Hidden in plain sight, Mark ‘bOnEs’ Stevens is ringleader to Folkestone’s fairground-themed venue Speedway - words & images by Jack Coleman

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Running off the high street and flowing across into St Eanswythe Way, you’ll probably first spot a big Lidl - pretty standard stuff. But turn your attention across the way and you’ll spy huge red double-doors inset into a jet-black wall - emblazoned there is the ‘Speedway’ logo.

Notice the details: posters for upcoming events (wisely laminated) scattergunned across the doors. A peppering of stickers slapdashed lovingly by local attendees, creatives, bands and artists, with plenty of room to spare for many more to come.
Clear hallmarks of a DIY grassroots music space, but this unremarkable frontage belies an almost inexplicable interior, something that owner Mark ‘bOnEs’ Stevens hopes “is a bit of an assault on the senses”.

Stark red walls are lined with doohickeys, novelties and fairground signs… ‘Call the Attendant if the Machine is Malfunctioning’. There’s an electric chair, a skeleton riding a bicycle, 60s-diner-style rocket-ship lights and carnival stripes… everything! Tying this all together, a massive lightbulb-studded fairground sign from which the space has appropriated its name, which reads ‘20th Century Speedway’.

It’s bizarre, totally unexpected and begs the question: who did this?

Family-run and fiercely independent, Speedway is a grassroots multi-purpose, mostly music, venue created by married couple Mark Stevens and Debbie Young, with the support of their three daughters known affectionately as ‘The Reds’, and help from close friends Gaz and Goldie. Venue artwork is by ‘low brow’ rock’n’roll illustrator Vince Ray.

“… the best places are the tucked-away ones, little back-alley gems. Places you go to because you know what to expect, that you just know will be well worth travelling for.”

“We’re Folkestone folk,” bOnEs declares warmly, his family having long historic ties to the town. bOnEs uprooted from Folkestone aged seven but returned just before the turn of the century after he and Debbie completed their studies in Canterbury.

The pair’s flair for theatrics was honed through their professional lives in TV, media and stage production for magicians, including Barry & Stuart, Dynamo and Derren Brown.

“During lockdown, we all had our hands tied, didn’t we? So me and Debbie said ‘Should we try something else?’. So we looked locally to find somewhere we could start a venue and we were hoping to start a music venue.”

With the Speedway space, they were starting from scratch.

“It was a printworks before we got it, before then a T-shirt printers and a photographers,” he says. “Word has it, its original use was to store sperm whale oil, back in whenever, the 1800s. Apparently someone had seen that in a book in a library, but that library is now gone, so how we’ll find that out for sure, I don’t know.”

They started with small-scale community events to be as “useful” as they could be, hosting kids’ parties, silent discos and a photo shoot for an OAP calendar, before relaunching as a fully-fledged grassroots music venue.

Tragically, Debbie passed away in early 2024.
After some time away from Speedway to consider whether it was still something the family wanted to continue with, the space reopened in late 2024.

“We’d been to lots of quirky places all over the world, me and Debbie, to watch gigs and the best places are tucked-away ones, little back-alley gems,” he says. “Places you go to because you know what to expect, that you just know will be well worth travelling for. That’s what we want to do here. We’ve got stuff on the bill that will always be interesting, quirky and different - and just a good vibe, you know?”

That vibe is unique.

“I wanted to have as many international bands as possible,” he says. “I was inspired by Ramsgate Music Hall’s model. If we can get an international band in that you won’t necessarily get playing elsewhere in the locality and then bring in a local band to support them and then just keep that momentum going.

“We’ve had great bands from all over the world. Descartes a Kant from Mexico, supported by Shallow Waves from Canada, were musically something else and visually just brilliant. I can’t believe we got them on the same night.”

“Bog Log III, he’s from America. He comes in with a jumpsuit on and a silver helmet with a microphone taped in it. He makes toast on stage and the audience drinks bubbly from a big rubber duck.

“It’s definitely something to walk away from on a Sunday afternoon and say ‘What just happened?’.”

Comedy, cabaret, drag nights, magic shows, photoshoots, private parties and combinations of all of the above, the space has proven to be hugely flexible.

“It’s always been a very safe space as well,” he says. “People know that if they’ve paid for that event, be it the drag night or a rockabilly show, you know they’re in here for that purpose.”

As a community space, the Speedway has also been a platform for other local music promoters to stage their own nights. The Folkestone Songwriting Festival, Folkestone Music Town, Hellfire Corner (a Folkestone-based rap label), Dan Lucas from Joplin House and Do It Ourselves Collective (hardcore punk promoter) have all taken a turn, while Compass Music Festival featured Speedway as one of its Seven Indie Venues of 2025.

Reflecting on Folkestone’s burgeoning creative scene, bOnEs says: “Watching Folkestone be rebuilt with new ideas to recraft it- we’ve been a part of that, which has been nice. As well as seeing how people come together to help and give one another a leg up… we’ve had to rely on the right people coming into the town and on the people who were already here to find ways of regenerating it through art and music.”