Dame Patricia Routledge praises the arts as “the soul of the nation”

Event organisers and festival supporters gathered at the Novium as festival chairman Phil Hewitt and the festival committee launched this year’s programme.

Dame Patricia spoke to the gathering as the festival’s inspirational and always-encouraging patron: “What a privilege to be invited to set off this 13th year of the Festival of Chichester.

“Last Saturday night, after a superb concert by the Chichester Symphony Orchestra, I had a conversation with a gentleman and we asked each other what brought us to Chichester in the first place.

“In my case, I was invited in 1969 to be part of the Festival Theatre programme and I came down here to be in three plays. And I asked the gentleman what brought him here because he’d had a busy working life elsewhere in the country and he said, quite simple, the arts. And that of course is true.

“I think we go beyond the famous Cheltenham. They have several arts occasions, celebrations. We have those celebrations all in one, at the same time (in Chichester).

“The variety of programmes is quite astonishing and also the prices that are asked for seating are extraordinary. Really amazing. I don't know how you keep things going really on £7 a seat, £12, even £20. A friend of mine was in the West End the other week where he often goes up to London

and in the afternoon he thought he'd see a show and the price asked for a ticket was £235.

Absolutely disgraceful. Now at the theatre here we know that costs are going up and inflation goes on abounding. But everything is available within our limits and I always think you spend your money where your heart is. There is a wonderful variety of events and a larger variety than ever.

“The arts are the soul of the nation and we honour them here more than anywhere else, I think, in the country. So God bless and on we go and Bob’s your uncle!”

This year’s festival will be a bumper year with the Festival of Chichester offering its biggest programme in years, packed full of events all celebrating the great city we are privileged to live and work in.

Tickets are available online: www.thenovium.org/boxoffice. Email: [email protected]. Box office: 01243 816525. In person: The Novium, Tower Street. For phone and in-person bookings the box office is open Tuesday to Friday 10am-4.30pm and Saturday 10am-5pm. Also open summer Sundays 10am-4pm starting June 8. Closed Mondays except bank holidays

The festival committee is: Phil Hewitt (chairman), Simon O'Hea, Mark Elliott, Vicki Meddows-Smith, Anne Scicluna, Edward Dowler, and Jen Cordero.

The Festival of Chichester is generously supported by Chichester City Council and is delighted to welcome Edward Cooke Family Law as its 2025 principal sponsor.