It's a good weekend to be beside the seaside as this year's Brighton Festival begins with Fire, Smoke And Mirrors, an outdoor spectacular from UK company Walk The Plank that transforms Queens Park (Sat, Sun) with mirrors, light and fire into an elemental landscape of illusion.
John Wassell, producer and co-founder of outdoor art company Walk the Plank, which is producing the extravaganza, said it was the biggest project he had worked on in more ways than one.
In 1848 and 1850, the Michigan government determined it was too expensive to maintain the road, and therefore turned it over to a private plank company who kept it up, in return for tolls to travel on it.
Companies like Wide Plank International Flooring in New York salvage wood from old buildings and use it to create distinctive, often weathered-looking floors.
In 1861, during Jordan & Skaneateles Plank Road Company vs. Morley, the company sued Morley for evading the toll in Elbridge.
On April 17 , 1866 the plank road company was bought out by the Skaneateles Railroad Company.
Two competing plank road companies were formed, the Black Creek Plank Road Company (of which Williams was a principal investor) and the Sarnia to Florence Plank Road Company, both of which aimed their roads through Oil Springs.
And is the Walk the Plank theatre company really the most important thing to invest in at a time like this?
It's one of Without Walls' commissions, which push up standards of work in this country, with others including Wired Aerial's Tango, Prodigal Theatre's Urban Playground, Motionhouse's Underground and Gulliver's Boom Box, a collaboration between Walk the Plank and Company Fierce.
Although the plank road company lasted less than two decades, it had its share of controversy.
