Brighton Festival: Vanessa!

Vanessa Redgrave is guest director of this year's Brighton Festival, which starts tomorrow.
I love Vanessa, me.
It's largely a ceremonial role, with the "director" as a figurehead - a bit like the Mayor of London - and it's hard to see what imprint the mighty Vanessa has had on this year's programme.
Though she has championed the festival as a political project in itself; “Of course, we’re not under bombing and shelling here in Brighton. But things are very hard in the UK. People can’t even turn their gas fires on because of the price. But if you can listen to the radio and hear a beautiful piece of music, or if you can come to some of the many free events at the Festival, then it helps us all, not only to feel together – because we do these things communally – but also to feel better.”
There's a selection of her fillums being shown at the Duke of York's, though sadly no showing for the one I really want to see, the TV remake of Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? she made with sister Lynn.
Vanessa is in conversation at the Dome tomorrow evening (tickets still available at the time of typing!) which is rather tempting.
Being boring the only things I usually end up seeing at the Brighton Festival tend to be these "Interesting People Talking" events; Edward W Said, Mark E Smith, Neil Tennant, Brian Eno.
Actually I was standing outside the MES one, it's a long story.
The best bit of your actual art is Neil Bartlett's What Can You Do?: A Queer Retrospective at the Theatre Royal.
I love Nelly Bartlett, me.
But I see Vanessa is leading the Childrens' Parade tomorrow morning - the traditional start of the festival - so I'll probably go along and watch her doing some waving.