Hilton Arts Festival hosts To Life, With Love

Two performances of the show solicit warm responses from the audience

Notwithstanding the death of founder Sue Clarence earlier this year, the Hilton Arts Festival (8-10 August) was thriving with sales up on last year and a great buzz, quite different to the almost ghost-town like atmosphere at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda a month before. John Maytham performed To Life, With Love at 20:30 on Saturday 9 August and at 10:30 the next morning to a very warm reception from an audience that identified greatly with the themes of the play. There were many stories - and tears - that were shared with us, particularly after the Sunday morning show. It's been such an affirmation of the role of theatre as a form of catharsis and as granting licence for people to feel emotion and to tell their own stories of loss, hurt and recovery.