Frightfest

In Competition No. 2956 you were invited to provide extracts from the unappealing-sounding programme of a festival that is making a misguided attempt to stand out in an overcrowded marketplace.

Competitors might have taken inspiration from The Daily Mash’s ‘Magic Fox Vintage Smoothie Boutique Urban Forest Pop Up Chill Retreat’, a ‘hybrid of Waitrose and The Wicker Man’ and ‘a combination of all the most annoying, smug, po-faced aspects of festival culture into a smorgasbord of-heavily branded twatness’. Highlights included ‘people wearing fox masks just prancing around aimlessly’.

Adrian Fry shone in a smallish field and takes the bonus fiver. The rest earn £30.

The Tipsy Boar, Tunbridge Wells, is proud to host the Saloon Bar Philosophy Festival. Some of the finest untutored minds in Britain will be setting forth their views on anything and (literally) everything. With all lectures guaranteed to last longer than you thought possible, it’s tremendous value. From metaphysics (a retired butcher asks Is Nothing Something? with accompanying vaguely illustrative gesticulations) to Ethics (an Esher housewife explains Fairness Isn’t Always Right with reference to something recalled from a Roger Scruton column), there’s something for everyone. There’ll be the usual symposium on Love with a panel who have lost or never known it, many phenomenological studies of pints half full of beer and half empty, a keynote speech from a compliance consultant on how Machiavelli Didn’t Know the Half of It and an existentialist in the corner who will gradually cease to exemplify his philosophical position with each drink downed.
Adrian Fry

Welcome to Words R Food, where spoken word meets soybean curd and Localberry Jam is proud to sponsor the slam. Welcome to the only festival that stimulates your imagination and your taste buds alike with cutting-edge performance poetry and gourmet, locally sourced, ethical cuisine.

By day, we’ll enjoy wholesome fruit, vegetable, grain and tofu snacks that we prepare collaboratively for one another under the tutelage of meatless master chefs.