Festival goers couldn’t give an X about anything else
…it’s the Tenth Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival
Do you remember the first time? Is it really ten years since the first Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival was brought kicking and screaming into to the world, all wide-eyed and wet behind the ears? CQAF has come a very long way since those heady uncertain days. It wouldn’t be overstatement to say that in the intervening decade it’s become probably the most dynamic and hotly-anticipated arts festival on these Islands.
And so, ten years on, as inevitable and as welcome as a new Fall album, CQAF returns once more to bathe the streets, thoroughfares and boulevards of Belfast City Centre with its beatific and bountiful brilliance.
It all happens from 30 April to 10 May, when once again a dazzling and eclectic collective of local, national and international artists will descend upon the Cathedral Quarter offering up an embarrassment of cultural riches including Music, Comedy, Theatre, Literature, Visual Arts and Film.
Although CQAF10 comes at a seemingly challenging time for public and private funding for the arts, Festival Director Sean Kelly believes that there is still a huge appetite for events which are unique and innovative
“In the current financial climate, people are understandably more careful about where they’re spending their money. The arts sector really needs to raise its game and give audiences experiences that are exciting, uplifting and probably most importantly, affordable.
“I’m really delighted to say that the Tenth Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival has stepped up to the mark to deliver all of this with a genuinely great and accessible line-up. Judging by the buzz generated around our tenth anniversary, I think that it’s fair to say that we’ve proved that the hunger for top quality arts in Belfast remains undiminished. And we’re very happy to be of service!”
Supporting the Festival, Roisín McDonough, Chief Executive of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland said:
“As the principal public funder of the festival, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland is delighted that, once again, an exciting and eclectic line up of top local and international acts have been attracted to the Cathedral Quarter. As a cornerstone in the arts-driven regeneration in this part of Belfast, CQAF makes a vital contribution to economic and creative growth, putting art at the heart during festival time. I encourage local people and visitors alike to get involved in the great opportunities available and enjoy the huge diversity of arts activity on offer, on this its 10th anniversary.”
Among the artists headlining this year will be award-winning journalist, filmmaker and secular prophet John Pilger and the celebrated cerebral actor and playwright Steven Berkoff, who brings Shakespeare’s Villains to idiosyncratic life in his mesmerising one-man show.
For your comedic delight there will be stunning stand-up from the likes of Mark Thomas, Lucy Porter, David O’Doherty, Ross Noble and Jason Byrne as well as comedy readings with Arthur Smith, Dave Gorman and that man Mark Thomas again - all reading from their latest books.
Letters of a darker bent are discussed at the Crime Fiction Special by our very own Colin Bateman and Dublin crime author Gene Kerrigan.
One of the famed Liverpool Poets, Brian Patten takes us on a darkly humorous journey from his first childhood to his second and back again in Growing up Before Your Very Eyes.
CQAF’s global jukebox is as well stocked as ever: African superstar, the truly astonishing Oumou Sangare performs the opening night at the festival marquee. Lloyd Cole is supported by reformed local legends St Vitus Dance, the excellent Teenage Fanclub make a long overdue return to Belfast. The festival is delighted to welcome the shimmying, glimmering music of Imelda May and soul diva Candi Staton, DJs Calvin Harris and Gilles Peterson, a night of new music curated by Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody and, in one of the Festival’s biggest coups, the first Belfast concert in 20 years by Irish Traditional Supergroup Moving Hearts.
Continuing CQAF’s ten-year tradition of showcasing the very best up-and-coming local bands, scene-makers such as Cashier No 9, Fighting With Wire, And So I Watch You From Afar and The Lost Brothers take their place on the festival music stage alongside acclaimed contemporaries such as Daedalus, The Acorn and Devon Sproule.
The Festival also celebrates the work and genius of Tom Waits with a talk by author Barney Hoskyns on his new biography of the iconic artist and Martin Scorcese’s legendary concert film The Last Waltz is recreated by the cream of local talent in a very special concert in the Black Box.
A packed theatre programme sees the return of Martin Lynch’s sell-out production of The Chronicles of Long Kesh, the Dublin Festival hit Waiting for Ikea and perhaps most intriguingly of all, the BBC’s Joe Lindsay in the cult stage-play (and motion picture) Talk Radio. Kabosh Theatre Company’s World Premier Taxi will literally take audiences on a journey they will never forget. Meanwhile The Tower transports you (metaphorically this time) to the pages of Ulysses as one-time friends James Joyce and Oliver St John Gogarty, immortalised as Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus in Joyce’s masterpiece, recreate the humour and darkness of their relationship.
CQAF is of course much greater than the sum of its many parts. All of the rich finger-licking cultural pickings described above are lent true piquancy and flavour by the various Circus Performances and Street Theatre, Visual Art, Sound and Vision and numerous tours, talks, debates and free events that take place throughout the Festival.
Speaking at the launch of the Festival in Black Box Café, Lord Mayor of Belfast Tom Hartley paid tribute to the enduring success of CQAF.
“The launch of the 10th Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival is testimony I believe not just to our thriving and vibrant arts sector, but to our thriving city also.
In the past decade, the city of Belfast and the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival have grown up together. A lot has changed in Belfast’s social and political landscape since the first Festival back in 1999. Our horizons have been broadened and an enduring peace has allowed us as a city to grow together. The same is true of this remarkable Festival: Just having a quick scan of this year’s programme will tell you that the cultural diversity and sheer breadth of ambition is truly impressive. Happy tenth birthday to the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, bigger, better and more beautiful than ever – here’s to the next ten years!”
The Tenth Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival runs from 30 April to 10 May. The full programme will be available at www.cqaf.com from 3 April 2009.
The Festival is supported by The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Belfast City Council and the Department of Social Development.
For further information and interview requests for all Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival events (except Waterfront Hall), contact Joseph Nawaz on telephone 028 9023 2403, mobile 07827299741 or email joe@cqaf.com.
Editors’ Notes:
Festival Website and Booking Information
The festival is delighted to offer online booking thanks to ts.com. Simply log on to www.cqaf.com, choose your events and pay by credit card or Switch through our secure payment system. You can choose to have your tickets posted to you or you can simply print off the details and bring your booking sheet to the venue. For postal bookings a charge of £1.50 will be applied per set of bookings, to cover post and packaging.
Tickets will also be on sale from 3 April 2009 by telephone or in person at the Belfast Welcome Centre, 47 Donegall Place, Belfast – tel. 028 90246609, and also from the Belfast Welcome Centre Desk at the International Airport.
The festival website also offers full details of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival programme, daily news updates, digital photographs from festival events, competitions and special ticket promotions, details of Disability Access initiatives and Eat/Drink/Travel, which features details of the special restaurant and hotel discounts available to festival audiences.
If you would like further information on any of this year’s events, please email mailinglist@cqaf.com and visit www.cqaf.com.
Additional info
For further information on the Festival of Fools, log on to www.foolsfestival.com or contact Belfast Community Circus School on telephone 028 90236007.
For 300dpi print quality images of all festival artists, log on to the Press Room on the festival website – www.cqaf.com.
The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival began life in May 2000 attracting an audience of just over 5000. The Festival now regularly attracts over 60,000 people to over 150 events in the city centre.
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