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Could you play a part in helping this year’s Ripon Theatre Festival (RTF) to run smoothly?
Organisers of the fast-growing festival that runs from July 2 until July 7, are calling out for new volunteers to join the team for 2024.
More than 30 volunteers are needed each year to help look after visiting acts, marshal audiences and to help keep the public safe over the festival week.
Festival director Katie Scott, said:
“Extra pairs of hands (and feet) are particularly useful over the festival weekend (July 6 and 7) when street theatre, walkabout acts and community groups take to the streets and open spaces of the city.
“Pop-up events in multiple surprising places need volunteers to support the fun and daily events in Ripon Cathedral also need personnel. Tasks include setting up and clearing away sites, signposting and directing members of the public, carrying out audience surveys and accompanying performers on the move.”
If you think you could lend a hand at any time during festival week (2-7 July), contact Volunteer Co-ordinator Tina Salden tina@ripontheatrefestival.org
She said:
“Volunteering at the festival is great fun and there are different roles to suit different interests and abilities, whether you like to be on the move and chatting to the public, or quietly supporting a weekday event.
“It’s a great chance to get up-close-and-personal to some fabulous performances, whilst meeting new people and helping bring colour and life to our lovely city.”
The Festival Volunteers are supported this year by Kettlewell Fuels, independent heating and fuel oil supplier.
Picture: One of the walkabout acts from last year’s festival
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Ripon Theatre Festival announces partnership with Stray Ferret
Ripon Theatre Festival, which goes from strength to strength, has announced a strategic partnership with the Stray Ferret.
North Yorkshire’s leading online news service has been appointed media sponsors for the fast-growing festival, which was launched in 2022,
As preparations continue for an extended third year programme and with tickets now on sale festival director Katie Scott, said:
“We are delighted to welcome the Stray Ferret as our media sponsors for the 2024 festival.
“We have appreciated the encouragement and coverage which the Stray Ferret has given us. Working together helps us to reach more people with news of our vibrant and exciting plans for the summer.
“All of us involved in planning for and running the festival. like to think that we “punch above our weight”
Ms Scott added:
“With its wide range of professional and community performances and activities, entirely volunteer-led, we make this happen though imaginative partnerships with venues, funders and community groups who are all working to help put Ripon on the map and make it a great place to live, work and visit.”
Charley Christopher, marketing and audience manager at the Stray Ferret, said:
“We are thrilled to be the festival’s principal media sponsor. It’s a partnership we’re excited about and we know from recent research, our readers are very much inspired by arts, culture and events happening in the area.
“Not only does the festival make the arts accessible to all and encourages visitors to this beautiful, unique city.”
Festival highlights for 2024
This year’s festival highlights include an appearance by radical theatre company Red Ladder, a cabaret act featuring the music of Victoria Wood and a return visit from actor Barrie Rutter.
Newby Hall will be a new location for festival favourites and open-air theatre specialists Illyria and the garden at the Old Deanery will provide a backdrop for theatre al fresco when it hosts the Sunday night Shakespearean finale.
Full details of all the festival’s plans including street theatre, pop-up events and free family activities will be announced at the official launch on Thursday, March 21.
Tickets are already on sale for this event, which features comedy cook George Egg with his latest show Set Menu. Tickets include the show, refreshments and festival information.
Full information is available here.
Picture: Ripon Theatre Festival director Katie Scott (right) is pictured with Charley Christopher, the Stray Ferret’s marketing, events and customer manager.
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Gallery: A weekend of family entertainment at Ripon Theatre FestivalThe focus was on family fun in the sun as Ripon Theatre Festival’s outdoor performers took centre stage over the weekend.
Yesterday’s bright sunshine brought hundreds of children, along with parents and grandparents to Spa Gardens, where they saw puppets, pirates, a Noah’s Ark show (pictured below) musicians, singers, dancers and many more entertainers.
Among them was Rhubarb Theatre (see main picture), which provided an interactive experience for the audience combining street entertainment with family games, featuring characters inspired by Lewis Carroll’s wonderland creations.
On Saturday, Ripon city centre Market Square, Minster Gardens, The Arcade, North Street and Kirkgate and Westgate, were among the venues for a eclectic mixture of alfresco theatrical performances, while the Flying Dodos and other puppet characters roamed the streets.
The Flying Dodos on North Street
Ripon Arts Hub, the cathedral, Curzon Cinema, the Claro Lounge, Wetherspoon’s Unicorn Hotel, the library and The Little Ripon Bookshop and Workhouse Museum, also hosted indoor festival events.
The Strange Twig pirates in Spa Gardens
Ian Gouge
At Curzon Cinema, Ripon-based award-winning author and poet Ian Gouge, gave a premiere performance of his dramatic poem Crash while on Market Square, a large crowd gathered for a whole host of acts, including The Giant Balloon Show (pictured below).
Just a hop and a skip away at the cathedral, Ripon City Morris Dancers attracted a large gathering as did dancers of a different kind when Sarita McDermott and her team of Bollywood-style performers, Bethany, Matthew and Martin, from Jennyruth Workshops, performed in Spa Gardens.
Ripon City Morris Dancers
Sarita McDermott (right) with the Bollywood dancers.
While it was a weekend for enjoyment across the city, the daily hardship of a life in poverty was given a dramatic twist at the Workshouse Museum.
Through interactive displays and presentations, volunteers in period costume told the story of what it was like for some of Ripon’s Victorian forebears.
Volunteers Lindy (left) and Judy showed visitors what wash day in the Workhouse was like for its Victorian inmates
The finale of Ripon’s second theatre festival came yesterday evening with Illyria’s action-packed production of Robin Hood at Fountains Abbey and as the curtain came down on this year’s event, festival director Katie Scott (pictured below) told the Stray Ferret:
“It has been a great success. Building on last year’s launch we have seen increased ticket sales and hundreds of people attending the free outdoor events and pop up shows.
“This gives us a tremendous platform for next year.”
Festival director Katie Scott
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Festival show brings 1960s seaside nostalgia to Ripon
Actors who specialise in creating theatre for people living with dementia are staging two special free shows on Friday (June 9), as part of Ripon Theatre Festival.
Smashing Mirrors Theatre Company is teaming up with the charity Dementia Forward to present Mike and Millie Go to the Seaside – a 20-minute performance which takes the audience on a nostalgic day trip back to the 1960s.
Using music, dance, mime and rhyme, the performers will stimulate the audience’s memories and provoke interactions in a show first trialled at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough.
Performances will be staged at Dementia Forward’s Burton Leonard hub, George Armitage House, at 11am on Friday and repeated at 3pm at Holy Trinity Church in Ripon.
Smashing Mirrors‘ artistic director, Elizabeth Godber, said:
“Theatre and music, can hugely improve wellbeing for those living with dementia, but often, for those living with later stages, and their carers, it is inaccessible. We believe theatregoing is an incredible experience that should be enjoyed by all.”
Earlier on Friday, between 12 noon and 2pm, Holy Trinity Church will also host Bread is Life featuring an interactive production by Storm in the North, designed to highlight the continuing plight of refugees from war-torn Syria.
As well as featuring powerful storytelling the performance, presented in partnership with Ripon City of Sanctuary, will invite the audience to make bread in the Syrian way and share it with friends and neighbours. Tickets to attend cost £10.
The festival begins this evening (Wednesday) at Ripon Arts Hub with Happy Place a dystopian comedy performed by Forget about the Dog, which is being presented in partnership with Ripon YMCA Young Leaders.
The opening night event is part of a packed festival programme running until Sunday, (June 11) and including performances and activities for people of all ages at a wide range of indoor and outdoor venues across Ripon and at Fountains Abbey.
Further details about all festival events can be found by clicking here.
Pictured above are members of the Smashing Mirrors Theatre Company. Picture: Ripon Theatre Festival
Ripon businesses are preparing to host events across the city as part of the second theatre festival.
Across a five-day period, Ripon Theatre Festival will hold over 50 events, with a variety of pop-up performances, plays and music.
The festival reported audiences of more than 2,500 people at its inaugural event last year. Now, the organisation aims “to build on the incredible first year response” this year.
Fountains Abbey and The Old Deanery are among the larger spaces that will hold performances, while the Market Place, Minster Gardens, and Ripon Spa Gardens will be transformed into festival zones to bring attendees a range of activities, from street theatre to circus acts.
The event aims to cater for a range of ages, with The Little Ripon Bookshop and the Crypt in Ripon Cathedral putting on puppet shows and storytelling.
Katie Scott, festival director, previously told the Stray Ferret:
“A key aim is to make the festival as affordable and accessible as possible with a wide range of free entertainment popping up at locations across the city centre.”
In line with the festival’s aim, pop-events will be free of charge or “pay what you can”. The festival will also include ticketed theatre performances with many taking place in Ripon Arts Hub.
Ms Scott added:
“The festival is also working with charity Ripon Dementia Forward to provide a sensory theatre show brought directly to two local and friendly community spaces.”
The event will take place from June 7 to 11.
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