Corsham festival fun a fitting end to showcase (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Corsham festival fun a fitting end to showcase

9:28am Tuesday 19th June 2012 in Corsham

Hundreds of families came to Corsham to enjoy the annual summer arts festival at the weekend.

Corsham Summer Festival, now in its 12th year, saw a variety of free exhibitions, workshops and performances in the town, beginning on Thursday and coming to a close with a family fun day at The Pound, in Pound Pill, on Sunday.

Among the highlights were the events taking place in the High Street on Saturday afternoon when mime artist Jason Maverick, Bootworks Theatre and drama group Two Destination Language performed.

The festival also had a tasty side dish on Saturday as Transition Community Corsham’s second food and drink festival also took place in the High Street.

Martin Campbell, from The Pound, said: “We had a good few hundred people. It was a wonderful day which wasn’t affected by any bad weather.”

This year’s festival saw Michael Cainen become programme manager taking on some of the work of the former artistic director of the festival Nicholas Keyworth, who left the position after last year’s festival to become chief examiner of music at Trinity College London.

Mr Cainen said: “It was nice to make the event a bit different, allowing lots of people to enjoy the festival for free and we are certainly keen to build on this success next year.”

Mr Cainen said his personal highlight of the festival was Sunday’s family fun day in The Pound which saw around 400 people visit the arts centre to enjoy a screening of the film A Cat in Paris, take part in craft workshops and listen to music by pupils from Corsham School.

Mr Cainen said: “The family fun day was great as it brought so many young people together to enjoy the arts and I think that was a major success of this year.

“I just want to thank everyone who was involved with the festival or attended any of our events and we are looking to make the summer festival even better next year.”