Fowey Festival 2024 – du Maurier Highlights
Fowey Festival of Arts and Literature 2024 takes place from Friday 10th to Saturday 18th May, and the programme is now live on the Fowey Festival website for everyone to buy their tickets https://www.foweyfestival.com.
It is a great programme this year with a fantastic variety of events, including talks, walks, reading groups, workshops, a live performance of the podcast – For the Many with Iain Dale, Jacqui Smith, and Johnny Mercer, and comedy from the wonderful Johnny Carling.
For those of you who favour the Daphne du Maurier-related events, there are lots of treats in store for you.
Rupert Tower
The du Maurier part of the programme begins with the first event on Saturday 11th May at 11am in Fowey Town Hall. Rupert Tower, Daphne du Maurier’s grandson, returns to the festival with another splendid talk. Last year, he stunned us with a brilliant discussion about The Scapegoat. This year, his talk is called – Between Two Worlds: Inside du Maurier’s House on the Strand.
Saturday evening is Movie Night at 8pm in Fowey Town Hall, and this year’s film is Don’t Look Now, Nicholas Roeg’s classic thriller, based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier.
Richard Trethewey
On Sunday 12th May, at 8pm, there is an evening event in Fowey Town Hall that is not to be missed. Richard Tretheway lives in Cornwall and is a singer, fiddle and cittern player. His distinct take on Cornish music, combined with his passion for unearthing near-forgotten gems of Cornish history, brings together some fantastic music. He will include material from his new album Two Halves and show some films made to accompany his music, including his single Frenchman’s Creek, inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s novel. Richard will be joined by Steve Hawker and Neal Jolly, who play together as The Richard Trethewey Trio.
Monday 13th May, is Daphne du Maurier’s birthday, and the festival celebrates the day by including several du Maurier events for everyone to enjoy.
Ella Westland
Monday morning begins at 9am in Fowey Parish Hall. Join Ella Westland, who brings us the first reading group of the week. The stories she will be discussing are Don’t Look Now and Not After Midnight. All you need to do is read these short stories beforehand and bring your copy of the book with you.
Helen Hanson
At 11am in Fowey Town Hall, Helen Hanson presents ‘Do’ Look Now: Viewpoints on the Adaptable Daphne du Maurier. Helen is Associate Professor of Film History in the Department of Communications, Drama and Film Studies at the University of Exeter. Taking Don’t Look Now and its 1973 film adaptation as a case study, Helen will discuss what makes Daphne du Maurier’s writing so adaptable for visual storytelling in film and television.
Annie Price
In Fowey Town Hall at 2pm, Annie Price brings us a presentation called ‘The past is still close to us’: An exploration of the Daphne du Maurier archives at the University of Exeter Special Collections. The Special Collections archive holds over fifty boxes of archival material relating to Daphne du Maurier. Annie will introduce the archives and discuss the fascinating insight they can provide into Daphne’s writing process, daily life and love for Cornwall.
Also, at 2pm, the first of the weeks Guided walks takes place. Meeting at the Main Carpark, Hanson Drive, PL23 1ET; this is the Daphne du Maurier’s Fowey Guide Walk. Dawn, a very experienced guide, will lead it. The walk is a 1.5 mile linear walk, mostly downhill, taking in the landscape that is intrinsically involved in Daphne’s works and discovering some of the inspiration and scenes from the novels written with Fowey, Polruan and the river in mind.
Nicola Upson
On Tuesday 14th May at 2pm, in Fowey Town Hall, writer Nicola Upson will talk about the latest instalment in her Josephine Tey mystery series. Shot With Crimson is set in 1939. The worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock’s Rebecca. Then, a shocking act of violence reawakens the shadows of the past, with consequences on both sides of the Atlantic, and Josephine and DCI Archie Penrose find themselves on a trail leading back to the house that inspired a young Daphne du Maurier – a trail that echoes Rebecca’s timeless themes of obsession, jealousy and murder.
On Wednesday 15th May, the second of the Daphne du Maurier’s Fowey Guide Walks takes place, leaving the Main Carpark, Hanson Drive, PL23 1ET at 10.30am and following the format already described in the Monday 13th May reference.
Serena Trowbridge
On Thursday 16th May at 9am in Fowey Parish Hall, Serena Trowbridge returns to the festival with a number of events, starting with a reading group. Her choice of book this time is Daphne du Maurier’s Frenchman’s Creek. All you need to do is read the novel beforehand and bring your copy of the book with you.
Then, at 2pm, in Fowey Town Hall, Serena presents her talk – Villainesses, Femmes Fatales, Matriarchs and Muses: du Maurier’s Heroines. Daphne du Maurier’s novels are filled with strong women, difficult women, interesting and dangerous women. None of her heroines are boring, but they are all very different, as though the author is experimenting with a variety of approaches to womanhood. It’s well-known that du Maurier herself was often uncomfortable with the expected social roles of wife and mother, seeing herself as both constrained by and existing beyond these stereotypes. Such concerns appear in her depiction of women in her work. This talk will discuss as many of du Maurier’s heroines as can be reasonably covered in the time!
On Friday 17th May, at 9am in Fowey Parish Hall, Serena leads her second reading group, and this time, the book is The King’s General. Again, all you need to do is read the novel beforehand and bring your copy of the book with you.
Saturday 18th May is the last day of the festival and the last opportunity to go on a guided walk. The meeting time and place is 10.30am at Par Beach Car Park, Par, PL24 2AS. This walk is called Strands of Time. Dawn will again lead this walk, which takes you to the villages of Par and Tywardreath, the locations of Daphne’s last two novels, The House on the Strand and Rule Britannia. This is a circular walk of about 2 miles and is a little steep in places.
There are so many exciting events to take part in and much more in the full programme.
To book your tickets, go to https://www.foweyfestival.com.
We look forward to seeing you in May.
March 2024.