Sunday was the first time I felt the Grahamstown magic. Grahamstown during Festival isn’t really Grahamstown and I have been struggling a little even to get into Fest. I think my brain is still not sure whether to believe that I’m finally, actually home. Of course, not staying in town makes a difference, too. But yesterday driving into town, I felt it for the first time. It. It’s really difficult to describe: a sense of excitement, a sense of relief, a sense of home. Grahamstown. Home.

Ridiculously well-timed, too. Silly, almost: we were on our way to a lecture called Spirits of the Past about the history of the Eastern Cape and particularly Grahamstown. Not really a lecture in the academic sense but one of the Fest’s Historical Encounters. The audience perches at Fort Selwyn (or in our case next to the Makana gallery to avoid the rain) as story-teller, Alan Weyer, weaves the tale of this areas history from the early San, the Khoi-Khoi, Nguni settlement, shipwrecked sailors, frontier wars and trekboers. This storyteller is very clear that his narrative is just that, one narrative, but he is extremely well-read and knowledgeable and knows this part of the world intimately. It made me happy.

It was also a quiet Sunday. Our only other show was the Gala Concert. The two major classical music shows at Fest are the Symphony and Gala Concerts. The Symphony is obviously the more serious of the two. The Gala Concert is more relaxed and occasionally a bit zany, especially when conducted by Richard Cock. This year was no exception. The programme ranged from the Triumph March from Aida (ironically for Italy) through Woza Waltz by Shannon Mowday to You’ll never walk alone, complete with audience pulling off an excellent approximation of a stadium full of footie fans. Shannon Mowday performed and was good as usual. She has been a regular guest artist at these concerts since she was Young Artist Award winner for Jazz in 2007. The 2010 Young Artist for classical music was the soloist. Samson Diamond is a tiny man from Soweto. I’m not even sure that he plays a full-size violin. When he plays, though, angels must weep. Beautiful. The violin is my favourite instrument and in his hands it sings. I’m sad that I’m not going to be able to get to his recital.

All the music in this programme was very loosely linked with the soccer, through the nationality of the composer or some other tenuous connection. This proved a marvelous way to keep the audience engaged and provided plenty of laughs. The show also had to finish on time because the orchestra wanted to watch the soccer. Which is how we ended up with Richard Cock emerging for the encore wearing a makarapa. Up until then, audience participation had been limited to clapping, clicking and at one point singing like football fans. For the encore, in honour of Brazil, he had the entire audience at a Gala Concert, in the Guy Butler Theatre, doing the makarena. And they say that classical music is boring?!

A delightful day and a nice, quiet Sunday.

Yesterday was almost ruined by a terrible reviewer. Ok it wasn’t because it’s impossible to ruin Fest, but it was negatively affected by a horrible, not-picky review of a Symphony Concert I loved. Even more annoying was the truly awful one-woman opera piece booked on the basis of his rave review. I like opera. In fact, I kind of love opera. This piece was everything that gives opera a bad name – boring storyline, translation that only adds to the audience’s misery and a performer trying so hard to be dramatic she ends up screeching and shrieking all over the place.

Luckily, the rest of the day was great. We started with an excellent lecture about South Africa’s forgotten centenary (2010) by one of my favourite history experts, Paul Maylam. He really is excellent and it was great to get a longer view of SA’s history than 16 years for a change.

Next up was one of the things I missed most in Korea: stand-up comedy. South African comedy is unique, mostly because few other countries are as, um, odd as ours. Siv Ngesi failed to disappoint with an hour of peculiarly South African funny. His show is called Dekaf and, he warns in Cue, may possibly offend people with a chip on their shoulder. Everyone else will find it funny.

The last show of the day was the ballet. I love professional ballet (yes, as well). This year was one of my favourites, Carmen. I’ve seen Cape Town City Ballet perform Carmen once before. This year was the same magic only more so. Beautiful music, stunning dancing, great set, costume and lighting design. One of the things that struck me this time was the balance – there seemed to be more male dancers. This may sound odd but I know CTBT has been working on developing male dancers and I wondered if it was finally paying off. Certainly, I remember this being a heavily female ballet with the occasional male character but last night was beautifully balanced, which had the wonderful effect of making it all more natural and improving the flow. I’m always sad that there is only one ballet at Fest but I’m glad this year’s was the flowing, moving, fast-paced Carmen.