- Tickets on sale for the 60th Bedford Park Festival in Chiswick
- Top names include Gyles Brandreth & violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason
- Festival continues to showcase young singers and musicians
Tickets have gone on sale for the 60th Bedford Park Festival in Chiswick, one of West London’s most popular arts and community events. With concerts, talks, walks, film & theatre, art and photography exhibitions and open-air events, the Festival offers something for everyone, whatever their age. It runs from Friday June 12th to Sunday 28th 2026 with tickets on sale via TicketSource.
Celebrated author, broadcaster, raconteur and former MP Gyles Brandreth will share childhood memories and hilarious stories of the best (and worst!) moments of his unlikely life in ‘Up Memory Lane’ with Harriet Jayne. They’ll be talking in St Michael & All Angels Church, which hosts and runs the Festival, at 7.30pm on Monday June 22nd.
Violinist and BBC Proms performer Braimah Kanneh-Mason returns by popular demand, with acclaimed pianist Jâms Colman. They are two of the top young musicians performing in the church in the first week of the Festival, to broaden young people’s access to live music in Chiswick. Others include award-winning Australian baritone Allyn Wu and ambassador
for the Benedetti Foundation Poppy McGhee, who is hosting a cushion concert for young children and giving workshops in schools. These concerts are made possible by the Festival’s three-year partnership with Pladis UK, maker of McVities and other biscuit brands, in Chiswick Park, one of dozens of local companies that sponsor the Festival.
The Pladis partnership continues a Festival tradition of showcasing young singers and musicians. The soprano Milly Forrest, who first sang in the church at the age of eight in the children’s musicals Annie, Oliver and Wizard of Oz, hit the headlines in 2017 when she was plucked from the cloakroom at the Wigmore Hall to sing on stage as a stand-in. (See cutting attached). She now has a very successful singing career.
Milly will star in the 60th Festival Gala Concert on June 24th alongside two other Festival favourites – violinist David Juritz, former leader of the Mozart Players, who has played in every Festival for over 30 years, and a more recent but equally talented arrival in Bedford Park, the virtuoso pianist Mark Viner.
The tradition of young performers is continued by future West End stars from ArtsEd, the world class performing arts school in Bedford Park. Lucia Mcglauclin, Tom Jocham, Emily Leeland, Jordan Dixon and Hartley Mackenzie will sing hits from Les Miserables, Wicked and other shows in An Evening of Musical Theatre.
The Festival opens on Friday June 12th with a lunchtime celebrity organ recital by international organist D’Arcy Trinkwon in St Michael & All Angels Church. It closes with the Bedford Park Festival Mass: Schubert No 3 in B flat, led by the Bedford Park Festival Orchestra and Chorus. The preacher will be Fr Kevin Morris, the vicar of St Michael & All Angels.
Fr Kevin said: “It’s wonderful to celebrate 60 years of the Bedford Park Festival with such an exciting lineup of performers and events. The Festival was founded by my predecessor Fr Jack Jenner to celebrate the arts, raise money for repairs to the church and ‘foster a spirit of friendliness and community’ and it remains true to those traditions today. We look forward to welcoming everyone to Bedford Park during Green Days weekend and the rest of the Festival fortnight.”
This year’s Festival will again highlight former and current residents of Bedford Park, the first garden suburb. WB Yeats will be remembered at his Birthday Poetry Evening with guest poet Imtiaz Dharker and in the WB Yeats Walk led by Cahal Dallat, poet, broadcaster and founder of the WB Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project. The Festival’s longest-running event, the annual Bedford Park Walk, will explore the area’s architectural and literary heritage led by Dr Pamela Bickley and John Scott.
The 60th Festival will also celebrate one of its most important achievements – helping save Bedford Park, the first garden suburb, from the threat of developers in the 1960s. Heritage campaigner Sir John Betjeman was the Festival’s first patron and one of the founders of The Victorian Society, which has its headquarters in Priory Gardens W4. He will be remembered at the Society’s Open House evening, where Joanna Smith of Historic England will give a talk about her book England’s Suburbs: 1820-2020.
The area’s heritage as an arts and crafts colony will also be celebrated at the annual Bedford Park Summer Exhibitionin the church, the Craft Fair on Green Days weekend and the Artists At Home studios event in the middle weekend. These will be highlighted at a Chiswick Artists Night in the Tabard pub on Tuesday June 9th and the Exhibitions Preview Party in the church on Friday June 12th. The Photographic Competition and Exhibition runs alongside the art show throughout the first week of the festival, from June 13th to 19th.
Other Festival events will include ‘Sleeping Who?’, a talk on the spectacular Russian repertoire of the Royal Ballet by Sarah Lenton of BBC Radio 3; The Boomerang Club, one of London’s most best loved spoken word groups; and, at the Tabard Theatre, Gerald Logan in ‘Wilde Without The Boy’, Gareth Armstrong’s staging of ‘De Profundis’, Oscar Wilde’s letter to his gay lover.
Finally, The Chiswick Cinema will mark 60 years since England ‘s 1966 victory in the World Cup with a screening of Sixty Six, a charming comedy-drama starring Chiswick’s Eddie Marsan and Helena Bonham Carter about a boy’s bar mitzvah on the day of the great match. Later that evening, England will play Panama in this year’s FIFA Tournament.
Festival brochures are now available and will be delivered to every home in the parish of St Michael & All Angels Church. Tickets are on sale on TicketSource.
Green Days Fete & Craft Fair – June 13th and 14th 2026
The Festival opens with the two-day Green Days Fete & Craft Fair on Acton Green, opposite St Michael & All Angels Church and Turnham Green tube station. Entry to the Green is free and the Bandstand on the Green provides a showcase for local bands, schools, dance groups and other performers. The Craft Fair on the Green displays works by 20 local designers and craftworkers alongside the usual array of stalls, refreshments and funfair.
The Festival receives great support from local businesses and individuals as partners, sponsors and donors of prizes for the High Roller Tombola and meals for two for the Win A Meal Raffle. They are listed on the Partners page of the Festival website.
Profits will support St Michael & All Angels Church, which runs the festival as part of its mission of arts and community outreach, and its three 2026 charities: The Upper Room, helping the needy in Shepherd’s Bush; The McCabe Educational Trust, which supports a range of health and education projects in the Holy Land; and The Mulberry Centre, celebrating its 25th anniversary supporting those affected by cancer.
