The most engaging discovery though was the Heart Fine Art Gallery 's . A genuine treasure trove of holy grails and curios the exhibition was a fascinating glimpse of a time when artistic ideas appeared new and anything seemed possible, the heady excitement of the European artworld before a crazed Austrian postcard-painter caused the lights to extinguish all over Europe, a journey through the halcyon days of Dada and Surrealism, the absorbing half-mad but perhaps a bit too touchy-feely uncles of modern art. In essence the exhibition was powered by the interest and rarity of the cultural relics on show and the enlightened enthusiasm of the curator who'd trekked the length and breadth of Europe to find them. Amongst other items on show were Duchamp 's blueprints for the epic , Paul Eluard 's love poems , Kurt Schwitters ' , a first edition of Breton 's , Hans Bellmer 's (a book probably more shocking than ever in today's neo-puritan climate), a copy of featuring commentaries on the writings of the Marquis De Sade by Bataille , Apollinaire , Barthes and , copies of Magritte 's Belgian surrealist journals, an original photographic still from Fritz Lang 's , a first edition of Leonor Fini 's , a limited edition copy of Man Ray 's famous and Roland Penrose 's complete with a sketch by the great man himself. Overall the works reminded you of not only how playful and funny the movements were but how much of an almighty fuck you they must have been, heroically outrageous in a time when old monocled generals were attacking impressionist paintings with umbrellas and plays could start riots at the slightest mention of sexuality. So what if the establishment has since absorbed their techniques and subjects, for a precious moment they had their heads spinning.

Ultimately though it's the personal touches that enthral, the human stories behind the madness: a handmade invitation to the at Joyce Monsour 's flat on the 150th anniversary of the libertine's death, a drawing by Leonora Carrington given as a gift to Max Ernst , an invitation to the 1938 International exposition of Surrealism announcing the attendance of a robot descendant of Frankenstein and the first appearance of Dali 's , his last work with the Surrealists before he was unceremoniously turfed out. Most fascinating of all is Breton's letter, dated June 1920, to a mysterious lover Germaine. It's a tantalising piece not just for the fact it recounts his rejection of the advances of an unidentified female in favour of a drinking bout, but it perhaps suggests an affair with , the wife of his artist friend. A "letter pneumatique" (an ingenious near sci-fi way of transporting notes around Paris through air-powered tubes between post offices) it recounts, "My darling, again not tonight, sorry…I must see Eluard again who goes to the countryside tomorrow, I will go out with him and come home very late…I also am in an unusual moral state, of which, my love, you can't do anything about?"

It's items like this that make this intimate yet expansive exhibition such a success, hinting at the interlocking mysteries of relationships, the splits and rivalries, the endless carousel of sexual partners, the ideas and schisms revolving at the time with Breton the Pope at the head of it all, exiling heretics and canonising saints. And you cannot help but wonder with all the opportunities afforded us by technology why do our times seem so characterless compared to the innovations and personalities of that long-lost era. The question's really what the fuck is keeping us?

For those lucky enough to obtain tickets the musical highlight of the festival was the Fence Collective 's succession of gigs, for others (mainly vegetarian girls who wear berets and ride bicycles) it was Belle and Sebastian culminating their Prince's Street Gardens set with the admittedly sublime . For this numbskull the absolute pinnacle of the entire month's festivities was a night of sheer magic at Mikelangelo and The Black Sea Gentlemen in the Spiegel Gardens. Rather than prancing divas (damn your eyes Manelli!) the real cabarets of Weimar were places of nocturnal debauchery and drunken wonders, orgies and Faustian visions. It's into this world, this carnival of misfits, that plunge us. You can detect many influences (the Nick Cave -style croon, the tilt of the hat to Rain Dogs and ) but it's best to give in and just immerse yourself, leaving all your daylight thoughts at the door. From the riotous opener the show was a spectacular combination of myth, wit and the finest polkas, sea shanties, tarantella-inducing jigs, ghost waltzes, vaudeville ballads and Eastern European gypsy music you'll ever hear. Heightened by the drink, an audience with a scattering of Moulin Rouge style-dancers and sideshow freaks, and the fantastic magical setting of the Spiegel Tent , a mirrored "kabaret salon" first unveiled in 1920, the night was one of those rare occasions that transcend all expectations, where you're lost completely and look back with the half-bemused feeling that this was something you've waited all your life to experience. To a hypnotic spell cast by violin, accordion, clarinet and double bass Mikelangelo spins tales of madness and murder with a twisted drollness, introducing one song as a light-hearted ode to love before singing, "We are all skeletons, reclining on a beach of flesh, dancing by a sea of organs" and claiming he co-wrote Bohemian Rhapsody but "let Freddy have it." By the time he appears on stage in his underwear promising the image will come back to us all as we lie on our deathbeds and the tongueless accordionist the Great Moldavio stalks through the crowd like Baron Samedi and they barrel through with it's chorus of "Sodomy is not just for animals and human flesh is not just for cannibals" they have bought and sold each and every soul in the tent. If they cross your path take heed.

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