Hull's continuing cultural renaissance

When Mikey Martins was a kid he used to be taken to Cornwall’s famous Minack Theatre perched on the cliffs above the Atlantic.

Macs at the ready, they would see the storm clouds moving towards them from across the sea, giving the audience time to prepare.

Martins, the artistic director of Hull’s flagship arts festival, the Freedom Festival, recalled: “It became part of the culture; come rain or shine we would carry on.”

The Freedom Festival arts trust has taken on the bracing task of running Hull’s new open air theatre, the only brand new performance venue for the city’s year as City of Culture.

The 350-seat Stage @TheDock ampitheatre embraces the lines of an old dock on the River Hull, once home to an ex-Isle of Man ferry, the Manxman.

Depending where people will be sitting there will be long views down the estuary, across to the curved prow of the Deep aquarium and back up the River Hull - all underneath the vast dome of the sky.

With yet another soggy summer underway, it’ll be a gamble weather-wise. But there will always be drama and no doubt beauty in the setting.

“You do have to be honest about the risks, you don’t want to build lots of massive structures and technology that could be affected by the weather,” says Martins, who was bought in a year ago to oversee the transformation of the Freedom Festival from a three-day event to an all year round arts organisation.

“The venue lends itself to dance because of its scale. It has the width and it is going to be great for gigs. There will be a range of different events, dance, fun street theatre, comedy, science.

“We don’t want to make it an exclusive ticketed venue - there will be some work we will present which we will have to ticket because it will cost money to present.”

Outdoor theatre has enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent years. The most recent opening has been Brighton Open Air Theatre, the legacy of Adrian Bunting, who died in 2013, which puts on theatre, spoken word performances and open-air screenings in a grassy amphitheatre in a city park.

In Hull yesterday workers were still beavering away on the wooden structure, which people will be able to access via a walkway over the dock, connecting with the bridge from the Deep aquarium, and forming a route to the Fruit Market beyond.

It will be ready for the Humber Street Sesh, a one day festival on August 6, when 32,000 people are expected to stream into the area to see 180 local bands.

One of the organisers Dave Mays said: “We may well be the first to use it - we have not seen anything like it before so it will be interesting to explore. There’ll be a hip-hop flavour by day, break dancers and rappers - electronica at night.”

During this year’s Freedom Festival, the new venue will host a rolling programme of street theatre, dance and family-friendly entertainment, including Company Chameleon, one of the UK’s leading dance companies.

It will also set the stage for more than 100 performers from Hull Freedom Chorus, giving voice to a large-scale choral piece.

Stage@TheDock is just one sign that the area, which only a few years ago was occupied by fruit, vegetable and flower traders, is changing fast.

Hull-based property developers Wykeland, which built the new C4DI digital hub next door, has funded the £700,000 venue.

It is investing with joint venture partner Beal Homes, along with Hull Council, in creating an urban village in the Fruit Market, alive with independent shops, businesses, galleries, cafes and restaurants. Wykeland has also sourced funding for a new manager for Stage @TheDock.

Wykeland managing director Dominic Gibbons knows the area well - their offices have been on Queen Street since 1981, and they were the underbidder to Manchester-based firm igloo, who were the preferred development partners with the council, back in 2007, on regeneration plans for the area, just before the recession kicked in.

Wykeland Beal is now a major landowner along with the council and is putting £70m private money into the project, which features a 107-home mews-style development.

Mr Gibbons said: “When the Fruit Market moved out it became a bit of a ghost town, but we always had the feeling it would go right down and come back again and have its day again.

“We got together with Beals in 2009/2010 to talk about it and at the time made an unsolicited approach (to the council) with our ideas.

“You can understand the site because we are locals and have lived and breathed the area. In 2010 we were looking seven to eight years into the future. In the last six months we have seen lots of bits of the jigsaw coming into place.

“The vision is that in five years time we have a vibrant, dynamic quarter of Hull, something different, another reason for people to come into Hull - apart from St Stephen’s and Princes Quay (shopping centres) - another reason for people in West Hull villages to turn this way, not to York or Leeds.

“We want to create a place where people want to live, buy a house, or have an office or workshop and want to play, eat and shop and still have festivals running throughout the year.”

And there will be plenty of festival entertainment from September 2 to September 4, as the Freedom Festival yesterday revealed its 2016 programme, with 200 performances by local, UK and international artists from 27 countries.

Thousands will be drawn to the eye-catching “aerial epic” - As The World Tipped - which takes place on the Saturday night of the festival in the Albion street car park.

Billed as a disaster movie in the sky, featuring bungee assisted aerial dancers dangling off a giant cinema screen, the piece, which has been shown round the world, uses powerful imagery to tell of the dangers of climate change.

As one reviewer put it: “If we do nothing we will all soon die from climate change. And no amount of bungee cord can save us from it.”

Also on the line-up are Brighton indie rockers British Sea Power - performing at next month’s Latitude festival; theatre show White Rabbit Red Rabbit, by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour, which has been performed around the world and been translated into languages from Korean, Chinese to French and a must-see from this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Hot Brown Honey, an “audacious platter of dance, poetry, comedy, circus, striptease and song.”

The three-day event is expected to draw more than 100,000 visitors - setting the stage ahead of City of Culture 2017.

A festival growing in popularity

Hull’s Freedom festival launched back in 2007 to commemorate William Wilberforce, the city MP who led the way for the abolition of slavery.

The festival has grown from strength to strength - this year being cited by Rough Guides as one of the reasons to visit the city which it named - to some local scepticism - as one of the top 10 cities in the world to visit in 2016, along with Nashville, Mexico City and Vancouver.

Its eclectic mix of entertainment aims to be family-friendly - but at the same time push boundaries to explore the concept of freedom.

This year it will get off to a fiery start with a Clash of Drums performed by French “pyro musicians” Les Commandos Percu and Basque company Deabru Beltzak.