Festival a success

THE Uckfield Festival has been hailed a great success overall with exciting spin offs already being planned. But there were also disappointments for the organisers who are now reviewing its content and format for the future.

Chairman of the organising committee, Cathy Corbin, was delighted with the launch day with overwhelming interest in the Sci-Circus in the big top and 70 different organisations represented on the Luxford Field.

She was pleased too with the rousing finale on Sunday provided by the Imperial Male Voice Choir at St Philip's Church with many people requesting a return visit by the singers next year.

Other successes included street theatre, guided walks, the talent contest, the silent movie, the poetry festival, chamber music at the United Reformed Church and the festival club run in the Luxford lounge every evening.

Jazz

A jazz night at the Pizza Express restaurant was so successful that manager Hamish Blackman is thinking of holding one every month in future.

And the Battle of Bands competition inspired a group of people to get together to work to set up a youth music project in town.

But Mrs Corbin was bitterly disappointed that only small audiences turned out to see the Legend of Lake Wood involving a full tango band and a cast of 15 local people coached by Theatre Nomad. 'Everybody said how marvellous it was, how completely different it was from what they expected. We just didn't get the audiences. There were 25 people for the first performance and 35 for the second.'

Mrs Corbin was also disappointed that more people didn't turn out for the jazz/rock night at the Cinque Ports Club which was included in the Guardian listings magazine as one of the top four jazz events in the country for that week.

'Perhaps people didn't recognise the names but Ray Russell is one of the top guitarists in the world and Mo Foster and Ralph Salmins both accompany Sting. It was an amazing evening and one that people shouldn't have missed.'

There was also a low turnout for the Rude Mechanical Theatre Company's performance, and a theatre event, Court in the Act, at the Civic Centre

'The festival is beginning to establish itself, we did have a lot more people attending events and people are looking out to see what we are doing, but we still haven't got it quite right. We need people to come forward and help us more and we do need to get more support from different groups in the community,' said Mrs Corbin.

There was concern about whether the festival was too long to sustain the level of support needed and there were queries about whether a community theatre event like the Legend of Lake Wood would be better done at a different time of year.

Ending on a high note: Page 9