Rye Arts Festival (running from 15th to 30th September) is a forum for international performers, Brits with a national reputation, up and coming stars of the future and also is a showcase for talented locals.
This year, we have Rye author Frank Barnard talking about his latest novel, A Time For Heroes, just out in paperback. Meanwhile, the multi-talented Dave McKean (who talked about his work at the Festival a couple of years ago) has an exhibition at Rye Art Gallery to run in conjunction with the Festival. And John Howlett, screenwriter of the British film classic If who also spoke a couple of years ago, is about to publish his new novel.
Frank Barnard has completed a trilogy of novels about a pair of maverick RAF fighter pilots aces in WWII each set in what is today a largely overlooked theatre of the War, which gained great acclaim for their, pace and sheer readability. His new novel, A Time For Heroes, breaks new ground as it is about generations of the same family with father and son caught up in succeeding World Wars, and Rye and its locale feature heavily in the story. Frank will be talking about his work at the Festival on Wednesday 26th September at 3.00pm in The Mermaid.
Meanwhile, Dave McKean's latest exhibition, called The Blue Tree, has just opened at Rye Art Gallery, a week before the Festival officially launches on Saturday 15th September. Since speaking at the Festival Dave has spent a year working on illustrations for Richard Dawkins latest book Magic of Reality, and then a further year filming and directing The Gospel of Us, the film version of Martin Sheen's The Passion of Port Talbot.
The exhibition at RAG features work from both these projects plus a new one called The Blue Tree, which is designed to bring together the religious and scientific themes of the two very different pieces of work (and artistic mediums). Or maybe not... Anyway, well worth visiting, as entry is free, although Dave's work itself isn't!
What Dave McKean is to the visual media in terms of range, John Howlett is to the written word - screenplays for film, TV and radio plus novels. John's talk at the Rye Arts Festival a couple of years ago on the film If (base on his own boyhood experiences at Tonbridge) was a real highlight and was followed by a lively debate. Three down in his six-part Harry Cardwell series of historical novels, which follow generations of inter-linked families through the Great War, Spanish Civil War and WWII - the fourth, First Snow of Winter is to be published later this year. And, for good measure, John is also currently hard at work on writing a musical, based on the Spanish poet Lorca, who was executed by Franco's Nationalists in Spain.
The Festival runs from 15th-30th September and is packed full of events - check out the website to see what is on offer, or call the Box Office, which is open from 9.30am to 1.30pm Mondays to Saturday on 01797 224442.
For a brief visual taster of Frank Barnard's book, click here
To check out Dave McKean, click here Dave McKean
For more info on John Howlett, click here.
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