Bonkersfest! 06
Camberwell Green, Camberwell, South London
3 June 2006
STAR RATING: 5/5
It’s not every festival that opens with the local mayor firing a banana from a cannon, but then this wasn’t your usual summer event, writes Mark Drinkwater.
Bonkersfest was billed as “a one-day music and arts festival celebrating madness, creativity and eccentricity”, with the aim of dispelling myths and de-stigmatising mental health issues.
The idea was the brainchild of Creative Routes, a south London arts charity run by people with mental health issues.
Unlike many mental health events that take place in ghettoised day centres, this festival took place on a public space in inner city London. Situated on a green, equidistant from Camberwell Art College and the Maudsley psychiatric hospital, this space proved a fitting setting for a festival celebrating madness and the arts.
The green is a favourite summertime haunt of street drinkers, so it was nice to see the middle classes enjoying their Rioja and sitting next to the resident park drinkers with their Tennants Super. With such a harmonious atmosphere there seemed to be little chance of anyone getting an Asbo.
I’d seen the flyers locally and had been intrigued by their irreverent approach and use of politically incorrect terminology – “nuts” and “bananas” among them. If I’m honest I expected to see a poorly organised event. How wrong I was.
I loved the whole festival, which included jazz, rock, samba, punk and world music in a big top. My personal favourites were the rock band A Suitable Case for Treatment and the Creative Routes band. With local statutory and voluntary services providing information on mental health from stalls outside I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who had their preconceptions challenged.
This was an innovative way of drawing attention to mental health issues using the arts in a way that was fun. I’m still not overly keen on the name of the festival, but I’d certainly look forward to Bonkersfest! 07.
Mark Drinkwater is a community worker in Southwark, south London
Festival review: Bonkersfest! 06
June 29, 2006 in Mental Health
More from Community Care
Related articles:
Featured jobs
Workforce Insights
- Working with perpetrators of domestic abuse: training social workers to have challenging conversations
- Extending support: the importance of reflective supervision beyond the ASYE
- ‘It’s hopeful work’: social work in an adults’ mental health team
- Podcast: supporting adults with learning disabilities and autism post-pandemic
- ‘There aren’t many roles where you get to take a child on holiday’: the benefits of residential care work
- Workforce Insights – showcasing a selection of the sector’s top recruiters
Community Care Inform
Latest stories
Finley Boden: professionals should have protected baby murdered by his parents, review finds
Regulator calls for consistency of support for NQSWs as DfE develops children’s early career framework
Leadership training programme launched for PSWs, AMHP leads and principal OTs in adults’ services
Kent ‘extremely close to capacity’ to care for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children
Comments are closed.