A VILLAGE'S popular free-to-enter arts festival made its welcome return this week “after two years of restrictions and cancellations” caused by the pandemic.
Wedmore Arts Festival began on Saturday, May 7 and will run until Saturday, May 14 in The Barn at Leburne House (opposite Hector's Farm Shop).
Featured works are by Paul Thirkell, a Royal Academy Schools-trained figurative painter living in Wedmore, and Terence Winston-Fletcher, an artist printmaker from Bristol and Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers.
The festival kicked off with a ballet showcase by local young ballerina Innes Oliver and the Birmingham Royal Ballet's Jonathan Payne, who “took the audience on a fascinating tour of ‘a day in the life of a dancer’” with audience participation encouraged.
A spokesperson for the festival said: “Wedmore Arts Festival is dedicated to supporting young talent, and Innes is one of our beneficiaries.
“The festival goes on all week with poetry, live music, theatre, talks and comedy.”
Events featured this week include a one-man play by Jack Abbot, who will perform Divorced, Beheaded, Died; stand-up comedy from Mock the Week and Live at the Apollo panellist Ivo Graham, and a 19th-century singalong with the Old Time Sailors Association.
Wedmore Arts Festival first ran in 2000 and aims to give local people access to high-profile performers not normally associated with village events and provide a platform for local talent.
For more information, visit wedmoreartsfestival.co.uk.
Gallery: Wedmore Arts Festival 2022
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here