CityLife

Fringe-style festival to freshen up summer

MANCHESTER plays host to a genuinely exciting new theatre festival this summer.

From July 24, the First 24:7 Theatre Festival, officially launched earlier this week, will be presenting up to 24 pieces of new writing over seven days, all in a variety of unconventional, non-theatre locations around Exchange Square in Manchester and the Chapel Street end of Salford.

David Slack, one of the Festival's co-founders, says: "The idea for the Festival came while I was performing at the 2002 Edinburgh Fringe and seeing new, innovative and exciting work every day. I thought, surely we could arrange something like this in Manchester!"

Of course, an idea like that is one thing but actually putting it into practice is another. David had a conversation with another actor, Amanda Hennessy, and a core team was formed. Meanwhile, Robert Powell immediately offered his name as a patron and others, such as Christopher Eccleston and Tony Wilson also came on board to offer help and encouragement.

Once the word began to get about, Amanda set about recruiting experienced theatre practitioners to read incoming scripts and make the necessary - sometimes hard - decisions about which productions could form part of the festival.

"Our adjudicators have worked hard to make a balanced selection form all the scripts submitted," Amanda maintains. "We had to adhere to a strict timetable of shortlisting by the end of March, sending out invitations to the final invited companies by May, with the full programme announced this week."

Black Lion

The final 17 range across the whole gamut of the live theatrical experience, from epic scenes to dramatic monologue, and all are staged in locations not normally set aside for theatre, such as Filmworks, Babushka, Tiger, Tiger, the King's Arms, Bloom Street, and the Black Lion, Chapel Street.

"These days, there is a tangible vibrancy in the Manchester region," David enthuses. "It is changing and growing and this seems the perfect time to establish something which will hopefully develop with it and become a part of it."

"The fringe scene in Manchester is underrepresented," adds Amanda, "because we have never worked together as a force. But that's now changing. We thought if there was one event per year which would help take some of the stress out of getting work produced then we might, as a region, start to see more happening, theatrewise."

"We intend the Festival to be a showcase for all the creative talent in the region, whether writers, directors, designers, performers or technicians, and a celebration of all that is good about live performance," conclude the dynamic duo.

"We encourage all creative practitioners in the region to keep working, developing, practising and honing their skills, to show that we are not behind the capital city in any respect. Let's show everyone what we can do, and that we enjoy doing it!"

Festival passes are now on sale, costing é24 for seven performances. You can keep up with the latest developments of the 24:7 Theatre Festival here.