Petworth Festival launches new mini-festival for "the year of two summers”

Spokeswoman Stella Goodson said: “As far as the Petworth Festival is concerned, summer normally begins around the middle of July. For over 40 years, Petworth and the surrounding area has been able to look forward to a fortnight of intense and high-quality music- making just as we head into high summer. But this year, summer doesn’t just come early – it comes twice. Following up the terrific success that was last year’s Jubilation! over the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee weekend, this year sees the all-new June edition, an early summer special with three top level events that will give a taste of the great things to come just a few weeks further down the line.

“Midhurst Rother College, the setting for several of the festival’s most popular events in recent years, will be the venue for three cracking shows featuring performers who haven’t just made waves in Petworth but also much, much further abroad.

“Ben Waters will need little introduction if you were at his sensational night in the Petworth House Stables during the 2022 Festival. Ben, the musicians’ musician and friend and collaborator of the stars (the Rolling Stones, Ray Davies, Jeff Beck and so many more) will insist you bring your dancing shoes as his impeccable band reel off great hits by Fats Domino, Ian Stewart, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry (7.30pm-9.30pm, Friday, June 2 )

“And then Gyles Brandreth. A huge hit when he appeared at a recent Petworth Literary Week event, Gyles is unquestionably one of our national treasures as well as one of the most entertaining performers on the circuit. The ex-MP, television regular and prolific author joins us on Saturday, June 3 to bring stories from his latest book about the late Queen, Elizabeth (11.30am-1pm, Saturday, June 3).

“The third part of the weekend’s stellar line-up sees the return of the remarkable and prize-winning French pianist Bernard d’Ascoli. The winner aged 19 of the prestigious Barcelona International Piano Competition, the astounding pianist who has been blind from birth performs a programme of music by Ravel, Liszt and Chopin (7.30-9.30pm, Saturday, June 3).”

Stewart Collins, festival artistic director, added: “In Ben Waters, Gyles Brandreth and Bernard d’Ascoli we genuinely have three of the most successful and entertaining performers we’ve had at the festival in many years, Ben with his incredible energy and sense of fun seated at his boogie-woogie piano, Gyles Brandreth the master of the brilliant anecdote who knows exactly how to whip up laughter, and then the astounding prize-winning Bernard d’Ascoli, one of the top classical pianists of his generation. Together these shows should be a wonderful curtain raiser on our year.” www.petworthfestival.org.uk. Tickets from March 21.