Tonbridge Arts Festival update....

Organising of the very first Tonbridge Arts Festival is moving on at a pace. I'll declare my interest in this early on as having been involved in the drive to make it happen at the concept stage and, more recently, sitting on the literary sub committee of the festival, so there you go. I didn't read it but I heard that the Courier ran a piece about it in last Fridays issue of the paper. You can read about it here on the This Is Kent site if you wish. Suffice it to say that it'll be worth being around for ten days in October (15-24th) as there'll be lots of arty things going on if you like that sort of thing. A big name author is being sought and I have approached Anthony Horowitz (who happens to be a mate of mine. Ok a twitter mate but a mate nonetheless!) Also being approached are Ian Rankin, Victoria Hislop, Carol Ann Duffy, Jools Holland and the Rolling Stones. Alright I made the last one up just to see if you're still paying attention! The commedian, Arthur Smith (of Grumpy Old Men fame) has signed up I think as a patron of the festival already and they'll be lots more to follow. Many venues around the town are being considered including West Kent College's new theatre (which we are assured will be finished by then!) Tonbridge School's many facilities, Angel Centre, libraries, Castle, Adult Ed Centre and the pubs and restaurants of the town. Personally I think that we need a focal point, such as a marquee on the Castle lawn, but that looks to be a bit too ambitious for the first year's festival, we'll wait and see. The most eye catching idea so far, and the most reported, is the possibility of having a Tonbridge Plinth (that was my idea so I would say that) somewhere around the Bridge/Water Gate which would, rather like the Trafalgar Square effort, run continuously throughout the festival and would-be artists, poets, entertainers, musicians, dancers, show offs, advertsers and just plain strange people could have their hour of fame. Get involved if you can but at the very least put the dates in your diary. Come on how often does Tonbridge host something as big as this?!..