© J Darley

I spent yesterday in Salisbury in southern England, soaking up sunshine and scenes of inspired eccentricity. The cathedral city’s international arts festival is currently midway through, though they clearly aren’t shouting about it. There was no celebratory bunting, flags or declarations to let us know it was happening, but that understated approach is part of the charm.

As my friend and I meandered through the gorgeous old streets, we were drawn by applause and laughter to a piece of street theatre called The Dinner Table, which began with a rather salacious lesson on etiquette and ended with a girl slathering herself with mayonnaise in order to attract a mate…

Bizarre moments like this demonstrate the wealth of talent drawn to lit fests and the like. While top-notch authors and musicians take residence in theatres and arts centres, purveyors of street theatre and surreal performance art settle into more public areas such as parks, market squares and cathedral cloister gardens.

I kid you not. That’s where we found another glorious piece of three-dimensional art, called IOU. We were drawn into this sun-strewn, tree-shaded space simply to gaze at the medieval archways and columns surrounding it, but as soon as we stepped inside we heard piped whispering emanating from every corner -poems filling the air while shards of slate scrawled with similar fragments lay in the grass among the tombstones.

The whole thing was immensely peaceful - it was the kind of environment that made you want to lie down, close your eyes and let all your anxieties filter away into the air.

Who needs expensive masseurs when you can lie in a garden and have someone whisper poetry into your ear?

If I ruled the world, every village, town and city would have a street like this, a district or a single building - open to the public and filled with a sense of magic and unpredictability.