Brighton Festival was once at the forefront of the UK’s outdoor arts scene.  Street theatre and site-specific shows were the jewel in the Festival’s crown. Total Theatre Magazine’s editor Dorothy Max Prior reports on the state of the art in 2026, as witnessed at Brighton Festival 2026.

Brighton Festival has a long history of support for outdoor arts and site-specific performance. The legendary Streets of Brighton programme, set within the Festival, was a beacon of light back in the early 2000s, joining Manchester’s Streets Ahead and Stockton’s SIRF in blazing the way for street theatre and other work sited outside of built theatre spaces to be taken seriously by funders and audiences alike. Some of my favourite memories of those halcyon days include extraordinary works by French artists like the sadly now defunct Compagnie Jo Bithume who had a penchant for hurtling through the crowd on big mechanical constructions, and the happily still operational Transe Express with their fabulous carnivalesque processions and  enormous (25-metre) mobile rig strung with swings and hoops.

It was also a time when British street theatre was moving up to dizzy new heights of excellence. See, for example, the Improbable Theatre/World Famous Company’s Sticky, which saw an extraordinary construction of sellotape animated by pyrotechnics; and Brighton’s own Periplum who, inspired by legendary Polish company Teatr Biuro Podrozy gave us large-scale dark and broody shows such as Arquiem, The Bell, and 451. During the Streets of Brighton festival-within-the-festival there were shows in every imaginable space in the city centre – on busy streets and squares, down dark alleyways, in the parks, on the beach, along the pier… Visiting companies included Avanti Display, IOU, Desperate Men, Dot Comedy, Mischief le Bas – I could go on. These were companies steeped in the traditions of street theatre; veterans of outdoor arts creation and performance. Add to this the inauguration of the National Street Arts Meeting, which took place during Brighton Festival, giving an annual rallying point and meeting place for the burgeoning ‘outdoor arts’ community. 

Then, there were the ticketed site-specific shows such as Frantic Assembly’s Dirty Wonderland, set in the deserted Butlin’s Ocean Hotel; or the many brilliant shows by Dreamthinkspeak, in sites that included Stanmer Manor House and the old Co-op Shop on London Road; or Red Earth’s wonderful collaborations with Indonesian artists Prapto and Parmin Ras, giving us beautiful ritual environmental performance set on Queens Park lake or in Stanmer Woods.

Glory days indeed.

So what’s the state of play for outdoor arts provision in Brighton Festival 2026? Sadly, it feels like pretty slim pickings compared to former glories – but there were some fantastic exceptions. Which we’ll get to soon, but first some reflection on the broader context.

The first thing to say, obvious but needs saying, is that times have changed. In the last decade, we’ve had Brexit and we’ve had a world-wide pandemic, which have both contributed to a major shift. There is less internationalism these days – less to-ing and fro-ing for artists and companies, who are currently facing farcical restrictions in both directions: expensive visas, rising transport costs, carnet nightmares making it horribly difficult to move equipment from one country to another, and more. There are also growing environmental concerns, with some companies, producers and bookers keen to avoid shipping large numbers of people and hefty amounts of equipment across continents.

Also, in Brighton’s case specifically, key movers and shakers in the outdoor arts scene have moved on. Zap Arts have disbanded – with legendary producer Veronica Stephens now gainfully employed as executive director of Out Theatre Festival, which over the past decade or two has risen to become one of the leading lights of UK outdoor arts, Yarmouth now leaving Brighton at the starting block. 

Where are the new producers, directors and animateurs willing to work alongside Brighton Festival to prioritise outdoor arts and site-responsive performance? Where are the programmers at Brighton Festival keen to make this work a jewel in the crown for the Festival, as it once was?

Priorities would seem to have changed for Brighton Festival, perhaps nudged along by the Arts Council #LetsCreate policy (sic, with that horrible hashtag and no apostrophe) initiated in 2020, which has prioritised projects that frame the public as art-makers, insisting on ‘co-creation’ as a necessity for all funded projects, rather than leaving the artists to do what they do best – make art, which may or may not include community engagement. Speaking as someone who, for two decades, made community-engaged art and outdoor performance with Ragroof Theatre (later, The Ragroof Players), and who continues to work in this field as a solo artist, I feel – as I know many of my fellow artists do – that those of us who are experts at creating work that engages communities should be encouraged and funded to do so; but insisting everyone does it has created a situation where artistic excellence – art for art’s sake – has been somehow decried and devalued; and where people who have no desire to make community-engaged work are forced into doing so by the box-ticking nonsense that is the current Arts Council funding application process. But as I type that final sentence, news comes in to my inbox: in response to the Hodge report that criticised the current ACE policies, it has been announced (28 May 2026) that Arts Council England are abandoning #LetsCreate, which supposedly had another four years to run, with new funding criteria to be announced soon prioritising ‘quality’, chief executive Darren Henley saying that ACE is ‘committed to supporting artists, organisations, museums, and libraries to create excellent work for everybody everywhere.’ Well, let’s hope that works out!  

But whatever which way the future manifests, the days of the big and bold outdoor shows by companies steeped in the street theatre tradition seem to be over – for Brighton Festival, anyway. I miss those enormous, spectacular shows – and although I also love the smaller and more intimate work, I worry that few of the companies who really understand larger-scale outdoor arts are getting funded and programmed. 

Also, a reflection on where the work is sited. This year, very little of the outdoor arts work in Brighton Festival was presented in key sites in the centre of town – again, I suspect the funding criteria of ‘accessibility’ (which is often, these days, interpreted as reaching communities that might not otherwise engage with the Festival) dictating the trend to push work to sites outside of the centre such as Moulescoomb and Hangleton. If people won’t come in to town to see the work, then let’s take it out to them. I understand the logic, but I also miss the buzz of a city centre brought to a standstill by art and artists taking over the streets with high quality outdoor arts work.

And this year there really is very little presence for Brighton Festival in the town centre – the more commercial ventures that are part of Brighton Fringe such as the North Laine Brewery’s upstart Speigelgarden, and the embarrassingly awful Fringe City street busking, being all there is in the whole central zone of the city for most of May. ‘Festival? What festival? Oh, you mean those beer gardens?’ is a common cry from taxi-drivers and day-trippers.

One exception to this is the opening event, The Children’s Parade, presented by Same Sky – an off-shoot of the legendary Welfare State International, which was led so magnificently by John Fox (RIP) and Sue Gill. Inspired by the mother company, Same Sky create a themed procession featuring samba groups and marching bands, and a sea of sculptural structures built from hazel-wood withies and tissue paper. Each year there is a theme – this year it was ‘books’ – and the city’s schools and community organisations take on, with training and support for teachers and leaders, the making of the structures and the organisation of a processional troupe. Oh what a joy to see hundreds and hundreds of children and teenagers take over the city centre streets and seafront for a few hours on the opening Saturday of the Festival. I did my time as a parade maker and organiser (for Brighton Steiner School) and nowadays I am a mere observer – although this year my grandson took part for the first time, so I was there alongside St Nicolas C of E School cheering on their excellent Paper Dolls display and marching band. I am far from the only person in the crowd to have been involved in some way or another for the past three or four decades! The Children’s Parade – like Same Sky’s other main event for the winter solstice, Burning the Clocks – is a much loved Brighton institution. Long may they continue to stop the traffic!

I’d also like to raise my hat to Ivan Morison and Heather Peak, the creators of Soft Machines, a public artwork installed on Hove Promenade, which set out to ‘explore the bodies that make a city, and the plurality of, intimacy and desire between them’. Well, I don’t know how much of that came through, but here was something that was artistically interesting, sited in a prominent place, and which provoked reactions of all sorts from the public – for, against, unsure, puzzled, angry, delighted. 

The piece consists of a number of enormous vaguely humanoid figures, which sit on the promenade, day and night. In some lights, at some angles, and depending on the mood of the observer they are friendly giants, threatening monsters, eery Wickermen, or benign beings from another dimension. They are made out of what appears to be straw but on closer inspection is found to be a rigid mix of organic vegetable material and plaster. Small children pat them delightedly, dogs sniff them happily, cyclists and rollerskating teens whizz past them, older walkers pause to take a breath and ponder. ’Only in Brighton,’ people say with a smile. Local Facebook groups are full of commentary. For every ‘What the hell? Is my council money going on this?’ (er, no actually) there are a dozen replies along the lines of, ‘Well, I like them – they brightened up my day’. Public art of the best kind. Commendations to Brighton Festival for programming this one. A success!

Over now to the more regular outdoor arts programming. Brighton Festival is part of the nationwide Without Walls consortium of festivals, and nowadays that means that the whole of the Festival’s outdoor arts offering is two weekends of the shows chosen and presented by Without Walls. All very well and good, but it’s not enough! We need more! We need Brighton Festival programmers with a genuine interest in, and knowledge of, the outdoor arts sector to get stuck in with commissioning and programming of additional work, rather than just relying on the Without Walls programme.

The Festival also needs to take the outdoor work as seriously as the indoor theatre programme. The flyer given out of ‘Free events at Brighton Festival’  doesn’t bother to credit the artist and company names. A friend of mine phoned the Festival box office to ask for show times for one of the shows, Holy Dirt, and was told it wasn’t a Brighton Festival show – perhaps she should try the Fringe! Finding this hard to fathom, I called the next day to test the system, and got the same response. No, they have never heard of this show. I must mean the Fringe! Just because a show is ‘free to audience’ that shouldn’t mean it is devalued in this way. It is disheartening, as seeing outdoor arts as some sort of lower-grade community add-on to an arts festival is something we all fought hard against for many years. The shows are commissioned and paid for as part of Brighton Festival’s programme and all the Festival staff should be on board.

But on to the work itself. The first Without Walls weekend takes place in Moulescoombe, and features the fabulous all-female circus troupe Daughters of the Wire with Elevate Her – a ‘joyful, defiant and beautiful celebration of female camaraderie and sisterhood’ which I reviewed last year when it premiered at Out There Festival. There was also a piece by Becca Gill’s Radical Ritual, called Tender Exchange, which I was sad to miss, having witnessed her work at Inside Out Dorset 2025.

The second weekend is at Blackrock, an empty seafront lot close to Brighton Marina, outside of the town centre. There is no ‘passing trade’ – you’d only be here if you had planned to be here – which I think gives the work a different vibe. It’s theatre that happens to be sited outdoors, rather than street theatre. It’s a rather odd choice as a site. One stage is right next to the No Fit State circus tent. Another is a bit of a walk away, next to the Volks Electric Railway stop, making it a bit congested. I did try to see Talawa Theatre Company’s Fragments of Us, which features an all-Black all-male cast exploring identity through dance and spoken word, but found myself at the back of a crowd that was a confusing mix of people trying to see the show and people trying to get to the ticket office for the railway, or to the nearby toilets, and it was impossible to see anything other than the occasional elevated body. So I gave up and headed to the grass bank next to the road and car park where there were two performance sites, and awaited the next show. 

Here, Thingumajig Theatre present Kismet Walla, a gentle puppet-theatre work performed on and around a very beautiful rairi – a painted cart that provides both set and props. The two-man team, who tell the story, puppeteer, and manipulate props with skill and charm, work wonders overcoming the challenges of the site. For much of the show, their gentle soundtrack and storytelling is threatened by the loud ‘warning, vehicle reversing’ bleeps of the coaches backing in and out the car park entrance which the company are (mysteriously) placed right next to. The story told is of a South Indian odyssey as a boy grows to be a young man, embarking on a long train journey, meeting and losing his first love, and learning that people with names like ‘Ali’ or ‘Hussein’ are different to him, and need to be placed in separate train carriages – a very soft introduction to the politics of the Indian sub-continent that nevertheless hits home. No need for hammer-to-the-head polemics! The props include beautiful painted banners of wonders witnessed in the landscape passed – market stalls heaving with fruits! Luscious plants and trees! Elephants! – and a very lovely miniature train that circles the cart. A delightful show, performed with elegance and assurance by a company that have a longstanding and well-deserved good reputation for bringing puppetry outdoors.

Ferdinando + Bernstein’s Stick and Stone is a joy and a delight – which is perhaps a little surprising as it’s about climate breakdown and the awful fact that we have lost 50% of all wild things in recent human history. But hope and love are centred, along with the notion that every small positive action helps. We have choices! Let the grass grow! Leave the insects alone! Outdoor arts aficionados will be familiar with the two artists as the mainstays of veteran street theatre company Strangelings. Flick Ferdinando also worked for years with John-Paul Zacharini and later embarked on a solo career – but has now reunited with former comrade David Bernstein. And it is good to see them back together, for sure! Dressed in Pagan chic robes, carrying bundles of sticks, staves, and stones, they enter the space and give us a delightful hour of tomfoolery mixed in with some folkish songs singing the praises of various flora and fauna, and the occasional earnest speech about the loss of biodiversity. There’s lots of two-way jousting, a drum solo from Flick, and a classic clown swat-the-fly routine from David – although said fly becomes a Christ-like icon displayed on a banner held aloft, an homage to the beauty of all life on earth. Close to the end of the show, there’s a lovely scene where audience members are invited up to bear sticks and aforementioned banner and form a tableau of environmental solidarity and resistance. Great stuff!

Over the road, wedged between the No Fit State Circus tent and the car park, overlooking the beach, is a dance stage that plays host to Holy Dirt, created and performed by Vidya Thirunarayan with Dale Wylde as this season’s second performer; directed and designed by David Glass, with a soundtrack by James Foz Foster. And what an exhilarating ride this is, as Vidya – channelling the Hindu goddess Shakti (the Divine Feminine) – wages war on the patriarchy, on economic oppression, and on the mounting inequalities of the climate crisis. Her tools are clay, sand, water, stones, and of course her physical body, acting out her strength and her resistance. Feminine yes, passive and ladylike no – Vidya and her foil (animus, angel, devil, oppressor, liberator – performed with humour and sensitivity by Dale Wylde) work, play, battle, dance, flap their wings, rage against the machine – and make a magnificent mess. Foz’s soundtrack features foley and electronic sound, eerie voiceovers from a Big Brother type character (‘Do not do that!’ ‘Start work now!’), and a plethora of unusual instruments from around the world, creating haunting drones and seductive melodies, with a touch of humour in the inclusion of Chinese and Indian renderings of Disney classics. An unusual take on the notion of  World Music! This is the show’s second year, with plans to tour to many other countries. Holy Dirt is an odd amalgam of Vidya’s  Bharatanatyam Indian Classical Dance style, the classic mime and physical theatre of David Glass, and the strong interest in creating a visual theatre of striking imagery from both key artists, all held together by Foz’s excellent soundtrack. Somehow, against the odds, it all works beautifully!

Also part of the Without Walls programme is Chair! a new piece by Geraldine Pilgrim, who has made such a fantastic body of site-responsive work over the years: taking over whole empty buildings  such as the Midland Hotel at St Pancras; animating working buildings such as the East End’s Toynbee Hall or Bexhill’s De La Warr Pavilion; and creating work like immersive dance piece Handbag! with community participants. 

First to say: here comes another gripe about choices around site at this year’s Brighton Festival. The piece is about the disruption of our urban environment; a plea for a return of public seating and the occupation of public space, in an era when more and more outdoor space is hard to access – fenced off, or made inhospitable. It would have been wonderful to have seen this set in a busy town centre square; creating a genuine disruption of public space. As it was, it was sited on a pedestrianised quadrant in front of South East Dance’s venue, the Dance Space. It’s in a new-build backstreet with very few passers-by, so it feels an oddly dead space. 

That aside, Chair! is a delight; a clear premise well-executed by the cast of community performers recruited for the piece. There’s a parallel with Geraldine Pilgrim’s Handbag, which saw a team of community dancers enter a space one-by-one, each taking their spot and making the moment their own as they grooved along. Here, the performers again enter one-by-one, but each with a chair, which is set down and sat upon. Some have books, some have knitting, some play chess. One finds a whole tea-set in a wheelie bin and proceeds to have a refined afternoon tea; another extracts an easel and set of paints from the bin. All are making the statement that public space belongs to us all, and can and should be used. There are some empty chairs in the space and audience members are encouraged to come and sit, too. Which I do, happily. Eventually, the square starts to empty out as a pair of wardens cum street cleaners encourage people to leave, taking away their paints or chess set or tea service. Some of us resist, refusing to go – winning the artist’s approval for our resilience. Like all the other shows I’ve seen in this year’s Without Walls programme, this is a gently politically piece that manages to make an important statement without pounding the audience with polemic.

Talking of gently effective political work, a word finally about a show that wasn’t part of the free outdoor programme – it was indoors and ticketed – but a site-responsive work of the sort I’d love to see more of in future Brighton Festival programmes. Bristol-based In Between Time, in association with Brighton’s own Dreamy Place, brought an immersive sound and light installation to the dark and dank old cab run under Brighton Station. Indeed, right under the train tracks. We Are Warriors has at its heart a wonderful soundscape created with the voices of over 100 women, girls, and non-binary people. I think I was expecting a more regular spoken-word piece, but no – it’s a fabulous blend of spoken, sung, whispered, and breathed vocals; mixed with all sorts of beautiful sounds, including humming drones, percussive taps, and echoey top lines. Some sections are choral, some are solo vocals. Sometimes what is being said or sung is audible. Sometimes it is sub-voce, like a voice from a dream that haunts you in your waking hours, as you try to grasp on to its meaning. The soundscape plays on a continuous loop.

As we enter the space, we are invited to take or make a small light (teeny bulb, pin, battery) and when we feel ready, to place it anywhere we like in the space, dedicating it to someone who has been lost or silenced. I go in the early days of the installation, yet already walls and floor are filling up with the little lights. I nurse mine for a long time, listening to two full cycles of the soundscape, before placing my light on a metal post, and slowly leaving. What a wondrous experience!

More of this sort next year, please, Brighton Festival.

Featured image (top): Ivan Morison and Heather Peak: Soft Machines on Hove Promenade, Brighton Festival 2026

Brighton Festival ran 1-25 May 2026. See www.brightonfest.org 

Without Walls: https://withoutwalls.uk.com/ 

In Between Time: https://inbetweentime.co.uk/ 

Geraldine Pilgrim: https://www.geraldinepilgrim.com/ 

Nurturing relationships, building bridges and forging new connections are key elements of the Out There International Festival of Outdoor Arts and Circus 2026. Total Theatre Magazine’s editor Dorothy Max Prior previews this year’s event.

Brace yourself, Yarmouth – Out There Festival is back, livening up the end-of-May half-term week with a fabulous array of circus and outdoor arts performances from across the world. There’s fun for all the family with UK street theatre favourites Cocoloco, Granny Turismo, and Ramshacklicious; innovative international contemporary circus and physical theatre from the likes of Teatro Necessario, Margarida Montenÿ and Nacho Flores; and numerous exciting collaborations, such as Toulouse-based musical ensemble FÜLÜ, working with the UK’s Gorilla Circus; and Brian Eno/Jeremy Deller’s Hard Art Collective joining up with local community arts organisations to co-create a takeover of the streets.   

Out There Festival 2025 was truly something: the usual four days of intense artistic activity in the streets, parks and beaches of Great Yarmouth; coupled with the first UK hosting of the prestigious Circostrada gathering of professionals working in circus and street arts, FRESH STREET 2025; the opening of Out There’s second built venue, the Ice House; and an extensive teen-focused outreach programme of activities nurturing young journalists and producers, created in tandem with Freshly Greated. 

When I meet with Out There’s Executive Director Veronica Stephens, she says: ‘This year’s focus has been to consolidate and build on all of those successes,’ whilst immediately adding that she is in the thick of producing this year’s festival, which is hardly a step back: there are around 36 companies presenting work, so still not an insignificant task.  Of course, she’ll be doing this without simultaneously producing an enormous international conference with 400 delegates from across the world, so there is that!

What is different this year is that the Festival has been pulled back into what Veronica calls ‘a more compact footprint’. All of the street shows will be taking place within easy walking distance of the organisation’s HQ at Drill House: St Peter’s Plain, York Road and other streets surrounding the Drill House; St George’s Park and the Trafalgar Road area; and the Ice House. More on all of these sites anon!

Veronica tells me that ongoing collaborations with local partners is crucial to the Festival and to the year-round work of Out There Arts. The organisation is now a key mover and shaker in the Great Yarmouth Cultural Network (GYCN), and they are vying to become a UK Town of Culture (which is, yes, a bit like being a City of Culture but for smaller urban conurbations). With the Ice House now firmly up and running, working in tandem with the Drill House, Out There are also pushing forward plans to make Great Yarmouth a UK capital of circus.

Out There’s Artistic Director Joe Macintosh is clearly very proud of this year’s Festival offerings:

 ‘There are very many female-led companies. Less because of any strategic decisions to include them, but just because they are fantastic companies!’ 

 He cites the work of Cie Humo y Polvo, a young international company based in Brussels who are presenting both an indoor show at the Ice House, I Dreamt I Had Hairy Teeth (which surely takes the biscuit for the best show title this year), and a street show called Obsolete Elegance. Both shows are an intriguing mix of circus skills and visual theatre, with a particular emphasis on experimental design and costuming, creating images rather like moving sculptures.

‘Their work gives me new hope for the future of contemporary circus,’ says Joe,  ‘as it is both innovative and highly entertaining’. 

Another female-led show is a spectacular aerial rope piece called Blue, by Margarida Monteny, leading a five-woman team of acrobats. This will be one of the key attractions in St George’s Park this year. 

Then, there’s the Japanese female street performer Kano Mami, who Joe saw when he went on a  Circostrada trip to Japan and Taiwan, which aimed to build and grow European and Asian connections.

 ‘There are very few female solo street performers in Japan,’ says Joe, ‘and Kano Mami has not done many appearances in Europe’. 

 I’m quite intrigued by her photos, which feature her in a trademark plain blue tracksuit. There’s a lack of any kind of set, costume or props. Here, it would seem, is a performer relying totally on her ability to create ‘happenings’ in public space through her direct encounters with members of the public. I’m very much looking forward to witnessing this one! 

 Joe is also very pleased to be presenting O Quel Dommage – another female-led company made up of two women and a ‘humanette’ puppet baby, whose show Room Service looks to be a peon to bad mothering. ‘They are nothing like Paradise Circus,’ Joe says, citing one of the great successes of two years ago, ‘but they share with them an anarchic humour that some might consider bad taste!’  Sounds like my cup of tea, to be sure… Joe feels that many of our UK street theatre companies shy away a little too much from the dark side, and could learn a lot from the European companies.

 On this note, he also cites Lanordika’s Tres Tristes Trolls – a trio of male clowns from Spain/Andorra, directed by a woman.

 ‘It is skilled, charming and funny,’ he says, ‘the kind of work that we should be making here in the UK!’

 Veronica tells me about a major project that will be a centrepiece of the Festival’s offering, taking place right outside the Drill House: Up Our Street will transform St Peter’s Plain and other streets outside Drill House into a fabulous play-park.  There will be an outdoor living room – replete with an Astroturf carpet – but also real garden plants and even a garden shed (repurposed by the Let’s Grow organisation into The Magic Shed.)

 ‘It’s all about participation,’ says Veronica, ‘we are creating an immersive environment that everyone can enjoy’.

Funded by Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, and working with local community arts organisation Freshly Greated, it will be a wonderful example of collaboration and co-creation, with boundaries between professional and community arts practice dissolved.

Perennial Out There favourite The Loser’s Arcade will be core to this venture, as will Hocus Pocus, who will be running the show and integrating the community into the action. Also on board are Rudkin & Hicks with their mini-Olympics show Allympics, as are the Bureau of Silly Ideas. And there will also be three community dance groups presenting work in the site alongside a pop up orchestra from the Great Yarmouth Minster.

Reprezent will also be involved, creating a street mural and collaborating on The Public Living Room with Camerados; as will Hard Art, a cultural collective of artists, activists and scientists standing in solidarity in the face of climate and democratic collapse. This collective has a solid track record in co-creation and community participation of the highest artistic standards, having previously toured The Fete of Britain (featuring the fabulous Union Jill Flag) nationwide.

So this May, those streets around the Drill House will be buzzing with interactive art works of all sorts! 

Music is always a key feature of the Festival’s programme, and this year is no exception, with appearances from Bowjangles, who will be presenting Classically Untamed, and there is also the ever-popular African Choir of Norfolk. The delightfully dotty Rimski and Handkerchief will be roaming the streets with their bespoke mobile piano and ‘bassicle’; and the Drill House will be playing host to a full programme of Young Out There (YOT) bands and musical groups. Plus, Jake Rodriguez’ Banjo Chicken Man looks to be highly entertaining!

A major music-led collaborative work, FÜLÜ x Gorilla Circus – Live, is at the heart of the programme in St George’s Park. Joe elaborates:

‘FÜLÜ is another female-led company – by an Italian trombonist, in this case – an international collective of musicians and street theatre performers which is based in Toulouse. For Out There 2026, they will be working in collaboration with Gorilla Circus, creating a multi-artform new work.’

Gorilla Circus have an ongoing relationship with Out There Arts, who have been supporting and mentoring them for a number of years. In 2019, they worked with French company Generik Vapeur on Thank You for Having Us (Merci de Votre Accueil). Last year (2025) they created AIthentic, a large-scale show about AI staged on a big fire-truck with an enormous crane-ladder. This same structure will be used for this year’s collaboration with FÜLÜ – placed in the park, with the space further enhanced by projections on to trees, a community-engaged collaboration which will see participants’ photo portraits morphing into their favourite animals, using key lines and words from Fulu’s lyrics as inspiration for imagery.

‘It’ll be an interesting experiment’, says Joe. ‘I think the future for circus arts is cross-artform and cross-platform – finding the cross-fertilisation of ideas.’

This particular event also ties in with the Festival’s aim to bring more  international collaboration to the fore. Since the lethal double-dose of the Covid pandemic and Brexit, UK artists have been increasingly isolated from their European neighbours, with far less international exchange than before due to the difficulties (in both directions, to and from the UK) with travel, visa restrictions, carnets and other obstacles.

Other international elements to note are a contingent of Catalan performers – the relationship with Catalunya being one aspect of international collaboration that has been nurtured steadily by Out There over the years. The Catalans taking to the streets of Yarmouth this year are Pau Palaus, Pere Hosta, Tzema Muñoz, and Nacho Flores – who Joe describes as looking like  ‘a log-hurling Gristly Adams’.

Of course circus is always a key element of Out There Festival. Apart from the work mentioned above, focused around Gorilla Circus’s ‘fire engine and crane’ structure, there will be a major focus on circus companies in the Trafalgar Road sites, with a flying trapeze rig playing host to the Steal This Circus show, as well as masterclasses for circus professionals and ‘have a go’ sessions open to everybody. 

This site will also host the Italian company Teatro Necessario, who will bring us Clown in Liberta, a skilful blend of acrobatics and clowning. Teatro Necessario are based in Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy, in a town called Colorno, just outside of Parma. This three-man team of musical clowns have been instrumental in reinvigorating the street theatre scene in Italy by hosting a festival in their home town, called Tutti Matti per Colorno – so they are experienced producers as well as veteran performers!

And the Drillaz Circus School, a year-round youth project of Out There’s Drill House, will be performing in the Festival, too. 

Whilst flagging up the circus work in the festival, we must mention The Hippodrome, Britain’s only remaining purpose-built circus venue, and a stalwart of the Great Yarmouth arts and entertainment scene. Last year, the Hippodrome was the venue for the Circostrada FRESH conference linked to the Festival; and in previous years it has hosted indoor shows that were part of Out There (including Marisa Carnesky’s brilliant Showwomen.

It is a different set-up this year as The Hippodrome, with Out There’s support, is establishing itself as a receiving house and has brokered an independent relationship between the venue and Revel Puck Circus, who usually perform in their own tent. This is a major new initiative for Hippodrome,their first ever arts-council supported project, as well as an exciting new venture for this enterprising young circus company.

 ‘It’ll be a significant experiment for Revel Puck,’ says Joe. ‘Their work straddles traditional and contemporary circus, so it could well be an excellent fit.’

Also indoors, at the Ice House, is the aforementioned Cie Humo y Polvo with I Dreamt I Had Hairy Teeth; and a new solo show from Dik Downey of Opposable Thumbs, Don Quixote. The mix within the programme of veteran performers like Dik Downey and younger artists like Dik’s former collaborator in Opposable Thumbs, Adam Blake (who this year is presenting his own company Adventure Arts’ The Wizard and the Mechanic) is something that Out There Festival directors Joe and Veronica are proud to be promoting.     

A flag-up also of another interesting collaboration: the Southbank Centre are bringing their own bus up to Yarmouth to host A Poet in Every Port. It has just been announced that Roger McGough will be on board! It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out within the context of an outdoor arts festival. In some ways, it’ll be like an alternative iteration of a booth show – street theatre audiences do like popping into sheds, tents, booths – and buses – for something a little more intimate than the big outdoor shows.

All in all, an Out There Festival line-up that is offering something for everybody. Big spectacular shows, intimate encounters, the chance to get involved and make and do…  it’s all there for the taking.

‘I’m really proud to be part of such a brilliant festival, since its inception 18 years ago, and to see it grow and evolve,’ says Veronica. ‘The artistic quality is outstanding – the best! The Out There Festival programme is bold, ambitious, exciting, pushing boundaries while warmly inviting people in, and making space for communities to express their creativity. A big thank you to the whole of the Festival team – you are all amazing!’

Featured image (top): Margarida Montenÿ. Photo Luisa Valares.

The Out There Festival 2026 will take place in the streets and outdoor spaces of Great Yarmouth from Thursday 28th to Saturday 30th May.

Full programme: https://outtherearts.org.uk/out-there-festival/2026-programme/

Great Yarmouth based, but collaborating internationally, Out There Arts – National Centre for Outdoor Arts & Circus is a registered charity and Arts Council funded National Portfolio Organisation dedicated to supporting excellence in the development, creation and presentation of new and high quality artistic work, delivery of outstanding circus and outdoor arts festivals and events for and with diverse local communities and wider audiences.

Out There Arts shares Great Yarmouth’s vision as the UK Capital of Circus. Our focus on circus and outdoor arts grows naturally from this seaside town’s rich performance heritage, providing an accessible medium to support their work.

Produced by Out There Arts, the Out There Festival is now the region’s largest free festival of street arts and circus and regularly attracts audiences in excess of 60,000 people. We work with artists, communities and partners to deliver on agendas including: culture, youth, education, community, regeneration and health & wellbeing.

www.outtherearts.org.uk 

Yew trees, giants, wassailing, and witches’ lore. The Inside Out Festival 2025 stretches across Dorset and beyond, and digs deep into the county’s folklore and landscape to bring great works of outdoor arts to life. Dorothy Max Prior reports

Arriving to the quayside at Christchurch on a breezy late-summer Friday evening, I see that there are flags everywhere, fluttering madly. 

No, not Union flags or St George flags, but 60 beautifully-designed multi-coloured flags depicting birds, butterflies, fish, flowers, and humanoid figures composed of a multitude of faces. Some are very clean-cut and graphic; some bear texts in cut-out lettering; some are quite abstracted, so that the colours and patterns become more immediate than the figures depicted. Collectively, all seem to convey the message that we are one united world, animal vegetable and mineral – the natural world bearing no regard to political boundaries of state or allegiance.      

This is River of Hope, created by artist Heidi Steller and poet Matt West who, inspired by three local rivers – the Stour, the Avon and the Allen – have worked with local young people to respond to those rivers with poetry and visual imagery. The Christchurch iteration of River of Hope, presented as part of the Inside Out Festival 2025, is the culmination of a project run by Thames Festival Trust, which has taken place in seven UK locations; the programme focusing on young people’s reflections on climate change, with concurrent projects taking place in France and Ethiopia.

Immediately before the outing to see the installation, there is a reception to launch this year’s Inside Out Festival, held in a lovely garden that is rather bizarrely populated by models of dinosaurs – a kind of miniature Crystal Palace Park! Here, we gather to drink Pimms; to listen to teenage rapper DJ Lola, whose song ‘What’s the Dream?’ celebrates love and optimism; and to hear co-directors Bill Gee and Kate Wood speak. 

Bill notes that it is twenty years since he and Kate first started the conversation about what would become the inaugural Inside Out Festival, founded 18 years ago as a biennial event. He highlighted the international aspects of the Festival, which this year has a strong Catalonian contingent included in the programme; and also flags up (excuse the pun) the three national projects that had a Dorset iteration: River of Hope, Nature Calling, and Beach of Dreams (this last another flag-creating project that I saw last May at Out There Festival in Great Yarmouth, now heading to Corfe Castle for its Inside Out iteration). 

For her part, Kate reminds us of Activate’s motto, which is that ‘anything’s possible and everyone’s invited’ telling us that the organisation’s aim is to break down barriers and reach the widest possible audiences, connecting people to the arts whilst celebrating Dorset’s natural landscape.

Speeches done, Pimms drunk, it’s time to head of down to the quay, just a short walk away…

The following morning my companions and I gather at breakfast to compare notes on the storm that raged through the night – which I somehow managed to sleep through. The ground is damp and it is still a little windy, but gathering raincoats and sturdy boots, we set off to Moors Valley Country Park and Forest for the opening day of Canopy: 24 ideas about trees, the brand new immersive sound-work from Lorna Rees (of Gobbledegook Theatre), in which the audience is invited to follow a trail though the forest where we will encounter twenty-four ‘pods’, each housing its own sound world. We arrive dead on 10am, the start time, and the production team are just putting the final touches in place. Luckily nothing has been damaged by the night’s rain and wind, and we are all set to start.

In previous commissions for Inside Out, Lorna has given us artistic explorations of, and guides to, rock forms and to clouds. Now she has turned her attention to trees, working with arborists, earth scientists, artists, writers, folk musicians, and members of the local community.

‘The work is actually about seven years in the making,’ says Lorna. ‘I realised that I very much love trees, but don’t know much about them, even some of the basic identification knowledge. I’m really good at identifying clouds and not too shabby at rocks, but living things have really eluded me. As an environmentalist I wanted to know more about the science of trees, and their role in our planet and ecosystems. I always start my making process with a notion and Canopy was inspired by the idea of who a British forest is for, and what our psycho-geographical forests are. There was just so much to say! I realised that I wanted a collective of voices – different perspectives and communities to respond with their ideas about trees. All of these perspectives and ideas go through my curatorial lens, and some conversations became songs instead of people just talking to me.’  

So, what’s the end result? We head off to find out. We are given a map and invited to follow a trail though the forest to discover and experience these 24 different ‘pods’ of various colours and sizes, each suspended in the forest.

‘I’ve worked with some amazing folk to create the pods themselves,’ says Lorna. ‘Liam O’Brien is a product designer and forager, and Amanda Moore is an artist and architect, and together we’ve worked on the special design universe of Canopy, one of slime moulds and fungus and seeds. We’ve worked really hard to be as environmentally careful as possible, and to work with people who really make things. The sonic acorns in the domes [that deliver the soundscapes] were specially made in Birmingham by a team of craftsmen, out of beech and oak. And artist and designer Sophie Fretwell has collaborated with me on costume and design. I love fungi and slime moulds and the seed pods – the idea was to look retro-futuristic – slightly sci-fi – but also to be clearly of the place it’s sprung from’.

In the very first pod, artist, philosopher and clown (great combination, that!) Remi Oriogun-Williams tackles the key issue: ‘What is a Tree?’ Later, we get more specific musings on, or odes to, different tree species. There’s ‘Oak’ by folklorist Lally Macbeth; a song called ‘Yew Tree’, dedicated to ‘the oldest living beings in Europe’, with one yew racking up a lifespan of 4,000 years; a wassailing ditty celebrating the ‘Old Apple Tree’, sung by Lorna and members of the community in Chettle, North Dorset; another song called ‘Blossom Queens’ about the cherry blossom that heralds the arrival of spring; and a lament called ‘Oh Magnolia’, inspired by a conversation with ecologist Professor Adrian Newton.

I notice that a lot of these songs are co-written by Lorna and her son Rufus Rusic, and ask her about working with him and other family members.

‘My son Rufus – who for most of this project was just 17 – worked incredibly closely on the music with me. A couple of years ago we performed as mother and son with a Dutch company called Collectief Walden on Songs For A Shifting Soil. It was a real revelation to me that so many people loved seeing our relationship on a stage like that. And, him being fairly immersed in folk music and us having sung together since he was tiny, we have a real shorthand when creating music together. He’s been dragged to countless wassails and cloud-gazings and maypole dances! We have played with so many ideas with the music. One song is based on an old German folk canon, which the 90-strong choir (run by Sandie Wood) I’ve sung with for nearly 20 years sings; another is a song Rufus and I recorded whilst sitting under a yew tree in a graveyard in North Dorset. I think our voices have a sort of unique blend which I don’t think it’s possible to replicate with anyone else. And I love that a young person has been so involved in making the work.’

One of their excellent collaborations is on a piece called ‘Trees Are People Too’ which reminds us that ‘Nature’s not just there for you – the trees are people too’.

Lorna has more to add on ‘the family tree’ collaborations:

‘On reflection, I think it’s quite a feminist act – acknowledging and working with the family I’ve worked so hard to create – and four generations of my family have been involved in the creation of this piece, from my granddad to my parents to my sons and nephews. And they are my family tree after all! I make things at my kitchen table. It’s very – domestic. I hope that this is reflected in the things I make, I hope they’re connecting and on a human scale.’

I will also add that for me, one of the most moving pieces in Canopy is ‘The Trees of my Father’, a personal reminiscence by Lorna’s husband Adam Coshan reflecting on his Anglo-Indian heritage, and his father’s encountering of cobras on forest walks!

‘It was inspired by my partner Adam’s father’s forest from where he grew up in India – the jungle is part of my family’s British forest too!’

Another favourite pod of mine is ‘In the Neighbourhood of Trees’ in which author John Grindrod sings the praises of city trees and nature in the urban environment: conkers bouncing on bus shelters, plane trees pushing up paving stones, and tree roots knitting underneath our streets. Being a city girl, and someone who has made work exploring the relationship between the natural world and the urban environment, I very much appreciated and identified with this particular piece of writing.

I experience and enjoy all the pods, but I find myself most drawn to those with the poetic, literary, musical and meditative content. The music and sound art that underscore the spoken or sung text is excellent, with much created (as discussed earlier) by Rufus, but with additional sound design work by Jo Tyler, in beautiful pieces such as ‘The Forests That Were’, recorded on location in the petrified forest of Portland, Dorset. Less engaging – although I know this is down to personal taste and interest – are the pods that discuss climate change and endangered species. Perhaps because I feel I know these things are occurring, but I want to focus on being in the present moment in this beautiful forest, listening to the rustling trees and singing birds in tandem with the pod sound recordings. But the beauty of having twenty-four pods to listen in to is that there is something for everyone.

When we finally reach the end of the trail, we come across the vintage horse trailer that has been lovingly transformed by Lorna and her granddad into a little hub for books and research materials – also providing the opportunity for trail participants to talk to Lorna or producer Natalie Querol or one of the other team members. 

Such an ambitious and engaging project, beautifully realised – Canopy is a great addition to this year’s Inside Out Festival, and will hopefully live on in other locations.

‘The shows I’ve premiered at Inside Out Dorset (Ear Trumpet, Cloudscapes and GEOPHONIC) have all had successful touring lives far beyond their first outings. So I’m incredibly grateful for the Festival’s belief in me and the continued relationship. I’m keen to take Canopy to urban parklands as well as woodland and forested places – we have the most extraordinary treescapes and parks in the UK. I’d like to explore them more.’

Our next stop is a hefty 70-minute drive away. We are off to Yeovil to see Becca Gill of environmental art collective Radical Ritual, here with their project Consequences.

Fascinated by the enduring mystery of the Cerne Abbas giant, Radical Ritual have created a vast temporary artwork, conjuring up a monumental new mythical creature. Consequences, a large-scale participatory project, draws on folk traditions, surrealist art-making, and collaborative storytelling ‘to create a new myth that reflects contemporary communities and their connection to the land’. The end result comprises the large-scale visual art piece, displayed on a hillside; together with workshops, parades, and a very lovely sound installation set alongside it.

‘I’m inspired by how myths shape our connection to place and to each other – how we have lost many of these connections, and how we might create new ones together,’ says Becca. ‘Consequences is an act of reclaiming belonging – to land, to shared histories, to each other – and is a symbol of what we can achieve when we embrace our differences and create together. I love that it is a great big game that breaks down the barriers to creating, that there is surprise in what others do, and that it taps into the subconscious at the same time as allowing people to co-create simultaneously.’

Now, geography is not my strongest subject, but even I know that Yeovil is in Somerset not Dorset – if only just over the border! But we are in Yeovil because it has played a key role in the development of the piece, as Becca explains:

‘Consequences started in conversation with Nick Hayes (Right to Roam) who was really inspired by the issue of access to land. We worked with over 200 people from Yeovil to create a new giant in Cerne Abbas, collecting plants to make inks and charcoal and pigments to create the body parts of the new giant. We worked with them in the landscape – played games of Consequences on a smaller scale, and then had a huge canvas outside which they could collage onto, working collectively and then individually to make their section. The flora and fauna you see in the giant is all from the hillside.  They felt that they belonged in that landscape although none of them had ever been there before, even though they only lived 20 minutes down the road.’

The new Consequences giant made its first appearance alongside the legendary Cerne Giant, an ancient land art work depicting an enormous male figure carved on to the hillside. Now it has moved to Yeovil, giving locals a chance to see the artwork that was created in collaboration with members of their community.

So here we now are, on Summerhouse Hill above Yeovil. At the foot of the hill is the workshop tent, featuring a wonderful array of natural materials, from chalk to charcoal to wool and dyes made from local plants. There’s also a small orchard where the sound installation is sited. This has been created by Douglas Dare, and is a beautiful piece, merging folk instruments and electronics with a compelling spoken text full of witches’ lore that tells of houses where ox hearts studded with nails are found under the floorboards, and mummified cats are found bricked up behind the walls.

‘Douglas is an incredible musician who grew up near to the Cerne Giant in Dorset on a farm and when we first met we realised we both had a postcard of it on our fridges!’ says Becca. ‘His music is evocative and beautiful and I was keen to work with him. The soundtrack was created using found sounds from the hillside.  He also incorporated the poem ‘This Patch of Land’ written by Louisa Adjoa Parker for Nature Calling, and we reached out to the people she interviewed when writing this so that their voices are featured in the composition.’

Moving on up the hill track: we can’t clearly see the whole piece from where we are, and thus trek right up the hillside, walking the circumference of the 30 x 40 metre ‘canvas’ (in fact, a specially constructed breathable material that, whilst being environmentally sound for the ground beneath it, can withstand the vagaries of the British weather). The images on it have been  digitally created from the participants’ original drawings, using chalks coloured with inks and dyes taken from local plants.

We see heads, hands, torsos, legs and feet of very many different creatures, real and mythical. There are beady eyes and beaks, scales and wings and tails, in many different hues. Just as in the parlour game Consequences, each team working on their section didn’t get to see what others had drawn until the end reveal.

Becca tells me that Fairmead School for neurodiverse teenagers worked on the Head section. The Heart group was made with Global Majority, an organisation for refugees and asylum seekers. ‘Some of the kids wanted to paint the flags of their countries of origin and have these as petals at the centre of the heart, so we have Syrian and Palestinian flags at the heart centre,’ says Becca. The Legs were tasked to able2achieve: ‘a non-verbal boy took a stick and started to draw an elephant,’ says Becca. ‘We later discovered that there have been findings that show that elephants may have walked on this hillside in prehistoric times’. The Feet section was created by a group of local Year 4 primary school children, who loved mixing and creating with the paints and charcoal, enjoying how messy they got, and saying that they had only ever thought paint came from a plastic pot. One of the key elements of the project was making and using art materials created from the raw materials foraged from the local landscape.  

‘I’ve been a long-time fan of ancient monuments, stone circles, chalk land art, and the ambiguity and power that these hold,’ says Becca. ‘I’m also a fan of the folklore around giants especially here in UK and the intangible pre-history which has been lost through many years of capitalism and colonialism. I’m excited by the resonance that these places hold and the imagination that they spark as we try to work out how and why they are there. This is an exciting starting point for working with many people to co-create new myths.’

Becca’s team of collaborators include the acclaimed author Sita Brahmachari and artist Grace Emily Manning, both of whom ran and continue to run the project workshops. They were also key to the parade that took place in Yeovil on the morning of Saturday 2o September. Sita had this to say about the parade:

‘On the day that there were marches seeding unrest and discord in our capital, I was proud to be part of a radical ritual here in Yeovil – a beautiful parade. The parade brought together people from each of the groups we had worked with. It was a gentle parade in keeping with the bright, beautiful, gentle new giant. What a joy to see the people of Yeovil with local and global roots and branches, from across generations, gather to see the giant they had helped to make. We held up our banners and sang. The sun shone as people living in the same town met – some for the first time, others  reunited – and carried flags, making the sentence: ‘Together. We. Are. Giant.’

Leaving Yeovil, I take a train to Clapham Junction. As I cross the station, I’m moving through crowds of people wearing flags and waving flags – Union flags, the St George cross. There are beer cans thrown on the ground, and a lot of loud jeering. I remember that there has been a big far-right rally in London today, called Unite the Kingdom, organised by Tommy Robinson and addressed by Elon Musk.

I hurry on by, glad to have experienced a very different sort of flag flying at Inside Out Dorset. 

Featured image (top): Lorna Rees: Canopy. Photo Poppy Joy.

Dorothy Max Prior attended Inside Out Dorset 2025 on Friday 12th and Saturday 13th September as a guest of Activate and Martha Oakes PR. 

The Inside Out 2025 programme ran Friday 12th to Sunday 21st September, with installations, artworks, performances and events across Dorset and into Somerset, with sites including Christchurch Quay, Forestry England’s Moors Valley Country Park and Forest, Corfe Castle, the beach in Weymouth, and Summerhouse Hill in Yeovil. 

Inside Out Dorset is an international biennial outdoor arts festival. It presents live performance in unexpected places – in town centres, by the sea, in fields and in woodland – for everyone to enjoy. Some of Dorset’s most remarkable urban and rural spots are transformed with experiences that touch hearts and minds like nothing else. Inside Out Dorset is produced by Activate Performing Arts.  www.insideoutdorset.co.uk 

Activate exists to promote, support and produce performing arts projects in its communities. It brings world-class events to unexpected places, like town centres, village squares, beaches and hilltops. Supporting its performing arts community is at the heart of everything it does. It brings people together, offers advice, and provides access to learning and resources. It’s there to help creatives at all levels on their journey towards creating outstanding, inspiring work. As one of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations, it receives regular funding to initiate, develop and sustain a range of dance, theatre and outdoor arts opportunities for the people of Dorset and the South West. It is also core funded by Dorset Council and BCP Council. As a not-for-profit organisation, it works in many ways and with many partners.  www.activateperformingarts.org.uk 

Lorna Rees Company: Canopy: 24 ideas about trees was presented at Forestry England’s Moors Valley Country Park and Forest in Dorset, 13 to 21 September 2025, as part of Inside Out Festival. It was commissioned by The National Memorial Arboretum, Activate/Inside Out Dorset and Forestry England, with funding from Arts Council England National Lottery and Cultural Hub.

Radical Ritual: Consequences was presented in Yeovil 13–14 September and at Corfe Castle 20–21 September 2025 as part of Inside Out Festival. It was commissioned by Dorset National Landscape for the project Nature Calling, with executive producers the National Landscapes Association and Activate Performing Arts. It is supported by Arts Council England, Defra and Imaginators.

Thames Festival Trust with Heidi Stellar and Matt West: River of Hope was presented at Christchurch Quay 13–15 September 2025 as part of Inside Out Festival. It is delivered in partnership with Thames Festival Trust, and supported by Arts Council England (as part of the National Lottery Creative People and Places programme) and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.    

Three different true-life stories, three very different styles of storytelling, as witnessed by Dorothy Max Prior at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025

Shows in storytelling mode are very much a thing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which is awash with one-person performances of one sort or another. Here, I’m sticking to three shows that tell true-life stories – albeit with very different subjects, and told in very different ways.

First up, Victory Melody with Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak, which has been directed by Mark Thomas. Victoria’s modus operandi is to immerse herself fully in something or-other – in the past, it’s been pigeon-fanciers, beauty pageants, Cruft’s dog show, funeral directors, wig-makers, stand-up comedians and maybe others I’ve forgotten – and after a long phase of deep research to then create installations or theatre pieces that result from that research. But it’s crucial to note that she doesn’t just observe the thing – she gets in there and does it. The resulting shows are always a charming mix of investigation into the subject at hand and autobiographical confession.

When she got divorced, she tells us, she Googled ‘the world turned upside down’ expecting a bit of cosy self-help advice. Instead, her search brought up the Christopher Hill book of the same name, and she found herself immersed in the 17th century world of radical movements such as The Levellers and The Diggers. From here – with perfect Vic logic – this led to her joining an English Civil War re-enactment society, finding herself kitted out in an authentic red wool suit and shoes that have neither a right nor a left foot, but point straight ahead. Perfect for my long toes, says Vic. She then twigged that she’d accidentally joined the wrong side, becoming a Royalist rather than a Roundhead. Never mind!

Settling in to her research, The Diggers become the anti-Royalist movement she most admires – thus called because of their insistence on the right to farm on common land.  Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak takes us on a dizzying journey that draws parallels between the Diggers and contemporary land protectors, ecologists, and food bank heroes; and relays how she became involved in a community centre called The Crew on a deprived council estate in Whitehawk, in which she joined forces with the locals in turning a neglected area overgrown with brambles in to a community vegetable garden. 

Victoria is performing alone – although she has a set of life-sized cardboard cut-outs of her heroes with her to keep her company. There’s Diggers co-founder Gerrard Winstanley (whose mantra was ‘the earth is a shared treasure’); Brighton local legend Dave (a naturalist, not a naturist – Vic says she keeps getting it wrong) who has discovered a new type of insect, the soldier beetle, on Whitehawk Hill; Brian who runs the food bank and manages to access £50,000 worth of cheese to distribute; and Lacey, the lady who runs the Crew Club, and welcomes Vic into the fold. When Vic first moots the idea of the locals playing the Diggers in a re-enactment battle with the Royalists, they are at first sceptical but eventually rally round, and a great time is had by all – including the off-piste battle victory for the Diggers (‘Er, this isn’t historically correct,’ says one of the re-enactment chaps – but never mind, it happens!) – plus, the consumption of vast vats of genuine-recipe 17th century stew. And unlike those busy-bodies from arts orgs who descend on Whitehawk with their ‘pushy, unwanted origami’, Vic is in it for long haul. The current phase of her project ends with Brighton Council turning a blind eye to the JCB used illegally to dig up the brambles, and grants them a 25-year lease on the new community garden… Another victory for our Vic. Who knows who she’ll next embrace! 

A very lovely show, full of tenderness, feisty political suss, and fabulous comic moments.

Also based on historical data comes The Burns Project, in which writer and actor James Clements gives us the story of Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns, a production directed by Cora Bissett that uses Burns’ private letters, papers and other recently-archived documents as its source material.   

The piece is set in a room in The Georgian House, a Robert Adam-designed townhouse run by the National Trust for Scotland. One of the bonuses of going to see the show is the chance to look round this grand house if you arrive early, which is a fabulous treat. When it is time, a group of twenty of us are led upstairs and seated around a table. We are told not to touch anything! All is a creamy white: the calico-covered tabletop, which has a winding gash carved in to it; the platters and goblets; the cutlery and condiments; the ornaments, which include farm animals, trinket boxes and flowers.  

At one end of the room, a musician sits – this is Lisa Rigby, who gives us re-workings of Burns’ songs on acoustic guitar and a beautiful drone-y shruti box. James Clements, in character as Robert Burns, bright eyed and bushy tailed, enters at the other end of the room, and we’re away. 

The following hour is a clever mix of fictional first-person storytelling – ‘Rabbie’ charming us with his own version of his life – interspersed with contemporary commentary delivered through hidden speakers on the table that give us short reflections on the man and his life; and the additionally live commentary through song delivered by the musician. Then, there’s

the fabulous visual storytelling enacted through that long table (designed by Jenny Booth) and those various objects: The gash in the table is lit up with red light as lightning strikes, and with blue as a tiny ship sails along it, on its way to the West Indies. Rabbie’s head appears on a platter, full of remorse, appealing for understanding. The tiny animals tell the tale of the farmer’s son turned poet. Cruets or tiny boxes reveal rings and coins that play a part in the story.

Clements as Burns weaves around the audience, serenading and appealing for love and appreciation – mostly targeting the women in the audience. He holds hands, locks eyes, passes tiny notes, and smiles that beguiling smile. It is very easy to believe that here is Burns, brought back to life to delight and charm us.

But it’s not all red, red roses – the production doesn’t pass over the difficult aspects of Burns’ biography. There’s the maid he impregnates as a teenager and is not permitted to marry, and later (almost as a counterpoint) the pregnant lover he abandons. There’s the relationship with Jean Amour, who he at first is not permitted to marry, but eventually does. There’s the fact that it was only the unexpected success of the publication of his early writings that stopped him sailing off on that boat to Jamaica to work for the enslavers.  There’s the babies who die. The farms that he struggles to keep. And the odd fact that, when his early publishing success peters out, this unconventional Socialist and anti-establishment hero becomes a tax collector in order to pay his bills and keep his family afloat!  

A complicated man, who did so much in a short lifetime – poet, songwriter, collector and cataloguer of Scottish folk songs, farmer, family man and more. It is astonishing to think that that he died at just 37 years of age. 

As we are told early in the production, apart from ‘Happy Birthday’, Burns’ ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is probably the most sung song in the world, compulsory on New Year’s Eve right across the world. ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?’ No, no – never. ‘We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.’ Good to make your acquaintance, Rabbie! I won’t forget you… and I still have my secret letter from you.

Another Scottish production, and more storytelling, this time a bona fide one-man show, although he stands on the shoulders of giants. Or maybe that’s giantesses. For it is Johnny McKnight aka Widow McTwanky – Scotland’s most famous Pantomime Dame. The lights are flashing, the entrance music blasting out, but where is she? She’s behind you! No, really she is – entering from the back of the auditorium in a blue gingham dress, fright-wig and a ‘hideous yet age-appropriate leisure shoe’ – comfy, but red and sparkly, of course. This particular McKnight alter-ego is Dorothy Blawna-Gale – fresh from the Land of Oz. There follows a thrilling hour’s worth of caustic humour, sizzling storytelling, song, dance, and audience participation – which ranges from the gentle engagement of catching packets of sweeties thrown out to the crowd, to the snogging of a gentleman called Alan (‘They’re always called Alan’), and the invitation given to a young woman volunteering to come up on stage and be a Silly Billy – the red-rouged, gormless character usually played by the youngest male member of the company. And yes, we learn, this is how Johnny started out: as a Silly Billy. Later, these interactions all becomes material for reflections on safeguarding, consent and onstage representation.   

All the interactive fun and games was to be expected – but there’s also a good dose of pantomime history woven into the evening; plus a poignant coming out story, documenting Johnny’s personal journey as a young gay man from Silly Billy to Dame, in  the surprisingly heterosexual world of traditional Panto; and concurrently the story of Scottish Panto’s evolution from tabloid-pandering racial caricatures and dodgy jokes to something (under McKnight’s watch as writer, director and performer) far more inclusive and diversified. 

With a costume change from Dorothy’s gingham to fabulous flouncy swan feathers, we get the culmination of the story of Panto’s first full-blown gay kiss, in a reworked version of Jack and the Beanstalk premiered (successfully!) to an audience of infant school children and a Christian bible group.. This is all both jolly good fun, and proper edu-tainment.

Johnny McKnight is a legend in Scotland –and it is great to see She’s Behind You – presented at the Traverse, and directed by John Tiffany – becoming such a big hit of the Edinburgh Fringe 2025.

Featured image (top) James Clements: The Burns Project

Victoria Melody: Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak, Pleasance Courtyard, 14:15

James Clements: The Burns Project, The Georgian House, 18:30 (until 16 August)

Johnny McKnight: She’s Behind You, Traverse Theatre, 21.15 or 21.30

For further information or to book tickets see www.edfringe.co.uk  

A ghost house, a Wheel of Death, a pack of wolves, and a 17-strong ensemble of acrobats from 13 different countries. Four circus shows seen at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 by Dorothy Max Prior

Circus Hub on the Meadows is always the first port of call for anyone attending the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a yen for world-class circus; and for 2025 they are back with a programme of 11 shows – not only circus but also cabaret, comedy, and variety – presented in their two venues, the Lafayette Big Top and Beauty Spiegeltent.

This year, I saw three shows on the programme, all strictly circus, and all in Lafayette. 

Québec’s Flip Fabrique bring us Six° – a show previously presented online for the Edinburgh Fringe 2021, that odd Covid-ish year when the Fringe returned, but in a reduced hybrid form, with much online. I gave that a miss then, so was very pleased to see it back for real.

It starts with the sound of a thunderstorm, the rain lashing down. Which is ironic as the performance I’d originally been booked in to see the day before had been cancelled due to the massive storms, with 85mph winds sweeping Scotland, and making shows in a circus tent out of the question. So some of us are looking up anxiously – but no, it’s definitely on the soundtrack, not for real. ‘Storms make the flowers fresh again’ we are told.

This is an ensemble show with a cast of five – six if we include the house in which the action takes place, which most definitely has a personality of its own: talking to the occupants, issuing instructions, and sometimes taking the electronic controls into its own hands. There have been numerous sci-fi stories about houses that are seemingly alive, often malevolent, and Ray Bradbury’s HappyLife Home (in short story The Veld) comes to mind at a point in the narrative when a door opens to reveal a red-lit space animated by the roar of lions.

I say ‘narrative’ but this one is very much of the fractured variety. We meet five different occupants, who it would seem have received a mysterious invitation that leads them, on a stormy night, to an old abandoned building deep in the forest. But the house doesn’t look deserted; it is cosily furnished and seems to have a soul. Oddly, the five seem be in residence at different times, or perhaps in different multiverse strands – one in the 1950s, one the 1970s, one the 1990s etc. They are all there, but rarely seem to see each other: to each, the others are more like ghosts than real flesh-and-blood people. 

As for the set: the ‘house’ is a three-walled structure that is tugged around into different permutations throughout the show. There are doors and windows and picture frames and tables and bookshelves – all of which are animated throughout the piece. Frames get pulled off to be used as hoops; a small table become the site for a balancing act; book leaves fly around the space. There’s most definitely an Alice in Wonderland vibe: not least because one of the female performers is dressed in a puff-sleeved frock, Mary-Jane shoes and a large satin hair bow.  

We are given scenes of everyday at-home life that take on a surreal dream-like quality – a way of bringing the circus acts in to the equation. Often, one person is presenting their act – Robert with his deft book/brick-juggling, say – whilst others are interacting with him more as witnesses or silent partners than as co-performers. It’s an interesting dynamic. As far as the circus acts go, we get top-notch juggling, smoothly sensuous hooping, a great female Cyr wheel turn, a lovely two-man acrobalance and tumbling routine, and of course – this is Flip Fabrique, after all – some fantastic trampolining by the boys that’s nicely merged with a female hand-balancing and contortion act, performed on the ‘roof’ of the house. Sonically, there’s a palate of recognisable pre-existing tunes driving the piece forward. We veer from Harry Nilsson’s cheery ‘Coconut’ to Leonard Cohen’s gloriously moving ‘Happens to the Heart’ and on to The Commodores anthemic ‘Brick House’. 

It is no surprise that the show was made during Covid – addressing how we deal with loneliness and isolation, whilst also staying connected to others by remote. It also seems to be portraying the power of the imagination to overcome humdrum realities when stuck indoors. Six° is a very different sort of show to Flip Fabrique’s usual non-stop hi-energy work: slower, more thoughtful, but still thrilling. Most highly recommended!

 
Next up was Nose Dive Assembly, described as ‘big-top circus with heart and spectacle’ from the UK’s Revel Puck Circus. I’d missed this at Brighton Fringe earlier this year, so was glad to catch it in Edinburgh. It’s a hi-energy fun-for-all-the-family spectacle. It’s contemporary circus in its aesthetic – for example, the performers are dressed not in spangly leotards but in unisex jumpsuits or colourfully patterned trousers and shirts – but with much of the structure and good-time vibe of a traditional tented circus. 

That trad structure and vibe is clear in the show’s use of the clown as the communicator with the audience; the person who reminds us with their actions that acrobats are fallible human creatures. The clown also traditionally keeps the audience entertained whilst the riggers and stagehands (or, as is the case in contemporary circus, the other performers) move the kit in to place for the next act. Most of the cast are British trained (I learn from the legendary Charlie Holland that seven are graduates from the National Centre for Circus Arts, aka Circus Space) – with Canadian clown and acrobat Arielle Lauzon the exception. 

Although traditional in function, the fabulous Arielle Lauzon is very much of the contemporary world: a former competitive gymnast who trained at the École de Cirque de Québec. She appears first at the rear of the big top, harnessed and desperate to fly ‘on the wings of a butterfly’. This becomes a thread developed throughout the show – at one point moving through us with a ludicrous contraption of electric fans strapped to her body that she hopes will help her take off; at another point, sporting a giant balloon that covers her whole head. (I’m one of numerous audience members roped in to pump up the balloon.) Eventually, towards the end of the show, she makes do with a butterfly costume and gives us a spectacular mat-based acrobatics routine, proving that she is more than a funny face.

After Arielle’s entrance, we go to Annie Zita on the cloudswing – a fabulously thrilling opening act. The show whizzes by, with many traditional favourites given a contemporary twist, including a great aerial straps act from Imani Vital (I love the performer’s oddly flexed feet, and the moment when she holds hands with her counter-balancer). We get a neat hand-balancing turn from Becky Robins, and a great teeterboard act from Sebastian Parker and Emily Lannigan, to the tune of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. There’s also the much-touted Revel Puck USP: a circular stage that rises, with Thorne Bailey and Fiona Thornhill presenting a skilfully synchronised Cyr Wheel routine. Bailey is raised into the air on the platform, whilst Thornhill spins below, the lighting design highlighting each performer in turn. Later, they switch roles, so she is now on the raised platform, and he is below. This is one of numerous shows I see at this year’s Fringe that feature a female Cyr wheel performer: something that used to be a rare occurrence. The times they are a-changing.  

The final act of the show sees Fiona Thornhill and Emily Lannigan back, this time on the Wheel of Death, that most traditional of circus acts, although this is the only one in the UK (perhaps in the world, I don’t know!) that is performed by two women. If you don’t know what this is, imagine two giant hamster wheels on a pivoting metal structure, one performer inside each wheel, walking then twisting and turning as the wheel turns at a faster and faster pace, reversing direction now and then. The choice of music – Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’ – is great. The mesmeric, repetitive loop of the song suits the act perfectly. The complicity between the performers, the timing and the sensitive response to the music makes this act more than a traditional circus spectacle. It’s a great finale to a lovely show that is daring, funny, and totally entertaining. Bravo Revel Puck – it feels that British circus is flying off with flair into new dizzying heights, occupying territories previously claimed by the traditional tented circus companies, and infusing them with a funky feminist vibe. 

Finally, Circa: Wolf is my third show of the day at the Circus Hub, again in the Lafayette big top tent – although this is a predominantly floor-based acrobatic show, so height is rarely needed. 

Hardly surprising with Wolf as the title, the show features a lot of hunting and stalking movements; and a lot of pack work. Dressed in sleek, tight-fitting black and fawn costumes (designed by Libby McDonnell), the ten-strong company arrive on stage with a ferocious energy, within minutes creating three-high towers or staggering stacks of six people on one base.  The pack runs in circles, spreads out into straight lines, huddles in big or small groups – with a breathtaking move from one complex acrobalance or hand-to-hand tableau to another, human towers rising and falling (often sideways, which is terrifying), people swung or thrown to other people; and links of fast-paced solo acrobatics into and out of position.

At one point the group moves into a capoeira-style roda or inward facing circle, different partnerships of men with men, men with women, and women with women, playing out battles to be leader of the wolf pack. This being Circa, female bases are a given – the women here are strong and fierce. There’s a lovely scene where the wolf theme seems to be taken into the domain of the gay male nightclub; an all-male tussle for intimacy and the role of top dog.

There are just two breaks in the ferociously fast floor action, one for a female aerial straps performer who acts out what seems to be a twisted marionette motif, although perhaps it is intended as a captured animal. But this is me constructing narrative: it is robotic and staccato, and feels quite different in tone to the rest of the show. There’s also a male rope act – like the straps act, top-notch of course (there wouldn’t be anything less in a Circa show) but again I can’t quite decide if it is really needed. Perhaps if everything were floor-based I might be craving something else, but both times the arrival of aerial equipment feels slightly out of kilter. 

As for the scenography and sound design: Circa have commissioned a hardcore techno score for Wolf from DJ Ori Lichtik. And it is pretty relentless! At times the bass really works its way into your guts, adding to the edginess of the piece. There is no set, and no equipment other than the aforementioned aerial straps and corde lisse rope. The lighting design gives us scenes lit with a tooth-and-claw blood red, and an eery jungle green. There is sometimes smoke haze. But the main impression is of a tabula rasa, on which director Yaron Lifschitz has written a thrilling physical story  – animal magic meets stupendous human achievement. As ever, Circa are the crowing glory of the Circus Hub programme.

Away from The Meadows and over at the grandiose indoor venue Assembly at the Mound, we find The Genesis from Copenhagen Collective – a 17-strong ensemble based in Scandinavia but drawn from all over the world, with artists from Denmark, Australia, Peru, Canada, UK, Uruguay, Chile, Portugal, USA, Germany, Ireland, France and Guinea. Phew, that is indeed an international line-up!

There are many crossovers with Circa, and I think it would be fair to say that without Circa, The Genesis (and very many other contemporary circus shows) would never have existed. Dressed like gymnasts, not entertainers, in unisex dark lycra? Check. Amazing ensemble skills, with phenomenal complicity, super-precise timing, and a breathtaking move from one ‘picture’ to another? Check. Female strength and power highlighted, with women bases the norm throughout the show rather than the exception? Check. This is no criticism: the Copenhagen Collective are a newly-formed ensemble, and Circa have been going for 20-plus years. I remember seeing Circa’s first appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe, and like everyone else was astonished at witnessing the role that the women performers played, the focus on power not prettiness. We hadn’t seen anything like it! Two decades on, this is routine in much contemporary circus worldwide – younger artists probably think nothing of it.  Which can only be a good thing.

The Genesis, like Circa’s Wolf, is less a narrative show than a themed show, and on similar territory. We seem to be witnessing the exploration of the human soul versus the animal spirit. It is purely floor-based: there is no aerial or other non-acrobatic acts. No equipment, no set. Everything is down to the human body – and mostly the 17-strong ensemble are all on stage at once, morphing from one extraordinary grouping to another. Thus, we have at one point early in the show a five triple towers, which makes for a fantastic stage image. There’s a lot of hero-and-chorus work – solo performers emerging from circles or huddles. I love the strange tower of bodies that grows from a heap on the floor, people standing on the shoulders or chests of others. There’s a fabulous ‘resurrection’ scene where 16 bodies are lying prone on the floor and one person animates them by tugging on a body part, each revived person going on to revive another. There’s also a great party scene, with waves of performers progressing forward in different combos, vogueing and reaching out to the audience – one of the few points when the fourth wall is broken. Another occurs when a lone man is thrown out of an upstage huddle of bodies, rights himself, and says ‘hi’ to us slightly sheepishly. I enjoy these theatrical moments – the first half of the piece is full of fabulously skilled acrobatics, but rather dense in its relentless onslaught of astonishing tricks and turns, with towers rising and falling, three- or four- or five-way acrobalance ‘sculptures’ developing and dissolving – but with a feeling that the performers are behind a glass wall. When that wall is shattered, the show becomes stronger.

The stage set-up is simple – looking quite a bit like a school gymnasium, in fact. The lighting is minimal, mostly blue and white; and the music a good mix, interspersing relentlessly beat-driven scenes with more moody string sections, and including a few pre-recorded autobiographical-confessional texts about control and vulnerability, reminding me of Les 7 Doigts’ show Traces. So yes – echoes of other company’s work – but it’s own thing too. What is most extraordinary is to see so many fabulously skilled human bodies working together so harmoniously. And really – how often do you see a four-high tower? As they take their bow, the full house at the Mound go wild in their appreciation. It’s not my favourite Fringe circus show this year, but it is one of the best – predictably, a sure-fire hit.

Featured image (top): Revel Puck Circus: Nose Dive Assembly

Flip Fabrique: Six°, Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows (The Lafayette), 14:05

Revel Puck Circus: Nose Dive Assembly, Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows (The Lafayette) | 16:10

Circa:Wolf, Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows (The Lafayette), 18:20

Copenhagen Collective: The Genesis, Assembly at the Mound, 12:30

For more information or to book tickets, see www.edfringe.com