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.