It’s been a very good year for David Lynch fans, what with the release of Twin Peaks: The Return, Mulholland Drive’s stunning 4k restoration and the highly entertaining documentary David Lynch: The Art Life, which explores the pop surrealist’s career up to the making of 1977 midnight movie marvel, Eraserhead. Yes, Lynchmania is back on for the first time since its early 1990s heyday.
Interestingly, it was the reaction to 1992’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, which put an end to the love-in. Since its cancellation in 1991, and the disastrous reception of the prequel, until the third season, Twin Peaks fans, or ‘Peakies’, had to make do with fanzines, occasional cast and crew interviews, discussing the show with friends down the boozer and re-watching the series over and over.
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In the US, the Twin Peaks Festival has operated since the studio-backed inauguration in 1992, where Fire Walk with Me premiered in the US, and Lynch joked about the lousy reviews it got at Cannes. Then in 2010 London got its very own fest. The brainchild of Lindsay Bowden, the annual two-day celebration is returning for its eighth edition in October at Hornsey Town Hall.
In the past, guests from the show have included Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer/Maddy Ferguson), Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook), Madchen Amick (Shelly Johnson/Briggs), singer Julee Cruise, Catherine Coulson (the Log Lady), Phoebe Augustine (Ronette Pulaski) and Sherilynn Fenn (Audrey Horne).
Fenn is one of the guests returning this year along with Michael Horse (Deputy Hawk), James Marshall (James Hurley), Amy Shiels (season three’s nutty gangster’s moll Candie), Kenneth Welsh (Windom Earle) and – would you Adam and Eve it! – Twin Peaks’ own Iron Fist, Cockney security guard, Freddie Sykes (played by Jake Wardle).
Bowden hasn’t set up a fan convention per se – it’s more an immersive experience with recreated sets (the Black Lodge/Red Room), the train car where Laura died (not sure about that one), the Great Northern bar and the Roadhouse. With live music, film screenings, signing sessions and Q&As, the UK fest is the chance to revel in the unique mood of Twin Peaks and scoff copious amounts of cherry pie downed with coffee served black as midnight on a moonless night.
The Official UK Twin Peaks Festival runs from 7-8 October. For more info visit twinpeaksukfest.com
