The 24th Stockton International Riverside Festival has arrived!
What can you expect this year? SIRF found fame as a street theatre festival, and there still isn’t a better way to describe it. Some people (the ones who haven’t been) imagine that street theatre is all about buskers doing circle shows and funny characters doing walkabouts. Fluffy chickens on stilts, that sort of thing. Not quite.
Stockton offers real theatre in outdoor locations, alongside dance, circus, music, sideshows, shows in shop fronts and an entire programme in a fabulous Spiegel Tent venue. The festival begins and ends with two extraordinarily inventive performances that use 30 metre high cranes for very different purposes.
Over four days, Stockton town centre becomes a platform for our local community, for young companies from all over the UK who are just building their reputations, and for world-class artists who have already achieved world-wide recognition. Our search for the best, alongside the brightest hopes for the future, has led us to form partnerships with no fewer than 16 festivals in England, Europe and China. Not to mention SIRF favourites The Chipolatas, who got out their address books to help make this year’s Spiegel Tent programme really special.
So, you can anticipate four days of thrills, invention, low comedy and high artistry (not necessarily all in the same show). You will encounter performers who are eager to entertain, but also filled with a real desire to ask questions, to make connections and to touch the humanity in us all. ‘The street’ can be a bit of a bearpit, but it can also be a place where real magic is created. All it takes is these wonderful, fearless performers and your willingness to share some time with them.
Please remember to have a warm coat with you for evening performances!
Frank Wilson
Artistic Director
