Dimness I .see that arrangements are in hand for a
John Clare festival, which is to be held at Peter- borough this year. I can't help feeling that this is getting very near the end of the festival route. One of this year's music festivals was a notorious fiasco, from every point of view, and I see that the Edinburgh Festival's, finances are beginning to strain the patience of the town. While sampling festivals this year I have been disagree- ably impressed by a certain thinness, and by a sense that the programmes offered didn't attract local people or have any real roots in the places which were supposed to have fostered. them. The audiences were shipped in and so were the per- formers, and there seemed very little benefit for the arts in any of it. It might be well to redeem the festival idea by a degree of concentration and a tightening-up of standards, all round.
ANTHONY WEST
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