Manchester International Festival

The Festival has come and gone, and by most accounts has been a terrific success. I know I perennially whine about ticket charges but it’s not just me, various people I spoke to this year confessed they’d been to performances which in retrospect seemed over-priced. At a festival like MIF, lots of Mancunians want to attend multiple events. With the very real possibility of things selling out rapidly, an unusual splurge of spending takes its toll on many pockets. Several credit cards came out of retirement, mine included. I did notice a curious reluctance to fairly critique an event that might have cost fifty quid, particularly from people who are normally acutely critical and not so easily pleased. It was almost as if the ticket price itself buffered criticism.

MIF has charitable status and involves itself in ‘community and schools initiatives’ which is obviously commendable. But they also depend on the hundreds of unpaid volunteers which constitutes a donation from us (the city) to them, after which forty five pounds for ninety minutes of performance might seem excessive. But then if you come away having heard God ...

Nevertheless, MIF is definitely A GOOD THING. I will miss the buzz of newcomers and creatives and excited audiences, people in bars on week nights swapping appraisals and avoiding spoilers. I will especially miss the Pavilion, for which I almost shed a tear when we saw it standing empty on a rainy Sunday after the party was over.

Here’s an overview of MIF 2011 in vox pops and bite-sized pieces...

Bjork in Castlefield ...

Reactions were largely religious in tone (‘Probably the best live musical experience of my life ...’) but a few others begged to differ: ‘That was a £25 gig, not a £45 gig’, ‘The visuals were a bit sixth-form’ or even, ‘I couldn’t see a thing’. On the whole though, a sublime evening of unmissable art (which I missed) ...

Dr Dee at the Palace Theatre ...

Reactions ranged from bemusement to adoration to something in between: ‘I didn’t have a clue what was going but my god it was magnificent ...’ Repeated sightings of Damon Albarn across the city also resulted in a mass simultaneous crush ...

Snoop Dogg at the Apollo ...

This was the event that seemed to divide opinion the most, people variously cherishing a nostalgia trip, others complaining of bad cover versions, ill-chosen setlist and awkward tech problems ...

Meeting Victoria Wood at the Pavilion ...

Victoria: Is it alright if we take this table next to you? We’ll probably need the whole thing, there’s quite a few of us.
Me: Yes of course, go ahead. You’re not bringing the choir with you, are you?
VW: *polite laugh* Possibly, yes.
Me: *cringe*

Wu Lyf under Bridgewater Tunnel ...

Odd that this usually monoxide-heavy thoroughfare was deemed ‘No Smoking’ for the evening. Great visuals and DJs between band sets. Wu Lyf are a good band but the venue made this a great event. More gigs down here please ...

Ewan Pearson at Micron ...

Delphic-producer hotfoots it from the Pavilion to pull off a quality techno set for a rammed Joshua Brooks. Bleeeep ...

Eleven Rooms at City Gallery ...

Claustrophobia, nudity, motion, punishment, music, performance, sex and death jostled for attention as eleven artists housed unique pieces in a neatly compartmentalised floor of City Gallery causing debate, humour, sadness and excitement among those in attendance. Highlights were the unnerving ‘Ann Lee’ monologue from Tino Seghal and Xu Zhen’s victory over gravity, ‘In Just A Blink Of An Eye’ ...

D/R/U/G/S at the Pavilion ...

Dave Haslam put together a characteristically cracking line-up of bands on Albert Square including tech-boy-wonder D/R/U/G/S playing a set of non-stop dark-edged ambient technoise...

The Influence Machine at Whitworth Park ...

For one hour each night hypnotic light installations reclaimed what I lovingly refer to as ‘Needle Park’. Under a full moon, ectoplasmic faces and hands occupy the leaves of willow trees or the brick flanks of the Whitworth Gallery reciting tracts of verse or just thudding eerily. The face that floated into view in a bank of dry ice was a particular uncanny favourite ...

‘That Day We Sang’ at the Opera House ...

Heart-warming, plucky and irrepressibly Northern, Victoria Wood’s musical about time, music and loneliness (and complicated relationships with food) struck a chord with the adoring audience, as did the beautiful backdrop pictures of Manchester past ...

The roof-garden bar on Albert Square ...

Tree-level beers on sunny days (yes we did have some) ...

Amazing people in the city ...

Journos from Tennessee, artists from Amsterdam, reviewers from just about every place, actors and dancers and volunteers, two different travellers from Australia who deliberately timed their Manchester trip to coincide with the Festival, and all this amusingly tempered by those (mainly parochial Londoners, it has to be said) expressing genuine surprise that they could enjoy themselves in Manchester ...