Rochester Dickens Festival supporters website

Street entertainment is a feature of the Dickens Festivals. The faces vary from year to year, and when we see an act we like we add it to this page.

If you are an entertainer at the Rochester Dickens Festival and you would like to have an entry on this page please contact us.

The Fabulous Fezheads

We haven't seenThe Fezheads at the festival for a couple of years. Before then they were regularly to be seen, usually accompanied by large crowds!

To quote their website -
'The Fabulous Fezheads are England's Premier Sand Dance Vaudevillian Illusionists carrying on in the tradition of Old 'Blind Ned' Cleggett* with his famous stage act of the 1920's and 30's, and actually starring his Great-Grandson Pete 'the Flying' Cleggett .

'Under the watchful eye of Father Ken and featuring Keith the Camel, the Fabulous Fezheads blend a mixture of Dance, Danger and Music that will Astound, Astonish and Amuse!'

*Read all about Old Ned on the 'Fezheads' website!

The Lamplighter

Keith Ford, better known to all of us as the lamplighter, sadly passed away on New Years Eve 2019. For many years he entertained the crowd whilst undertaking a little light maintenance of the new gas street lamps - the trouble is, some people read more into the songs than they should have!

See a video of the lamplighter in action from 'mightyfrogfilms'

The Rochester Pickwick Club

The Rochester Pickwick club was founded in 1984 to honour Dickens' first novel 'The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club', usually referred to as 'The Pickwick Papers'. The club holds affiliate membership of the Dickens Fellowship. Its members are frequently seen at the Festivals as well as other community events both locally and around the UK. It is a condition of membership that all must be in suitable costume whenever they appear at a public event or sit down to dine. In recent years a ladies section has been formed, and there is now an associate level of membership. They also have a website which explains the unique nature of the club, as well as carrying many interesting snippets of information about Dickens and his novel, and has an associate membership application page

The Seven Dials Rapscallions

The Seven Dials Rapscallions portray the Victorian underworld as known by Dickens - a motley crew of villains, pickpockets, coster girls and dollymops - with an outnumbered Peeler desperately trying to keep them under control.

To quote their website -
'The Seven Dials Rapscallions are the first group in the world to portray characters living the side of Victorian life that is always overlooked... 'down and dirty'.'

Great Kentspectations steampunk group

You won't find them in the brochure, but our local steampunk group bring an alternative approach and a lot of fun to the Festival.

If you don't know about steampunk fashion, you can click on the picture to see some typical steampunk outfits on display at recent festivals.

The concept of steampunk is based on science fiction as the future was foreseen in Dickens' time - no electricity and certainly no computers! The inspiration is centred on Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, but it has come to light that Dickens did in fact write at least one of his earliest works in a style that would now be considered very much steampunk. That work is 'The Mudfog Papers', and the title is thought to take its name from a dockyard town very close to Rochester! 'Oliver Twist' was written as a sequel , and its original opening sentence has Oliver born in the Mudfog Workhouse -
'Among other public buildings in the town of Mudfog, it boasts of one which is common to most towns, great or small, to wit, a workhouse.'

Click here if you don't believe us!