Line-up for the International Norfolk & Norwich Festival

It opens on the first of May and runs until the 16th this year with an international line-up of performers across a wide range of performing arts and making use of some imposing venues. From the 8th to the 16th of May these include the Spiegeltent.

This alights in Chapelfield Gardens which, for the duration of Britain’s oldest city arts festival, becomes the Festival Gardens. There are two performance slots each evening with productions as diverse as the Australian physical theatre ensemble Circa in The Space Between (8-11 May) and Purcell’s King Arthur (13 to 16 May). The latter, which is not a straightforward staging, is by the French company Les Grooms.

The Anglo-German performance group Gob Squad create a reconstruction of Andy Warhol’s film Kitchen at the Norwich Playhouse on 5 and 6 May. Three contrasted dance events are Glow by the Australian Chunky Move (Playhouse 11 and 12 May), Les Ballets C de la B from Belgium in Ashes (Norwich Theatre Royal 11 May) and
Greatest Hits! from Balletboyz on 14 May (also at the Theatre Royal).

A trio of shows for children starts off on 4 May with Norwich Puppet Theatre’s Finger in the Pie (think Sweeney Todd – plus the French Revolution – and you won’t be far off the mark). A circus skills double-bill on 9 May at the Theatre Royal has musical clowns The Chipolatas in the first half and the Barcelona-based troupe Circ Pànic in the second. Lyngo Theatre at the Playhouse on 16 May offer the Grimm story of Hansel and Gretel. GBB (Grooms’ Biggest Hits) is a show for all ages in the Spiegeltent, also on 16 May.

Running parallel to all this are a number of free events including Fanfare Le Snob on the Millennium Plain to launch the festival and Les Commandos Percu with a blend of music and fireworks in Earlham Park on 2 May.

The classical and contemporary music programme commemorates the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death with Jephtha in St Andrew’s Hall on 1 May, the 350th anniversary of Purcell’s birth in a Florilegium concert in St Peter Mancroft on 5 May and the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s death in an Endellion String Quartet concert at the John Innes Centre on 9 May. This also includes the world première of Roxanna Panufnik’s The Audience which sets word portraits by Wendy Cope of just the sort of people you hope won’t be sitting next to you!