not here, but there and everywhere

slow news day I'm afraid, so I thought I'd reproduce something I wrote for this year's Festival Programme.

Festival director Richard Hawley looks ahead to a year without a Cathedral

Is a festival defined by the spaces it uses? Can a festival born out of a building exist if that building is not available? Can a festival, by nature one thing, be nurtured into something more?

Lichfield Festival has a long history of using non-traditional spaces. Over the next ten days we will present work in over 14 spaces, but only two of them – the Lichfield Garrick Theatre and the Garrick Studio - are purpose-built venues. The rest include open air spaces, hotel ballrooms, churches, town halls, and, most significantly, Lichfield Cathedral and its glorious Lady Chapel.

For decades the Lichfield Festival has had Lichfield Cathedral at its heart, and despite gently repositioning the Festival since 2003 to embrace the award-winning Lichfield Garrick Theatre and its year-round season, the festival retains a vital connection to the cathedral and its community. It has for many years been a happy symbiosis. We have a different relationship to our city’s cathedral than, for instance, the Salisbury, Norfolk & Norwich, and City of London Festivals at one end, and the Three Choirs Festival at the other. It is our largest indoor space, over 6,500 people enjoy events there every Festival, it currently gives us our best chance to exhibit Visual Art, and the Festival Office still looks out over the West Front – arguably the best view in Lichfield.

Lichfield Cathedral is renowned for its excellent acoustic, its accessibility and welcome. When the Festival started in 1982 it was sought out by the best national and international orchestras as the place to perform (remember these were the days before Birmingham’s Symphony Hall). While our connection to the cathedral remains significant, we have believed for years that the future success of the Lichfield Festival lies in it being perceived and enjoyed as Lichfield’s Festival rather than one linked exclusively to a venue. The Festival opening the Lichfield Garrick in 2003 was one step in this direction. Changing our business name from Lichfield Cathedral Arts to Lichfield Festival in 2005 was another.

Therefore, when we were told that the Cathedral’s ’once-in-a-century’ Lichfield InSpires project to conserve and restore the cathedral would mean that the Festival will not be able to use it at all in 2010 due to ongoing internal and external restoration work, it was not cause for alarm, but something which was to be viewed as an incredible and ‘unthought-of’ opportunity. An opportunity to shake things up a bit; an opportunity to be more accessible to even more people who live and work in Lichfield; an opportunity to explore the city and district and what it has to offer; and an opportunity to devise a new model that, when we return to the cathedral in 2011, ensures Lichfield Festival for generations to come.

It is also an opportunity for the Festival to reinvigorate our relationship with this significant, historical and beautiful building, its wider community and its projected 200,000 future visitors a year.

That said, life without a cathedral has never been a consideration for a festival born out of one. While I truly welcome Lichfield InSpires and its vision, and the prospect of an internationally significant permanent display in the Chapter House of the cathedral’s collection of early English Bibles alongside the St Chad Gospels; and while I understand the importance of reinstating the Shrine of St Chad to the Lady Chapel, I can’t help but lament the potential loss of these wonderful spaces for Festival events and audiences for the future. I have had some of my most significant Festival experiences in the Lady Chapel.

To some extent a similar issue was faced by the 2001 and 2002 Festivals while the Civic Hall transformed into the Lichfield Garrick in the heart of the city. Those Festivals increased activity in country churches, as well as using venues like the National Memorial Arboretum, Sutton Coldfield Town Hall, and Burton Town Hall.

While marking ten years of the Staffordshire Country Church concerts last year, plans were already afoot to rejuvenate that series into what is now FEAST: Festival Events Around Staffordshire. FEAST’s premise was to use non-traditional venues like village halls and rural pockets alongside the country churches, but also to develop the Festival’s offering outside of Lichfield District.

This year we visit two villages to which the Festival has never been – Dunstall and Barlaston - in addition to returning to Brewood, Swinfen, Hoar Cross and Clifton Campville. It was already intended that this programming thread would become increase during the Festival, potentially spread to other times of the year and also generate local interest through education and outreach work.

Festival audiences will start to see some changes in venues, how performances are presented, and a wider cultural offering, most likely commencing in 2009 in readiness for the following year. We’ll definitely be expanding our FEAST events. I would love the opportunity to open it out to Lichfield’s nooks and crannies – from aircraft hangers to front living rooms, from industrial spaces and quarries to empty offices in the city centre.

I would like to invite you, our audience, to send ideas for potential performance spaces – both here in Lichfield and for our FEAST events – where we could possibly visit over coming years. They will need to be venues that we have not previously used, and can range from really small to really big. This is your opportunity to be involved in the future of the Lichfield Festival, and I look forward to hearing from you.
© Richard Hawley