Ventnor’s Russian connection to be explored in a new play at the 2026 Ventnor Fringe Festival
Artists Jonas Golland and Bob Prophette will bring a new play to the 2026 Ventnor Fringe which examines the town’s rich connection with Russian radicalism. The play resurrects characters from Ivan Turgenev’s Father’s and Sons, a book written in Ventnor, whose main character was inspired by the landscape at nearby Blackgang Chine. Titled On Holiday with Herzen, the play is subtitled How Russia Could Have Been Different and is described as a ‘Postcard from Ventnor.’ The play charts the direct link between Turgenev’s book and the assassination of Tzar Alexander II and the subsequent turmoil in Russian history – proposing that things could have been very different in Russia today, if more people listened to men like Turgenev and Alexander Herzen. Herzen, a towering figure in Russian intellectual history and creator of the Russian Free Press is also closely associated with the town.
‘The play aims to reignite interest in the Island with figures like Alexander Herzen – a hugely influential figure in Russian history who is little known in the UK.’
‘On Holiday with Herzen takes inspiration from the late great Tom Stoppard, whose trilogy of plays The Coast of Utopia features scenes that take place in the town, including the Esplanade and Blackgang Chine.’
‘It’s a dryly humorous exploration of the past that positions Ventnor at the heart of Russia’s turbulent intellectual history and helps explain why Russia is the way it is today and how it could have been different.’
Tickets will soon be available at the Ventnor Fringe box office. The Fringe Festival takes place between 17th and the 27th July 2026.