Culture for the countryside

You live in the peace and tranquility of rural North Yorkshire. Where access is limited and the cultural hubs are some way away.

Shouldn’t you be allowed to see good art? Alex Wright thinks so.

Wright is associate artist at York Theatre Royal and the brains behind a new scheme that will see theatre work taken into rural communities that don’t always get the opportunity – or arguably, never get the opportunity – to see great art on their doorsteps.

It all began last year, with the York Mystery Plays. The event was spectacular and a large part of the spectacle was the sheer number of local people involved. There were more than 2,000 in the cast, joining a core of professional actors, and the results were impressive.

“I think as a result of that, we at York Theatre Royal understood, perhaps more than we had before, that as a regional producing theatre there was an energy and a desire for the community to make work with us,” says Wright.

“We also as a result of that production, understood how incredibly rewarding artistically it was to work on a process in that way. When you have 2,000 people creating such an epic piece of work, we knew we had to do something with that energy.”

The problem was that the York Mystery Plays, while a huge achievement, were also expensive. The theatre simply couldn’t afford to fund a £1m project annually. The people behind the theatre and the Mystery Plays had to find another way to harness the energy that occurs when you bring together people from a community and give them a real stake in what is being created for them as an audience.

There was another issue that Wright and others at the theatre had noticed.

York Theatre Royal carried out audience research and discovered that there is a dramatic drop-off in attendance from audience members who live more than an hour away from the venue. There was a question bubbling Wright’s mind – was there something that would take all of these elements and turn it into something positive?

The answer it seemed to Wright was to take work to the doorsteps of the communities in rural North Yorkshire.

As co-artistic director of the hugely popular Belt Up theatre company, which has operated out of York for a number of years, has won all manner of awards at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and counts Stephen Fry and Neil Gaiman as fans, Wright understands the power of theatre.

He is also the man behind a mini-festival run annually over the past two years in a small pub in Coxwold called the Fauconberg Arms. The mini festival has seen audiences enjoy avant-garde theatre performed in the unlikely venue of a rural pub

All this experience is going into producing The Little Festival Of Everything, the first part of a two-year, Arts Council funded project called On Our Turf, which will take arts events into rural communities across North Yorkshire.

The fun begins the first weekend of September, when the Little Festival of Everything takes over Easingwold on September 7 and 8. It will then move to Pocklington on September 14 and 15, Selby the following weekend and Helmsley September 28 and 29.

“If you live in a village on the outside of Helmsley, you’re much less likely to come to the theatre,” says Wright. “So we have to look at that and see if we should change the rules about what a regional producing theatre does.

“If we are truly a regional theatre, producing work for the the whole region, then we have to make sure it is accessible to the whole region.”

If the people won’t come to the art, then the art should be taken to the people, is the big idea here.

“Well, yes, there is absolutely that, but it’s also about saying that communities can have a stake in their own cultural landscape. The funding from the Arts Council means we can give p eople ownership – it’s not just the theatre taking work out to a rural venue, putting it on, taking it down and moving on – it’s about giving people ownership of the work that is happening in their towns.”

The events in the rural market towns of North Yorkshire over the next month will feature new commissions – each festival in each town will have an artist working on a £10,000 commission.

“Shops, cafes, pubs, local businesses are all getting invovled – that’s the thing that makes it different from the theatre coming along and putting on a show in a village hall – people are having a real, genuine say in what they are seeing and even in some cases creating.”

The events spreading around the North Yorkshire market towns will not want for quality.

Storytelling, magicians, comedians, stilt-walking, drumming, choir performances, theatre shows staged in pubs – they are all part of the make up of the festivals popping up over the next month. But the thing that is impressive is the quality of the acts and artists involved.

“I think the artists winning the award for travelling the furthest is a company from Melbourne, Australia,” says Wright. “We have companies like RashDash, Forward Theatre Project, Holy Moly and the Crackers – these are high quality theatre artists bringing their work to these towns.”

The reason it is clear that Wright is interested, genuninely, 
in bringing good work to these small towns – and not in patronising the residents – is because he grew up in a small market town and wants to make the kind of work he saw by travelling to big cities available on the doorsteps of young people now growing up in these towns.

People like Tabitha Grove.

Tabitha’s enthusiasm for the arts is enormous, but living in a place like Helmsley, which is way off the beaten track when it comes to arts provision means that she has not always had the opportunities that her passion for performing arts deserves.

“The opportunities are few and far between to get involved in performing arts, especially given the way funding it being cut,” she says.

“It has become quite obvious to me that any money coming into the arts is being spent in the economic centres – and that means the big cities. We just don’t get stuff like this festival out here in places like Helmsley.”

Tabitha, 27, runs an art gallery called Look Gallery in Helmsley. She is also a performer and first met with Alex Wright over two years ago at a theatre conference in Leeds, held at West Yorkshire Playhouse called D and D.

“When I heard about this project I was just incredibly pleased that something like this was going to be coming here,” she says.

“I’m going to be performing a monologue on the two days of the festival, and for me and other performers in Helmsley to have the chance to perform alongside established companies like RashDash and theatre performers who have won awards at the Edinburgh Fringe – in our home town – is a huge boost.

“There has also already been a really positive impact in terms of businesses in the town. Running the art gallery, I’ve seen a greater sense of co-operation between people who run businesses in the town. Everyone seems to be getting behind the event.”

That, for Wright, is the point. Communities getting involved in arts events -in which they have a vested interest – is only a positive.

Chris Jones programmes Selby Town Hall and says the key to the success so far of the event and the thing that will make it a success when it happens, is the energy and commitment of the volunteers.

He says: “It is about putting art in the way of people in Selby.

“We have got 15 businesses on board so far, a cheese shop, a wedding shop, along with the church and Selby Abbey are all being used as venues where artists are going to be staging work that people in Selby just wouldn’t usually experience art. It really is such a great opportunity to put art in the centre of the town and give people the chance to see it and experience it.”