July brings a flurry of festivals to the exquisite Georgian spa town: not just the opera, literature, jazz and other music of the Buxton International Festival (soon to celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2019), but well dressing, a special Derbyshire tradition which can be directly traced back to the 17th century. Art meets life, then, in Buxton’s choice of Albert Herring for this year, Britten’s comic opera which sees Lady Billows, self-appointed moral bastion of the Suffolk village of Loxford, reviving the tradition of the May Queen in an attempt to promote the virtues of purity and chastity among Loxford’s girls: but, as we know, it all goes horribly and hilariously wrong. I trust the revival of well dressing has never wrought similar havoc on some secluded corner of Derbyshire.
