Before coming back this year, I’d detected that an adventurous heart must again be steering things. “In Search Of Nic Jones”, which premiered there last year, then went on to the South Bank Centre – this was a sign. So too was the news that this year, Peter Bellamy’s, “The Transports” folk opera was to be staged, and I was curious to have my impressions confirmed.
Change, Continuity, Development, and Rewards
When you find on a daily basis that there’s not a copy of The Guardian left in town, you know you can only be in Sidmouth in the first week in August. No change there! Where there was change, was not just in people’s age, (You don’t say - -duhhh!), but that this emerged as an underlying theme of the week. Carthy and Swarbrick did their 70th
Birthday
gig; Pete Coe publicly celebrated his new bus pass; in Benn and Bailey’s concert, Roy made reference to age and a catalogue of health problems, (when he forgot lyrics at one point and had a minor explosion, I fleetingly wondered if Tourettes should be added), whilst Alan Bell had the quote of the week on the matter, “Old age isn’t for wimps.”
It’s very far from an “oldies” event though. Folk Week is reaping rewards from having nurtured young talent from its’ early days through to its more recent, “Shooting Roots” youth programme, and the evidence is everywhere you look. In the last couple of years they’ve gone a step further, and, involved young participants in the actual planning of the festival. Joan Crump, who until recently was the Artistic and Marketing Director, has, for example, asked a variety of young performers, “What are the things you’d like to see at a festival?” and has taken on board some of those ideas. Events such as “Liza Carthy’s Tamla Motown Ceilidh” (packed out) and the Silent Disco have resulted - no I didn’t know either, but apparently it works by giving dancers headsets with a switch on each which permits flipping from one of the two DJs to the other. Non wearers can only see dancers jigging or busting moves (you can tell I’m really down with the kid’s vernacular here innit?) silently at different speeds. Por que? No se!
Although the word “festival” has been dropped, in reality Folk Week is about six festivals running simultaneously, mixing song,
The Living Tradition - Page 62
dance, storytelling, tradition, innovation, theatre, plus spectacle with small scale, and amateur with professional. I encountered so much worthwhile during my week that I broadened my remit of simply reporting the festival in general terms, and decided to include a number of interviews, plus one feature that has relevance for festivals everywhere - the Volunteer Inn sessions. They can’t be included here, but look out in future editions for the Sidmouth Interviews.
A lightning look at some performers
“Let me through, let me through, I’ve very important work to do” chanted a few hundred people, led by the Spooky Men’s Chorale, who at the conclusion of a workshop marched participants onto the streets. Bizarrely effective. Others of note included Peggy Seeger - impeccable stagecraft; Alasdair Roberts - intriguing; Emily Portman - now a distinctive, class act with something to say; Rosie Stewart - visceral in her intensity, and a great singer at the height of her powers; the entire Irish contingent who brought good humour and skill with them, with the Doyle family in particular being great ambassadors, as they relaxed into the week; “The Transports” - a game of two halves with the second deserving its standing ovation.
Maybe I’ve focused too much on the wider impressions created. Equally important is the local perception, which is that the festival is now “ours” again. You could argue that it was never otherwise, but it’s better to just accept that perception in itself is important. Just how much, was demonstrated not just by the large number of events sponsored by local firms, but by an incident on the final day. That’s when it was announced that the local bus service was going into receivership. This could have proved a major headache, as shuttles link various campsites, venues and the town centre. So what happened? Bus crews apparently worked that last day without wages so as not to let the festival down.
Bad points during the week? Well, I never discovered if Jesus found the Radway.
The Transports
The Doyle Family
Rosie and John Murray
The Sidmouth Fiddler statue
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68