedford Park Open Gardens, complete with cream teas on the lawn outside the Parish Hall!
Wind in the Willows photos by Dianna Bonner
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