This year’s Bloomsbury Festival opens on Friday 13th October and sees various local venues play host to an exciting programme of theatre and music performances, art and science exhibitions and talks and local walks associated with the theme grow. This annual celebration of the area – now in its eighteenth year – blends the best of contemporary Bloomsbury’s hotbed of creativity with a nod to its pioneering past.
The festival will launch on the Friday with an afternoon of street food and entertainment at the Street Food & Flower Market on Store Street. As well as a delicious global range of food stalls and local restaurants to sample, a host of dance groups and performers will kick off the festival in style with street dance and spoken word events.
The following ten days offer a unique mix of events from theatre companies, artists, musicians, cultural organisations and the community itself where there is something for everyone from theatre goers to budding scientists.
Highlights from the 2023 Bloomsbury Festival include:
Exhibitions:
Multiple exhibitions will be in situ during the whole ten days of the festival including the winners of the New Wave: Art Prize Ella Jackson and Tara Ryan, Bloomsbury Silk Banners, a set of six silk banners that represent the diverse culture of the area created by community groups artists from Kinetika, and Deaf Mosaic, a selection of intimate photographic portraits celebrating the UK’s deaf community from photographer and writer Stephen Iliffe.
Theatre:
Performances from the below winners of Bloomsbury Festival’s prestigious New Wave Programme which supports emerging talent will take place throughout the festival. Last year’s New Wave Radio Play winner Jessica Rachid returns with a staged performance of her winning piece Oils, a gripping show about survival, trauma and the unyielding strength of women. Other winners include:
o How To Run Away, the dirty, mucky, sweaty second cousin to Eat, Pray, Love from writer and dancer Lucy Andrina where’s there’s less meditating for ten weeks on a remote mountain and more crying in showers on different continents
o The Morphea, a harsh, fairytale-esque allegory exploring rising rents and displacement from writer Rowenna Mortimer
o Intransigent Lines, a new mythos for the neurodivergent community told through contrasting worlds above and below the sea by playwright and storyteller Lizzie Milton
o Petrichor, a whirlwind falling in love tale of two polar opposite seventeen-year-olds who meet at a warehouse rave in Peckham from writer and actor Theo Hristov recorded and broadcast by Bloomsbury Radio
Spoken Word Performance:
Littered with poems, stories, and anecdotes, Fringe First Winner Inua Ellams (Barbershop Chronicles, The 14th Tale) tells his ridiculous, fantastic immigrant-story of looking for a country to belong to and a place to call home in Inua Ellams and Fuel Present: An Evening With An Immigrant. A whirlwind of spoken word poetry, movement and music that takes audiences on a journey to explore healing, transformation and connection is presented in Helen Percival’s Phoenix.
Music:
There is a vibrant fusion of music and concerts throughout the festival featuring free lunchtime recitals and performances from up-and-coming musicians including pianists, singers, string, and woodwind players. The line-up includes magical mysterious folk songs by alternative folk-jazz group Giant Folk, an exploration of the music, language and culture of Bangladesh from the pioneering Grand Union Orchestra and a musical history of the oldest house in Bloomsbury 49 Great Ormond Street in If Walls Could Sing!
For kids/families:
Best-selling author and artist Ella Phillips (My Grandma’s Magic Recipes) opens the festival at the British Library with a Family Under 5’s Workshops: Time To Grow, which celebrates food, family and the magic of growing and cooking together. The following weekend, The Discovery Hub at Holborn Library will bring a three day interactive exhibition with an exciting mix of science and creativity for schools, families, and the public. Discovery activities and exhibitions include a VR drone take-off experience, a creative exhibition of 50 avocado sculptures and the greenest popcorn you may ever eat made using hydrogen fuel cells.
Talks
A host of talks covering a wide range of topics from astronomy to the Bloomsbury Group. Join grassroots activists in an Ethical Matters talk discussing marching against racism in the 1980s, protesting the New Cross Fire murders and seeking justice for British Guantanamo detainees in Grassroots Protest: Activism From Below. Visit award-winning architects Corstorphine and Wright who will discuss the importance of the grown within the city at Urban Greening: Cities of the Future.
Walks
Free educational and entertaining walks for all ages including Peter Pan Family Adventure Walk, a trail through the gardens of Bloomsbury with a themed challenges, games or activities about the boy who never grew up and the story’s intrinsic link with Bloomsbury and Emancipated Women of Bloomsbury which looks at the Eastern side of the area where an extraordinary range of women lived
Science:
- A number of events looking at science in the area and beyond including The Intelligent Solution? You Decide: Ai In Healthcare is a captivating Bloomsbury Festival initiative that fuses public engagement, artistic-scientific collaborations, and ethical discussions on a journey into AI and healthcare at a secret Bloomsbury facility. Additionally, in partnership with City Lit’s Mental Wealth Festival, Encouraging Healthy Growth In Specific Populations is an innovative collaboration highlighting the power of combining research and community-focused events to address critical health issues, offering a fresh approach to education and advocacy.
Festival Director Rosemary Richards has said “This year we have a packed programme featuring very high-quality events with many new creative partners and venues. We have been developing our opportunities for theatre writers and companies, artists and musicians who are on the cusp of professional careers, and with leading partners from Bloomsbury venues and institutions we have selected the very best in fine art, music and theatre emerging talent. And we celebrate and are joined by the local community in presenting many festival events. There is a buzz growing as we draw close the festival days in mid-October. Do join us! Everyone is welcome.”