After an online existence in 2020, which marked 30 years since it was first held, the International Agatha Christie Festival, funded by Arts Council England, returns to the English Riviera from 11th to 18th September this year.
- 2021 speakers include award-winning novelists Anthony Horowitz and Kate Mosse;
- 2021 performers include an award-winning actress Annette Badland;
- 2021 venues include Dartmoor Prison Museum, the Golden Hind, Oldway Mansion, Paignton Picturehouse, Paignton Zoo, the Palace Theatre, the River Dart, Rowcroft Hospice, the Torbay coast, Torquay Museum and Torre Abbey Museum;
- 2021 events include the UK premiere of a mystery play by Christie.
- Festival Programme: This has been announced at https://www.iacf-uk.org/festival/;
- Festival Tickets: Tickets are on sale at www.ticketsource.co.uk/agathafestival;
- We continue to encourage businesses to offer complementary events alongside the Festival eg theatre/cinema, escape rooms, fine dining and murder mystery dining;
- If you or your business intend to, or would like to, offer an event alongside the Festival and would like us to publicise it, contact Tony Medawar (07976 065558 / info@iacf-uk.org);
- In June, Arts Council England awarded core funding for 2021 and 2022.
Background
- Building on a legacy dating back to the first event in 1990, the International Agatha Christie Festival is widely recognised as the premier cultural event on the English Riviera. Bringing together local people and Christie fans across Britain and around the world, the Festival celebrates Christie’s life and legacy, and includes high profile speakers, performances of her plays and poetry and unique events. In our work, we are supported by Agatha Christie Ltd and the Christie family, her publishers, fans and academics as well as by many of the countless artists and writers inspired by her work; and we work closely with private, public and third sector partners in Torbay and South Devon including the English Riviera Business Improvement District Company.
- Since 2018, the charity that delivers the Festival has been funded through Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grant programme. We aim to use the extraordinary power and reach of Christie’s global reputation to promote local engagement and participation in literature and the arts, help the recovery and growth of the local economy and wider efforts to increase tourism and support work to understand and promote the area’s literary and geological heritage.
- As well as staging an accessible and diverse Festival programme, we create and deliver arts-related projects to support those currently under-represented in participation and performance in the arts in Devon or who are in some way at risk. We fund these by drawing on the funding we receive from ACE and our own income, as well as grant funding provided by trusts and foundations; for 2021 these include The Colwinston Charitable Trust, The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, The Elmgrant Trust, The Linbury Trust and The Rosalind Hicks Charitable Trust. We are also supported by private donations.
