2020 will witness the re-launch of the ailing Threadbone Festival of Crime, the once-popular annual celebration of crime fiction published under various imprint labels by the Threadbone Press. The event - badged NOiractually, will take place between January 30th and February 1st in the International Conference Centre, Stour Provost. It will centre, as always, on the huge CRIMEshelf back-catalogue, items from which will be familiar to all browsers of the dusty corners of charity shops and remainder booksellers. However, organisers hope that a new edgier and more contemporary take on the event - sponsored by the publisher and held in conjunction with Threadstones, the quality high street bookseller - will attract a larger audience of who-dunnit, locked room and period crime fans than has been the case in recent years. It is a trick they have doubtless learned from experience: parent company the Threadbone Corporation launched the Old Wine in New Bottles beverage label in 2013 shortly before realising that New Wine in Old Bottles [the preferred CasaEnrique restaurant policy] might have been the more profitable option.
2020 has already been a significant year for the publisher with the launch of a new Albatross paperback imprint, the signing of "up-and-going" author Nadine Rumshow and a flurry of new books in the pipeline from reader-favourites Polly Athus, Gordon Tanqueray and Emma Roid. [A new Quintus Remus is rumoured but both publisher and notoriously febrile author have remained non-committal.] All four authors, together with other stable favourites Doug Graves and Eleanor Beechwood are expected to attend whilst much will be made of Nadine Rumshow's first book signing session ["I've never had to sign an online world-wide-interweb digital edition so this will be a new challenge for me", says Ms Rumshow who admits she hasn't picked up a pen in anger in nearly 10 years.] Much will be made too of a strange event billed as "An Evening with Agatha Panthus" - a virtual encounter hosted by spirit medium Freda Crystal-Ball who hopes to contact the late author and answer questions on her behalf. Watch this ectoplasmic space ...
For many, however, the highlight of the festival will undoubtedly be the staging by director Bill Kenwood-Cheffe [grandson of pioneer culinary bio-ethicist and Professor Thrupiece's Cambridge mentor Dr Kenwood Chefe (1898-1982)] of Doug Graves first ever play. An adaptation of his early novel Dial B for Brian, the play is entitled Dial B for Brian. The book was once considered for movie treatment, the rights having been acquired by thrupiecefilm in 2012. However, a me-as-well-inspired witch-hunt of proposed director Harvey Walltowall-Banger together with the increasing public scepticism surrounding fashionably low-budget films put the project on indefinite hold and the corporation relinquished the rights in 2018. It was this which moved the author to adapt his book for the stage in 2019 and it is this version which will be brought before the public next week. Starring Dorset favourites Bradpole Pitt and Winifrith Newburg it is hotly tipped to be this year's must-see Doug Graves play.
THE THREADBONE FESTIVAL OF CRIME NOiractually, will take place between January 30th and February 1st at the International Conference Centre, Stour Provost. Daily and individual event passes are available. Whole festival tickets are also available at discounted prices. Please note "An Evening with Agatha Panthus" and "An Evening of Thrupiece Ghost Stories" are only available to festival subscribers.
VISIT THE THREADBONE FESTIVAL OF CRIME NOiractually WEBSITE HERE
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