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*[http://www.malvernfringe.co.uk/ Official Site]
*[http://www.malvernfringe.co.uk/ Official Site]



[[Category:Fringe theatre]]
[[Category:Theatre festivals]]
[[Category:Theatre festivals]]
[[Category:Art festivals]]
[[Category:Art festivals]]

Revision as of 22:18, 7 March 2007

The Malvern Fringe Festival is an arts festival (founded 1977) which takes place in Great Malvern, England.

Malvern Fringe Festival
Company typenon-profit
IndustryFringe theatre
Founded1977
HeadquartersGreat Malvern, England
Key people
Tim Cranmore, Chairman
ProductsSpring Festival,
Live music,
Cabaret,
Poetry,
Comedy
Revenuenon-profit
Number of employees
Voluntary
Websitewww.malvernfringe.co.uk/


Introduction

The main events of the Malvern Fringe Festival are the MayDay and the annual three day festival held in June as a fringe to the Elgar Festival. These are accompanied by musical and other live events throughout the year. The Fringe aims to be inclusive; bridging the generation gap by providing a varied programme of events for the local people of Malvern aimed at all ages.

History

Malvern Fringe Parade

Malvern Fringe Festival was founded in 1977 by Adrian Mealing, a teacher in Malvern, in collaboration with Andrew Sleigh, Ian Fearnside and Phil Webb. It originated as a reaction to the Malvern Festival which was perceived at the time to be biased towards classical music and appealing towards a national and international audience. A further concern was the continued requirement for the local Council to underwrite the main festival and the feeling that the public expenditure could be more wisely spent. [1][2]

The founding aims of the Fringe were to produce a popular, varied programme of events for the local people of Malvern, to bridge the gap between the “us” and “them” in the arts and to “shake it up a bit in Malvern”.

The first year featured sixty events comprising of poetry, world music, folk, jazz, adult and children’s theatre performed under the banner of “Associated Events” due to the main Festival’s objections to the term ‘Fringe’, which they considered to be “outside” of the Festival. In 1978 to avoid confusion between the programmes for the two festivals, printed with similar designs at the main festival’s insistence, Adrian Mealing hand wrote “Fringe” on over 3000 programmes. [3]


As the 1980s approached the festival grew into a four week event and the Fringe had established its own identity. Being centrally located between Hereford, Worcester, Gloucester and Cheltenham the Fringe had begun to draw wide audiences from over a 20-mile radius.

File:Left, Right and Centre (Nigel Kennedy and Caleb).jpg
Nigel Kennedy and Caleb


By the 1990s Malvern Fringe Arts Ltd had become a registered charity. The Fringe programme had grown to a six week event and was attracting comedy and cabaret acts that were beginning to establish their reputations, including Eddie Izzard, Lee Evans, Jerry Sadowitz, Jim Tavare, Chris Lynam and a double act featuring Linda Smith and Mark Thomas, plus musical acts as varied as Gong, Left, Right and Centre, Juicy Lucy, Voodoo Queens, Bang Bang Machine, and Daevid Allen.


The Fringe also experimented with the form of its festival by including “Blues On A Boat” evening along the River Severn which became such an annual favourite that over 300 people were regularly turned away.

In 1993 the Fringe launched an autumn programme of 25 events plus regular monthly musical events which regularly drew audiences spanning three generations, often on the same night.


To launch the 1994 festival, the Fringe collaborated with Phil Howard, a local musician, to inaugurate the MayDay “Festival Fanfare and Grand Parade” which processioned through the town centre of Great Malvern, led by the local Samba Band and included an address by the town mayor. A Bardic Address was first presented, by the Bard of Malvern, at sunrise on the day at the beginning of the MayDay Parade accompanied by drums and conch fanfare. This address has since featured in every MayDay event, often at the Speakers’ Cross on Belle Vue island but also, memorably, as a farewell to the town’s car park and market space before Waitrose was built. Dressed as a tiger, the Bard declaimed his ode from a tree during the Parade.

Fringe MayDay Procession
File:May Day Mayhem.jpg
Fringe MayDay Mayhem


Towards the end of the 1990s the Fringe experienced a dip in fortunes. The principal reason was the fall-off in attendance of events as the Fringe had grown too large to be sustained by its audience, especially by families with small children, with so many events during the six week period. Additional factors were poor promotion of events, owing to the Fringe’s shoestring marketing budget, and lack of an appropriate venue for larger events, a problem which had dogged the Fringe for several years[4] and continues to do so up to the present day.


A complete departure from fringe style activities came in 1998, with the launch of the Great Malvern Recorder Festival, when hundreds of recorder players from all over the UK and beyond came to Malvern for a festival of recorder playing. Concerts were given by the world famous Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet and others, and in 2000 the National Youth Recorder Orchestra held its first course in Malvern. After three such events, the Fringe returned to its concern for the population of Malvern at large who were not receiving any benefit from either the recorder festival or the Elgar Festival, which had recently been re-launched by William Boughton and the English Symphony Orchestra (ESO).


In 2006, in response to the perceived insular nature of the ESO’s Elgar Festival, the Fringe re-launched its three day festival in June, loosely based upon a theme of Elgar’s interests. One of the highlights of this festival was a bicycle race (cycling was one of Elgar’s keen interests) up the steep incline of Great Malvern’s Church Street. This event was supported by Commonwealth gold medallist Liam Killeen, who's from Malvern, and was won by Frenchman Arnaud Lenoir, who just happened to be passing and was shanghaied into taking part. The whole three-day festival was attended by over 5,000 people.

In the autumn of 2006 the Fringe launched a ‘folk weekend’ featuring Roy Bailey and Jez Lowe. If this venture proves to be popular it is planned that it will become an annual event.

Local Controversy

File:WoodHenge from MayDay 2004.jpg
WoodHenge from MayDay 2004

Due to the eclectic nature of its activities, live open air music and avant-garde theatre, the Fringe has attracted negative publicity from the largely elderly population living in Malvern.

Until 1994 the Fringe hosted a number of its events in a marquee sited in the Rose Bank Garden, close to the centre of town, in a highly visible location, until the residents protested against the invasive noise.

Despite an attendance of over 5,000 people the June 2006 festival has been the subject of much negative coverage in the letters pages of the local newspaper with one correspondent calling upon readers to petition the local Member of Parliament to halt any further Fringe activities. [5] However, with the intervention of the new Arts Officer, Manda Graham, the Fringe confidently expects to repeat their success in 2007 and beyond. [6]

Notable Past Performers

Throughout its history Malvern Fringe featured an impressive array of performers, many of whom have gone on to become international stars.

Classical

Music

Poetry

Cabaret

Comedy

Literature

Theatre

Notable Past Fringe Members

  • Tony Beech
  • Niels Eriksson
  • Ian Fearnside
  • Shaun Halliwell
  • Roger Hall-Jones
  • Phil Howard
  • Adrian Mealing
  • John Rarity
  • Andrew Sleigh
  • Alan Turnbull
  • Malcolm Victory
  • Phil Webb

References

  1. ^ Malvern Gazette and Ledbury Reporter, 19 January 1978.
  2. ^ Malvern Gazette and Ledbury Reporter, 26 January 1978.
  3. ^ Worcester Evening News, 27 April 1978.
  4. ^ An Update On The Arts In The Malvern Hills”, Malvern Hills District Council, March 1994.
  5. ^ "Fringe activity”, letter to Malvern Gazette and Ledbury Reporter, 11 August 2006.
  6. ^ Malvern Hills District Council "Executive Committee", 25 July 2006.
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