Festival time in Ripon

Ripon Theatre Festival has announced full details of this year’s ever-growing summer event. Looking forward to a third year of events and activities, the Festival now stretches to 6 nights and 5 days packed with professional touring shows alongside colourful community performances. Taking place from Tuesday 2 – Sunday 7 July, the Festival promises an extensive and varied programme of drama, family entertainment, dance, circus, comedy, cabaret and spoken word events.

Theatre and fun will be popping up in unexpected places and making the most of the city’s attractive venues and open-air spaces. Outdoor theatre fans can enjoy shows at both the stunning Newby Hall and in the lovely gardens of The Old Deanery or spend a leisurely Sunday in Ripon at the Family Day where puppet shows, street entertainment, music and dance run alongside visits from Wrongsemble and Rhubarb Theatre companies. Festival Saturday (6 July) will see another whole day of pop-up shows, walkabout acts and street performers, kicking off with story-telling for breakfast, Morris dancing and fire-juggling. Visiting acts will arrive in the city from across the UK to join regionally-based theatre companies and performers.

Street entertainment

The extended programme for 2024 includes a daytime Julie Andrews’ musical tribute, A Spoonful of Julie, a stand-up comedy-meets-storytelling event in the Storehouse Bar, an Opera Brunch at Valentino’s Ristorante and a digital theatre experience from Pilot Theatre Company taking place daily in Ripon Cathedral. RTF 2024 also boasts its first Storyteller-in-Residence with Ilaria Passeri spending time in the city performing and running creative workshops for both adults and children.

As part of its developing outreach programme, Ripon Theatre Festival will also be taking theatre and music into care settings. Older people and those living with dementia will be able to enjoy non-verbal puppet theatre and mini concerts from specialist companies and practitioners.

Festival Director Katie Scott says, “We believe that theatre should be for everyone. Our varied and accessible programme of events provides real theatrical treats for seasoned theatre-goes, but also lively and low-cost opportunities for first-timers and families. We love bringing events to non-theatre spaces and working with local businesses and other partner organisations to create a buzz in the city which all can enjoy.”

Tickets are already selling fast for the hottest shows – Red Ladder Theatre’s touching musical We’re Not Going Back which remembers the miners’ strike 40 years on, Barrie Rutter’s Shakespeare’s Royals in Ripon Cathedral and the music of Victoria Wood celebrated cabaret-style in Looking for Me Friend.  

All ticketed events are now on sale and full details of the free shows and outdoor programme can be found at www.ripontheatrefestival.org.

Cumbrian theatre shortlisted for award

Theatre by the Lake (TBTL) has been shortlisted for The Stage Award for Community Project of the Year. The potential gong is in recognition of the theatre’s deeply impactful production of Every Brilliant Thing, for which TBTL worked in partnership with local and national charities: Every Life Matters, Papyrus and Andy’s Man Club, to raise awareness and encourage conversations around suicide and mental health, and provide support for audiences and communities.

The Stage Awards are the highest profile awards celebrating excellence in British theatre across the whole of the UK. The awards recognise excellence in British theatre and celebrate achievements in the theatre industry.

TBTL’s production of Every Brilliant Thing ran at the theatre in Keswick and toured to community spaces in isolated communities across Cumbria in September and October of this year. The play was an honest and uplifting story about resilience and love, where the performer told of his life with his mother’s suicidal depression as a backdrop. The production was particularly relevant to Cumbrian communities, with the region’s suicide rate 50% higher than the national average (Suicide Rates in England and Wales by Local Authority 2021).

Intending to have a genuine positive social impact, the production began with all TBTL staff and volunteers undertaking Suicide Awareness Training with Every Life Matters, and workshops with local community organisations: We CAN Cumbria, Always Another Way, Healthy Hopes, Happy Mum’s Foundation and Andy’s Man Club.

Alongside every performance, the theatre created a Breakout Space that was manned by a volunteer trained in suicide awareness and contained signposting materials for audiences. Each performance also offered post-show activity curated to enable reflection, connection and conversation about suicide and suicide prevention, and spilling throughout the Keswick theatre and on the Cumbrian rural tour, a dedicated exhibition of brilliant things invited audiences and communities to share their own brilliant and joyous things, offering an accessible space for interaction and reflection.

Every Brilliant Thing is a play by Bruntwood Award winning playwright Duncan Macmillan (People, Places and Things; Lungs) with actor, comedian and writer Jonny Donahoe. It was originally developed by Pentabus and Paines Plough and performed by Jonny Donahoe at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in New York and on tour across the UK.  TBTL’s production was directed by Artistic Director Liz Stevenson, Designed by Alex Berry (also designer of the Every Brilliant Thing exhibition), with Lighting Design by Matt Leventhall and Sound Design by Mark Melville. It was performed by Andrew Turner.

Winners of The Stage Awards will be announced at a ceremony at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London on Monday 29 January 2024.