Bonkersfest! - What is it?
BonkersFest! is a free annual one day summer arts and music festival, illuminating and celebrating madness, creativity, individuality and eccentricity; combating stigma and promoting good mental health - A day of bonkers celebrations for everyone - bonkers or not on the Camberwell Green, South London, on 2nd June 2007 from 12-9 pm. We are so madly honoured to tell you that Jo Brand will fire the banana laden cannon that will signal the launch of BonkersFest! '07
There will be live music in a Big Top, poetry, theatre, comedy in a Little Big Top, guided tour of the local loonie bin, fairground and much much more.

WELCOME TO THE SECOND ANNUAL BONKERSFEST!
One Sandwich Short of a Picnic Fayre on the Camberwell Village Greene

This is a partnership festival led by Creative Routes, an arts charity, run by the mad for the mad. So we are bananas, nuts, bananas, crackers, barking, bonkers and proud of it too. We have all suffered shame because having a label of enduring mental illness also labels you as abnormal and frightening by society.

A Brief History...

1279 Camberwell Green Fair

1279-Camberwell Green Fair with its range of stalls, dancing and general merry-making, and a motto "Mad Doings in Camberwell". As one historical source puts it, "For these three days the residents of Camberwell were compelled to witness disgusting & demoralising scenes which they were powerless to prevent". In 1855 recently arrived, wealthy residents of the town (normals) clubbed together to buy the Green, ending the fair and turning Camberwell Green into a public park.

2006-Bonkersfest!

And now more 'Mad Doings in Camberwell' one that retains the merry-making, joy and celebratory aspects of the original event. "Bonkersfest!", which this year takes place on June 2, celebrates madness, creativity and eccentricity. A day of bonkers celebrations for everyone on their local village green featuring live music, poetry, drama, art and sound installations.

Jo Brand and BonkersFest! organisers talked about discrimination and the part language plays in this over a mad hatter picnic earlier this year:
'Rarely does anyone think to ask those with mental illness how they’d describe themselves. I did. Far from shrinking away in their flats these individuals are all actively promoting madness creativity and individuality through Bonkersfest, and language lies at the heart of the battle' Jo Brand Comedienne Guardian 8th May 2007 (www.BonkersFest.com for the full article)

R D Laing said madness is a sane reaction to a mad world. Well there is such a thing as normal - it’s a word in the dictionary. For some mad reason everyone wants to aspire to be normal but no-one ever does.
Bonkersfest and Creative Routes and Jo Brand challenged the Oxford English Dictionary on Balderdash & Piffle, BBC2 May 2007 - on the definition of normal - why? Take a look at the website

Us Bonkersfolks don't want to aspire to normality, we celebrate our individuality our right to be who we are, to be heard and treated with dignity and with the same human rights as everyone else. We are still battling for this. No other community has to put up with what we have to. We are still abused, are still made outcasts and scapegoats by government, psychiatry and the normals on the street, physically restrained and mind restrained through mind altering drugs, and this is because we are vulnerable and very individual.
Bonkersfest is the creative antidote to treat discrimination like a viral infection of shame and hate that insinuates its way into all parts of society. We are all here together communicating through creativity and this is how it should be because mental illness doesn’t discriminate so why should you?

So you see we have a duty to share our unique creativity and bonkersness with the world as madness facilitates an outpouring of immense and unique creative energy, tolerance and morality.
BonkersFest! is a partnership festival – Creative Routes, South London Gallery, Young Vic Theatre, Mad Pride, Shape, Attitude is Everything, Core Arts, Nomadic Collaborations and individual artists.

Festival Highlights
Listen out for the jingle heralding the hourly commercial breaks – the madverts from the Bonkersfest madvertising agency.
Sit in the hot seat and go on the local loony bin tour, it only costs a penny for your entertainment.
Shout about injustice at the speakers corner located in the campaigning zone
Confess your madness – real or imagined in the big nutter video diary.
The ‘BonkersFest! Laureate Sponsored by Apples and Snakes’ will be crowned by John Hegley and Rachel Pentechneon at 4:05 in the Little Big Top and the winning poem read out on Radio 4 later this year

Take a break from normality, go bonkers today at BonkersFest! but remember to pull yourself together when you are yelled to by Bobby Baker.
What mad miracles can do is just miraculous

Please treat these nuts as you would like to be treated....Bye now
the bonkersbabes/blokes

With such bonkers slobbery slurpy love hugs to Jo Brand, Arts Council England, to Bobby Baker and Jack Cole, to Jo and Philippa from Balderdash and Piffle, to all the partners, artists and hard core sloggers both bonkers and normals, to production management Continental Drifts, and Chris Tofu for the inspirational name Bonkersfest! to Project Manager Lis Ssenjovu, to Helen Maleed - PR and finally but just so not least our genius designer Martin@laplandmusic.net

BonkersFest! was launched by Creative Routes in June 2006.
In its first year, BonkersFest! attracted over 2000 visitors

Aims
To celebrate the positive and highly unique creativity of the mentally ill (the mad) through a highly innovative and creative one day arts and music feast. The negative stereotypes are so part of our culture that discrimination thrives and impacts horribly not only on the mad community and on the disabled community but on the whole of society.
To be part of the catalyst to encourage community spirit by celebrating the acceptance of individuals and tolerance.
To promote better mental health, educate and disseminate information.
To promote campaigning as a powerful way to change the terrible human rights issues that plague the mad community.
To contribute to the regeneration of the neighbourhood.
To promote partnership working.

Management of Bonkersfest!
BonkersFest! is planned through partnership working, the coordination of which is led by Creative Routes. Partners meet monthly at the ŒBonkersFest! Driving Group,‚ in which the planning, decisions, ideas, fundraising, mentoring and expertise are all shared.

BonkersFest! Partners Include:
Mad run groups - Mad Pride, Core Arts, Southwark Mind
Arts organisations - Young Vic, South London Gallery; Apples & Snakes
Local universities ˆ London College of Communications
Other voluntary organisations ˆ Nomadic Collaborations
Disability awareness groups - Shape, Attitude is Everything;
Statutory organistions - South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, Southwark Alliance; GLA
Production Company ˆ Continental Drifts Ltd;
Individual artists and disabled people.
If you are an organisation or an individual and want to take part in the management and planning of BonkersFest! please submit a short proposal to us of not more than 1 A4 side, telling us why you want to.