Life in the Belfast lane

Seeing as it’s well into its mid 40s by now, we probably shouldn’t have been surprised to find that, over the last few years, The Belfast Festival at Queen’s has been showing its age.

Once the swankiest cultural swinger in town, the late ‘90s and early ‘00s have not been kind to the North’s major arts gathering.
Bloated around the waistline by way too many unwholesome and undercooked dishes, and shown up by fresher-faced and more energetic competitors, recent festivals have, at times, appeared painfully moribund and struggling for puff.
So, when this year’s programme dropped on people’s doorsteps, you could understand if it was greeted with all the enthusiasm of an up-dated rates demand.
Thankfully, though, even a cursory glance through the booklet revealed that the festival had obviously benefited from a dark night of the soul – and, sometime over the last 12 months, arrived at the neccessary conclusion that the time had come to slim down and smarten up.
It’s an impression that the new director, Graeme Farrow, is eager to confirm.
“We definitely felt that we had to refocus our energy,” he says. “To concentrate on putting on shows that were exceptional. It means we’ve had to scale down the programme a bit, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. We’ve tried to concentrate on making it special.”
To that end, Festival 06 sees a production of “the world’s most decorated play”, Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, a rare performance from the renowned tenor, Jose Cura, the Northern Irish premier of Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3, and a gathering together of most of the North’s poetic Galacticos (Heaney, Longley, Carson, McGuckian) to celebrate the English Department at Queen’s. Other highlights include the new Martin Lynch play, Holding Hands At Paschendale, which has drawn Ciaran MacMenamin home to play one of the two leads, the Rufus Wainwright scored Bud Suite/Bloom/Lareigne from Stephen Petronio’s Dance troupe, and an exhibition of the work of the Belfast-born photographer Paul Seawright.
Add in Lambchop, The Buena Vista Social Club, and a host of intriguing smaller events and you’ll find a smart, vibrant and outward looking programme.
Which is exactly what the Festival needed at a time when its relevance was being severely questioned.
“It’s a very different environment we’re working in these days in terms of culture and leisure in Belfast,” Farrow explains. “It used to be that the Queen’s Festival was the only show in town, but that’s not the case anymore. The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival has been a really great development; there are Blues and Folk Festivals running independently these days. Just generally, week in, week out, there’s a lot more to do in town. That’s posed a challenge, but it’s also liberated us in some way. We feel that it’s our responsibility to not only organise real blue riband events, but also explore areas that aren’t really catered for here.”
One of the problems with recent years has been the preponderance of events within each programme that looked suspiciously tacked on – as if the Festival provided an open house for any renegade event that happened to occur in Belfast during the fortnight. Farrow insists the practice is now a thing of the past.
“Everything in the programme, we’ve arranged ourselves.”
With arts funding at a premium at the moment in the North (unless, that is, you have a gangster mural to touch-up), not even an event as large as the Belfast Festival can guarantee its continued existence. During the years when it looked like it was having difficulty keeping up with a city that had dramatically changed pace, the loss may have been unlamented. Now, however, after making up lost ground, it’s once again a running companion we should be happy to keep.
“We’ve laid the foundations this year,” says Farrow. “Hopefully from now on we’ll be on a much surer footing, and in a position to organise things that are really special.”