Picnic and jazz finale as Festival celebrates triumphant return
upbeat atmosphere, lifted by patches of warm sunshine, helped to draw a musical close to the Ashbourne Festival with a return of the popular Picnic in the Park on Sunday.
The event filled Ashbourne’s Memorial Gardens with visitors who rolled out the rugs and sat back to enjoy the musical accompaniment of the Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra.
It marked an end of what had been a long-awaited return of the town’s fortnight of fun, put together by an army of volunteers who assemble some of the best artists, performers, speakers and musicians for a summer event that has finally been able to bounce back from the pandemic.
From poetry to pottery, from Abba to Adam Henson, and from comedy to the Cosmos, this year’s array of speakers, exhibitions, performances and shows was seen by organisers as a steady rekindling of a festival that has suffered with two years of pandemic pressures.
Organiser Tim Challans said: “This year’s programme was designed to ease the festival back into post pandemic society with fewer events than the last big festival in 2019.
“Nevertheless, what it lacked in quantity it more than made up for in quality.
“The programme reflected the broad cultural nature of the festival which includes an eclectic collection of events and performances aimed at different audiences and interests.
“The Summer Exhibition was one of the best yet with more submissions from local artists than pre-covid of a consistently high quality.”
Among the highlights this year was a talk by TV potter Keith Brymer Jones, currently famous as one of the judges of the popular Great Pottery Throwdown.
Farmer and television presenter Adam Henson also attracted a large audience to an inspiring talk on farming and food production and the family-friendly eduan cational talk “It is Rocket Science” from the National Space Centre in Leicester proved a stellar success.
Pete Brown’s presentation on the social and production history of beer including tastings of Thornbridge Brewery’s beers filled the town hall on Thursday, and the popular Comedy Night and an Abba tribute band attracted large audiences to the Empire Ballroom.
None of the events this year were dogged by poor weather, and even the opening Streetfest weekend was blessed with largely dry days, while Illyria’s version of A Midsummer
Night’s Dream was performed under clear blue skies.
Picnic in the Park and Poetry in the Garden both also enjoyed decent conditions.
Mr Challans said: “It was a very encouraging post pandemic revival of the festival, which will live on in the community project Our Town, the creation of ceramic buildings representing Ashbourne.
“The project, spearheaded by The Clayrooms, in partnership with the festival, will be installed in the Heritage Centre in Ashbourne Town Hall by the end of July as a lasting reminder of the 2022 Festival.”