Corsham enjoyed its first flashmob experience on Saturday morning – signalling the start of the tenth Corsham Festival.

A flashmob, for the uninitiated is an idea spread by text and email which summons participants to gather at a precise place and time, to surprise, amuse or stun those not in the know with an apparently spontaneous outbreak of music, singing, dancing, or in this case bicycle music.

Between 50 and 60 cyclists simultaneously converged on Corsham High Street mid morning, upended their bikes and used the wheel spokes like harps. There were also percussion additions on bells, chains and pumps.

After five minutes the cyclists melted back into the Saturday morning crowds.

Nicholas Keyworth, the festival’s artistic director said: “I had no idea how many people would turn up – it might have been just me. But it was a terrific response and the onlookers seemed to enjoy it. And I think we made a positive environmental statement about the use of bicycles.”

Also in the High Street was the town’s first farmers’ market, something the Transcoco group hope will become a regular fixture. Transcoco (Transition Community Corsham) is hoping to make Corsham and the surrounding villages a sustainable community.

Along the same environmental theme the Rubbish Heads entered the High Street and to the bemusement of Saturday shoppers began to strew the pavement with rubbish, then play with it, dance around it, and finally clear it up and put it in their bins, where it belonged.

Probably the hit of the morning was Bowjangles, an amazing string quartet, who were never still for a moment as they played classics, jazz, pop, old radio themes. They gathered a very large audience who willingly joined in whatever the group asked them to do. While the musicians can-canned, pirouetted, or tangoed they never missed a beat. I for one have never seen a cello played quite like that before, always off the ground and hooked around the back of the player’s neck.

Comedienne Lorraine Bowen, who gave a late night show on Saturday, gave two bonus preview performances, once in the midst of Friday night’s exhibitions preview at the Pound and again on Saturday in the High Street, after gamely taking part in the bicycle music flashmob.

Her music is funny and eccentric including a crumhorn and a Casio organ on an ironing board. She appears in a variety of costumes – one of which is space dress with extending arms made out of venting tubes from a tumble drier.