We just love festival season and this summer is full of great local events – now it’s time to pack your picnic rug for Central Park and enjoy Vivacity’s Once Upon A Festival.
After the success of last year’s family event, Once Upon a Festival returns for a second year on Saturday August 11 from 11am – 5pm.
It’s packed with outdoor theatre, story telling, music, creative workshops and loads of unusual weird and wonderful characters set to entertain the whole family.
The entertainment includes Dodo’s Dream by Circle of Two, a poetic pantomime inspired by the myth of Pygmallion and the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann. It blends circus, theatre and puppetry. Dodo the Inventor creates the perfect creature to enlighten his lonely heart… when the clock strikes twelve, magic begins and a doll comes to life.
Then there’s a crazy version of Red Riding Hood, as you’ve never seen it before by Booster Cushion. Little Red Riding Hood’s friend arrives to tell us the story but has a problem, there are no pages in the book! He tries to tell the story and we meet Red Riding Hood’s mum, dad and grandma but he keeps getting the story wrong. So Cinderella arrives to help, dancing a conga with her Jack’s Baked Beans Band and suggests auditions to find the Wolf to end the story.
If you love a good tale, storyteller Liam Carroll mixes a calm conversational style with occasional eruptions of tumultuous comedy to retell and reinvent myths and fables of old.
Local favourites Pennyless will be providing the tunes on the day with their quirky and mystical songs from folklore, medieval history and their own musical minds.
If you want to find out what bees get up to when they’re not buzzing visit a beehive like no other, tended to by two rather peculiar beekeepers in a multi-sensory interactive installation full of sweet surprises.
For the bookworms there’s the chance to meet author Ross Montgomery, who writes weird and wonderful award-winning books for children like Max and the Millions. Plus there’ll be outdoor-themed activities based around Stanley’s Stick by John Hegley and take home fun ideas for story time.
You can marvel at Balloonatic and their Woodland Fairy creations and be entertained by their comic interaction as they roam about the park or join best selling cartoonist James Parsons for a fun-packed day of comic art workshops and skills!
Once Upon A Festival is a day full of storytellers with tales from around the world, children’s art & crafts workshops with artists and illustrators and the chance to meet Peter Rabbit himself and follow the Beatrix Potter trail.
There’ll be a chill-out space for families with young babies, play areas and colouring tent, face-painting, glitter tattoos and hair feathers (charges apply).
For the programme for the day visit www.vivacity.org/theatre-arts/festivals-events/once-upon-a-festival-2018/
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