Festival of Chichester

Arts Dream Selsey will be celebrating the dying art of letter writing as they make their Festival of Chichester debut.

Letters Live – A Performance will be on July 4 at 19:30 at Westberry House, 51 West Street,

Selsey, PO10 9AE, with tickets £15 available on https://www.ticketsource.com/artsdreamselsey

They are promising a wonderful celebration of the human experience, captured through the real words of real people with “remarkable letters read by a group of outstanding performers” – an “intimate night exploring love, joy, crankiness and the enduring power of the letter.”

As Alex McDevitt, from the team, says, there will be letters from famous correspondents, but it’s often the stories and feelings shared by the unknown writer that tug at the heartstrings.

“We are six actors reading in total something like 32 letters. Some of the letters are from well-known people like Mozart or Barbara Bush or Spike Milligan but it's really a mix of themes and emotions, and there are a lot of letters from unknown people as well. It is such an art, writing a really good letter and we have got some really good letters. We are theming them. Some are love letters; some are letters from husbands to wives; we have also got humorous letters where people have written to newspapers about cats and dogs. It's a real mix. The idea is to take you through a real range of emotions.

“It is a format that we have borrowed. There is a Live Letters performance format that happens in places like the Royal Albert Hall with people like Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman. We are using that format. The idea is to get people to think about how letters are something so much more important than something on WhatsApp. It's a craft. And it is a dying art. People used to take their time over letters and think about them. They are more considered, and also there is the fact that there would be a delay before they would be received.

“I don't know whether this will be encouraging people to write letters but this is the third collection of letters that we have done. Our actors are used to reading them in a particular way and we know that it's been really popular with our audiences in the past and we know that people will often say what a shame that people are not writing more letters. It's a really lovely evening, but it will be interesting as well.”

Arts Dream Selsey has been promoting participation in artistic endeavours in the community since 2012.

“We make access to music, sculpture, painting and theatrical performances available for all. Our troupe of professional actors have been working together for a number of years to create entertaining evenings.”