Freedom Festival delights with its off-the-wall artists

Big hits included the off-the-wall cow carousel Cow-Go-Round, brought to the UK for the first time by Theatre de la Toupine and the maze of winding paths and domes of Mirazozo which had people queuing up round the block in Queens Gardens.

Down at the Fruit Market, empty warehouses suddenly pulsed with music and crowds thronged usually deserted streets.

Another stand-out performance was by French street theatre company Luc Amoros, whose six artists, busy as bees in a hive, painted blank plastic canvases from high on a scaffold overlooking Queen Victoria Square. Like excitable Rolf Harrises, they created huge images in minutes – including the odd Gauguin and Van Gogh – then scrunched them up and threw them away.

Planning for next year’s festival – a near certainty given the pledge of three years’ funding from the Arts Council – gets under way today.

VHEY chief executive Janet Reuben said that she would continue aiming for an event “full of surprises, with an international quality and uniquely embedded in Hull.”

She said the feedback was “everybody was really chilled out and happy, and there was a real mix, grandparents, parents and children out in Queen Victoria Square and Queens Gardens, really enjoying the whole ambience.”

She accepted numbers would be down given the lack of major pop acts, but said: “I think it was right for us to get the balance right.”