Nicki Chapman
- Nicki Chapman to open 57th Bedford Park Festival on Saturday June 10th
- Tickets now on sale for Festival events including Hilary Benn MP,
author Marina Warner, film organist Roger Sayer and Very Annie Mary.
TV and radio presenter Nicki Chapman will open the 57th Bedford Park Festival next month, at its opening Green Days weekend on Saturday June 10th. The BBC Radio 2, RHS Chelsea Flower Show and Escape To The Country star has lived in Chiswick for many years.
Other Festival highlights will include an interview with the Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, former Shadow Foreign Secretary, a distinguished elder statesman of the Labour Party and, like Nicki, a longstanding Chiswick resident. There’ll also be a Poetry Evening celebration of Chiswick’s Nobel Prize-winning poet WB Yeats, with guest speaker Marina Warner, whose son Conrad Shawcross RA created the Enwrought Light sculpture in memory of Yeats.
Arts and social events include a screening of the musical comedy film Very Annie Mary, starring Jonathan Pryce, Ruth Madoc and Joanna Page; a wine tasting with international wine judge, writer and broadcaster David Kermode (‘Mr Vinosaurus’) of ITV’s This Morning; and an Edinburgh Festival Preview - Alison Skilbeck’s Uncommon Ground, a play about six wildly different people.
On the musical side, international film organist Roger Sayer will give a recital on the acclaimed organ in St Michael & All Angels Church ahead of his Hans Zimmer Live Tour performance at the O2. Festival favourite David Juritz, violin, will lead a Baroque concert - Towards the Goldberg Variations - with equally celebrated musicians Craig Ogden, guitar, and Adrian Bradbury, cello. Another Chiswick favourite, soprano Milly Forrest, will present an early evening concert aimed at families, featuring highlights from The Marriage of Figaro with soloists from the Royal Opera House and English National Opera.
And children and their parents will also enjoy Maximus the Mouse, the beautifully illustrated follow-up book to Frederick the Fox by Chiswick’s Lisa Read and her sister, author Kim Ansell, who will be presenting an interactive book reading and colouring activity.
Green Days and opening Festival weekend (Friday June 9th to Sunday 11th 2023)
The Festival begins on Friday June 9th with a lunchtime organ recital by Roger Sayer. He was the organ soloist for Zimmer's Oscar-nominated score for the motion picture Interstellar and went on to perform the work live with the composer at the Royal Albert Hall, attended by Christopher Nolan, Jessica Chastain, Professor Brian Cox and Professor Stephen Hawking.
On Friday evening, at 6.45pm in the church, it’s the preview party for the annual Bedford Park Summer Exhibition and Bedford Park Photographic Exhibition, which run throughout Green Days weekend in the church and parish hall. Local artists and photographers can now enter their works for both exhibitions via the Festival website www.bedfordparkfestival.org.
Nicki Chapman will open the Festival at 11am on Saturday June 10th 2023 on Acton Green, opposite Turnham Green tube station, and then judge the children’s fancy dress competition - this year on the theme of ‘Chiswick’. Thousands of people flock to Green Days each year for its mix of live music, funfair, food and drink, children’s corner, five-a-side football and array of stalls, from craft exhibitors and books to plants and bric-a-brac.
The two-day Green Days Fete & Craft Fair is the opening weekend of the Bedford Park Festival, ‘Chiswick’s Favourite Fortnight’, the annual arts and community Festival organised by St Michael & All Angels Church, Bedford Park. Among other highlights, we'll be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Bedford Park Open Gardens (1983-2023), the 50th anniversary of Artists at Home (1973-2023) and the Centenary of WB Yeats' Nobel Prize for Literature (1923-2023).
From the opening party to the Festival Mass and Bedford Park Open Gardens on the final Sunday June 25th, there is a stimulating array of concerts, talks, walks and drama, with something for everyone, whatever their age or taste, in aid of charities and the church.
Profits will support St Michael & All Angels Church, which runs the festival for the community, and its three 2023 charities: The Upper Room, helping the needy in Shepherd’s Bush; Swinfen Telemedicine, which links specialist medical expertise to doctors and nurses in remote regions of the world; and Crosslight Chiswick,its newest charity, which provides face-to-face debt advice, together with money education and budgeting support to individuals and families in need. https://www.bedfordparkfestival.org/s/17/charities
See updates on social media. Read the full Festival programme and book tickets at www.bedfordparkfestival.org.
More info from Torin Douglas - torindouglas@gmail.com. 07860 422992
May 12th 2023
