Live Reviews
Sidmouth Folk Week, 2011 The New Chapter - by Hector Christie
The festival also celebrates other traditional arts and crafts, and thoughtfully includes entertainment for children of all ages. Sunday’s offerings included puppetry storytelling from the Punch & Judy-esque Piggery Jokery, and the bawdy roving troupe of maritime-themed Broadside Mummers with their saucy nautical play.
Sunday afternoon’s program is full and varied, and the last opportunity to catch final performances, because there’s always something missed when a choice is made. Notable here were cheeky young teenagers Infinite Cherries playing more instruments than they can carry, the melodic Cupola from Derby, who briefly showed the fruits of their collaboration with Lucy Ward for a stimulating performance.
As darkness descended, the crowds began to drift home, but a good marquee-full stayed behind for the grand finale, featuring (despite some arachnid interference) the experimental Inlay, Wales’s energetic rising stars Calan, the effervescent Uiscadwr (alas on their final tour), with Irish stalwarts Dervish finishing off proceedings in fine style.
And so ends another year at Bromyard, a small but perfectly formed celebration of local, national and world traditional arts. The festival seems to have found itself a workable level, and by not growing has succeeded where so many have in recent years tried to grow, and faltered.
While many of the acts are known and established, budding youngsters are well represented with the talents of Infinite Cherries, Tyde and Lucy Ward, all showing great promise. It’s pleasing to see that many of the dance sides also contain a good proportion of younger members, and of course the audience is a good mix of ages too.
Here in England’s western border, the traditional arts are still being celebrated and enjoyed with a passion. But don’t tell anyone I told you, or everyone will want to come!
Spooky Mens Chorale in the streets of Sidmouth
I
found Jesus on the streets of Sidmouth. He was carrying a melodeon, and, with his
amigo Ramon, stopped me to ask if sessions took place in the Radway Inn. I told him that I hadn’t been here for some time - but wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.
I was last at Sidmouth Festival in 2006, two years after the organisers, Mrs Casey Music, announced they wouldn’t be running a festival in 2005. In reviewing that 2005 event, I wrote that the miracle of that year’s festival calendar was that Sidmouth had managed to put on a credible (though much downsized) festival. In 2005 and 2006, the talk around was about survival, and it felt that though the patient lived, that he/she was still on a life support system. This year I returned to what’s now a 57 year old event. It has had a number of managers/organisers over those years, and it should be noted, that although all have had various visions and approaches, that they’ve without exception acted heroically, right up to the present era.
And what an era it seems to be for festivals. In the UK, they seem to be on the decline - 34 were cancelled in 2010, 31 this year so far. Festivals, such as Oxford’s have crashed because of a lack of advance ticket sales.
Long established names like Womad didn’t sell out this year, and Michael Eavis of Glastonbury has aired doubts about the sustainability of British Festivals, saying, “we sell out only because we get huge headliners. In the year Jay-Z played, we nearly went bankrupt.” I guess what he’s talking about here is what I think of as the “tyranny of the headliner”, where status can win out over quality in an organisers list of programming imperatives. The Independent too has expressed a view that music festivals, particularly in this economic climate, seem to have reached a ceiling, with a feeling that it’s all been done before, leading organisers to, “conspicuously scrabble around for a USP”.
Note to Alan Sugar: - we know about “blaady” USPs too mate
Sidmouth Folk Week, as it’s now known, doesn’t have to scrabble. It already has a number of established USPs:-
“When music sounds, Gone is the earth I know, And all her lovely things, even lovelier grow.”
Of course they’re a bit cheesy, but those lines provide a key to explaining its’ success - the physical beauty of the town, heightened even more by the festival week. Derek Schofield’s
history of the festival, The First Week In August gets it right when he talks about the “visual stability” of Sidmouth. He says the likelihood that the town has probably changed far less than many of our own home towns helps explain why so many festival goers refer to it as a “second home”.
“
...This is a place where friendships are made and annually renewed...”
The things that, “even lovelier grow”, however, are deeper than the town’s physical charms and the music combined, and embrace a spirit that infuses the very DNA of the festival. This is a place where friendships are made and annually renewed, where people have met their life partners and have eventually brought their families, and it’s really easy to become affected by the international goodwill of what is now a truly intergenerational event. I’m not exactly a “huggy kissy” kinda guy, but nevertheless I felt a lift in spirit when warmly greeted by people whom I hadn’t seen in five years, and whom I had no reason to believe would even remember my name.
The Living Tradition - Page 61
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