Festival Overview (at 4 December 2008)

Friday June 5 - Monday 8 June 2009

Bicentenary Weekend - Reenactment and Heritage Festival 

Friday offers a unique  opportunity to enjoy a play by Paine's friend and associate Thomas Holcroft in a rehearsed reading by a company from the 'Georgian Globe' - the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds. 

Against the appropriate background of market day Saturday, professional reenactors and local groups will create a Hogarthian panorama of life in Georgian Thetford - its trades and popular entertainment, electioneering, crime and punishment, military recruitment and training and much else.

On Sunday, a French market and skirmishing below Castle Hill will add to the entertainment.  Exhibitions, workshops, displays and concerts will explore the thought, music, dance, fashion, art, sport and leisure of the time in an event which sets the scene for further exploration of Paine through the year. 

The weekend's Celebrations will close with the Bicentenary Dinner on Monday the 8th, the anniversary of Paine's death. 

May - August 

Among events within this period, a schools' programme will introduce Paine into the classroom through an age-appropriate Paine Pack for every child and a range of related workshops and activities. 

A punk-rock concert and a choral programme from Thetford Singers, more theatre and an eighteenth-century cricket match are planned. There will be a series of Guided Walks led by an expert guide. 

October-November 

Our Autumn programme of Lectures looks at  a wide range of topics, among them Paine's religious position, his contemporary significance and core ideas. 

Among the speakers are Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson and Tony Benn and folk-singer Roy Bailey with their radical cabaret The Writing on the Wall. 

October sees the completion of the schools' programme with a secondary school Public Speaking and Debating event. 

This month will also see the culmination of our Community Play project with performances of Citizen of the World,  specially written for a cast of over 100. 

The Celebrations are brought to a close by a lecture from Paine's biographer, Professor John Keane Reception on Saturday 7 November and marked by the planting of a 'liberty tree' in Thetford's Forgotten Garden.

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Tom Paine Needs You (from 20 November 2008)

To register your interest in getting involved, download the volunteer application form.

Next year's planned Celebrations to mark the bicentenary of the death of Thetford's own Thomas Paine Tom Paine 200  feature two major events - a specially commissioned play with music on the life of Paine - Citizen of the World   - to be performed in October and a weekend of costumed Re-enactment  on the 6th/7th June.

If you would like to take part in either or both of these events - read on.

You are invited to a meeting in the Guildhall at 7.30 on Tuesday 25 November to find out more.

Musician and re-enactor Jim Bisgood of Great Hockham-based Nuns Meadows Productions will talk about plans to turn King Street into eighteenth century Thetford. He will describe the opportunities for all those - adults and children- who would like to be involved in the processions and costume dramas to be played out over the weekend. In particular, he will provide information about how to source and make an appropriate costume to wear on the day - so needlesmiths and costume-makers who would be willing to join a wardrobe team as well as actors young and old are warmly invited to join us.

Also on the 25th, East Anglian dramatist Mike Levy will talk about his ideas for Citizen of the World,  one of which is that as a Community Play, the script will be written around the skills and talents of those who come forward to take part. So whether you are 8 or 80, male or female, amateur or professional, an individual or a family, an actor, a musician, a backstage lighting or sound technician, whether you want to move an audience or move scenery, join the  chorus or take the lead, whether you sing, tap-dance or eat fire, whether you have lots of time or just a little and whether you are experienced or have never done this kind of thing before, you are guaranteed a place on the team. We look forward to seeing you.

This meeting will not be the only opportunity to become one of the several hundred we hope to recruit to the cause. There will be further public meetings in the Spring or if you prefer, telephone the Celebrations Coordinator John Weeks (01842 820060) now to express interest and join our mailing list.  

Tuesday 25th November  is, however, a chance to be in at the beginning of what promises to be a memorable experience and for those thinking of helping costume the event a particularly useful meeting to attend.

You don't need experience - just interest, enthusiasm and the willingness to give it a go. See you  in the Guildhall on the 25th.

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Please Join In (from 29 July 2008)

We are very interested to hear from artists or groups who would like to be associated with the Celebrations, participating in the community play, taking part in costumed re-enactment or contributing their own event to the main or fringe programme. 

We are also looking to expand our team as 2009 approaches and would love to hear from anyone with experience or an interest in the areas of promotion, event administration and stewarding who would like to be involved, perhaps for the first time in Thetford, in what we intend to be a whole town event making a positive impact across our communities. 

Please complete an interest form (groups) or contact the coordinator (individuals) or any other member of the committee directly.

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November Update

Next year's programme is building well with a good attendance at our first public meeting on Tuesday 25 November getting both the Community Play and local participation in the authentically costumed reenactment scenarios planned for the Bicentenary Weekend underway.

For further details and to register interest in getting involved see Tom Paine Needs You .

To see the programme of the Bicentenary Weekend, go to the Programme page.

Details of the Autumn Lecture Series are now being finalised. The programme offers a fascinating range of topics, both setting Paine in context and exploring the challenging ideas of a thinker who has still much to say to us today. Among the speakers, recognized authorities in their field, are Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson, Dr Ruth Scurr, former Booker Prize judge and Cambridge biographer of Robespierre, and John Keane, author of the acclaimed biography of Paine, whose latest work The Life and Death of Democracy will be published during 2009. Local speakers Brian Way and Simon John will also be contributing to the series while a highlight for many will be the radical cabaret The Writing on the Wall presented by folk-singer Roy Bailey and veteran politician Tony Benn.

Press Release (from 7 September 2008)

Range and Participation  are key features of the seven-month programme of Festival events being planned to begin in Thetford in June 2009.

The celebrations mark the bi-centenary of the death of Thomas Paine, the Thetford-born tradesman who lived to influence the course of history in 18th century America, France and Great Britain through a turbulent and ultimately unhappy career.

As well as telling the vivid story of his life and ideas, the Tom Paine 200 Celebrations will explore what Thetford was like in the time of the Georges - its costume, sport and entertainment, its politics and daily grind.

'We hope to catch the attention and hold the interest of everyone in the town," said Celebrations coordinator John Weeks, "whether it is with a punk-folk gig from The Men They Couldn't Hang, academic lectures from the likes of Paine's acclaimed biographer John Keane and the Guardian's   savage cartoonist Martin Rowson, with cricket 18th century-style or war-gaming and reenactment recalling the American War of Independence".

Cultural highlights will include the first opportunity outside the capital to see a rare portrait of Paine recently saved for the nation and the performance of a 'lost' play by Paine's radical crony Thomas Holcroft.

Speakers with national reputations and visitors from abroad are part of the mix, but at the heart of the Celebrations is the opportunity for local people to take part as exhibitors or performers and to benefit as service providers during the summer and autumn of 2009.

First steps have already been taken towards Citizen of the World , a music-drama to be given as a community-play in October. Public Meetings in Autumn and the New Year (the first on November 25th) will be a chance for young and old to come along to sign on for the play or to take part in the costumed re-creation of Georgian Thetford over the weekend of 6th-7th June.

Additionally the organisers of the Festival, a sub-committee of the Thetford Society, are keen to hear from groups and individuals not yet approached who would like to  be included in the festival programme, perhaps by giving an event in a society schedule a Paine twist. Sportsmen and women to take part in an eighteenth century sports day would be particularly welcome.  They would like to hear, too, from those who wish to offer services or would like to join the expanding team of volunteer helpers working to make the Festival a success. Please contact Oliver Bone at the Ancient House Museum or John Weeks on 01842 820060.

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