IT’S set to be a brilliantly bonkers celebration of books and a lot more besides.

I was lucky enough this week to attend the launch of a unique new festival set to take the New Forest by storm this summer.

The Curious Arts Festival is every bit as unusual as it sounds.

If an eccentric cricket match as a way of opening a festival doesn’t whet your appetite, perhaps one of the many other interesting elements will.

There’s an early morning cartoon club with pyjamas positively encouraged so families can bring their duvets and enjoy a spot of Peppa Pig and In The Night Garden in a giant tent and the fun doesn’t stop all day – or night.

There’s a dose of prose with bibliotherapy, donkey rides, nude life drawing in the woods, a Jabberwocky hunt, spooky stories and a Question Time style news discussion, not to mention an eclectic music line-up headlined by Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit.

To be honest, having a nose around the grounds of the beautiful ancestral home of David and Melanie Roper- Curzon is worth the very reasonable £100 admission fee with free camping to the July 18 to 20 event alone.

At the launch, at the completely stunning Pylewell Park, near Lymington, they seemed an utterly charming bunch with all 25 grandchildren using the house and grounds as what they themselves describe as some sort of commune.

If that gin-fuelled and fun-filled event is anything to go by, there may be pleasure ahead.