Type | non-profit |
---|---|
Industry | Fringe theatre |
Founded | 1977 |
Headquarters | Great Malvern, England |
Key people | Phil Linnell, Chairman |
Products | Spring Festival, Live music, Cabaret, Poetry, Comedy |
Revenue | non-profit |
Number of employees | Voluntary |
The Malvern Fringe Festival was an arts festival (founded 1977) which took place in Great Malvern, England. The main events of the Malvern Fringe Festival were the annual Malvern May Day and parade, [1] and the annual three-day festival held in June as a fringe to the Elgar Festival. These were often accompanied by musical and other live events throughout the year.
Malvern Fringe Festival was founded in 1977 by Adrian Mealing, a teacher in Malvern, in collaboration with Andrew Sleigh, Ian Fearnside and Phil Webb. It originated as a reaction to the Malvern Festival which was perceived to be biased towards classical music and appealing towards a national and international audience rather than a local one. A further concern was the continued requirement for the local Council to underwrite the main festival and the feeling that the public expenditure could be more wisely spent. [2] [3]
The founding aims of the Fringe were to produce a popular, varied programme of events for the local people of Malvern, to bridge the gap between the "us" and "them" in the arts and to "shake it up a bit in Malvern".
The first year featured 60 events consisting of poetry, world music, folk, jazz, adult and children's theatre performed under the banner of "Associated Events" due to the main Festival's objections to the term 'Fringe', which they considered to be "outside" of the Festival. In 1978, to avoid confusion between the programmes for the two festivals, printed with similar designs at the main festival's insistence, Adrian Mealing hand wrote "Fringe" on over 3000 programmes. [4] As the 1980s approached, the festival grew into a four-week event and the Fringe had established its own identity. Being centrally located between Hereford, Worcester, Gloucester and Cheltenham the Fringe drew a wide audiences from over a 20-mile radius.
During the 1980s, the festival attracted hundreds of visitors with a programme of 120 events over a two-week period. [5] In 1982, Malvern Fringe Arts Ltd became a registered charity. [6] By the 1990s, the Fringe programme had grown to a six-week event and was attracting comedy and cabaret acts that were beginning to establish their reputations, including Eddie Izzard, Lee Evans, Jerry Sadowitz, Jim Tavare, Chris Lynam and a double act featuring Linda Smith and Mark Thomas, plus musical acts as varied as Gong, Juicy Lucy, Voodoo Queens and Loop Guru.
In 2006 the Fringe re-launched its three-day festival in June, loosely based upon a theme of Elgar's interests. One of the highlights of this festival was a bicycle race (as cycling was one of Elgar's keen interests) up the steep incline of Great Malvern's Church Street. This event was supported by Commonwealth games gold medalist Liam Killeen, who's from Malvern, and was won by Tour de France cyclist, Arnaud Lenoir. [7] The whole three-day festival was attended by over 5,000 people. [8]
In the autumn of 2006, the Fringe launched a 'folk weekend' featuring Roy Bailey and Jez Lowe. [9]
The Malvern May Day and Parade are an annual community event which has been held in Priory Park, Great Malvern on the Saturday before the May Bank Holiday since 1993. [1]
Despite an attendance of over 5,000 people the June 2006 festival has been the subject of much negative coverage in the letters pages of the local newspaper with one correspondent calling upon readers to petition the local Member of Parliament to halt any further Fringe activities. [10]
Throughout its history Malvern Fringe featured an impressive array of performers, many of whom have gone on to become international stars.
Eddie Izzard, also known as Suzy Izzard, is a British stand-up comedian, actor, and activist. Her comedic style takes the form of what appears to the audience as rambling whimsical monologues and self-referential pantomime.
George Lowen Coxhill known professionally as Lol Coxhill, was an English free improvising saxophonist. He played soprano and sopranino saxophone.
The Malvern Hills are in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire, dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern. The highest summit affords a panorama of the Severn Valley, the hills of Herefordshire and the Welsh mountains, parts of thirteen counties, the Bristol Channel, and the cathedrals of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford.
Malvern is a spa town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England. It lies at the foot of the Malvern Hills, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The centre of Malvern, Great Malvern, is a historic conservation area, which grew dramatically in Victorian times due to the natural mineral water springs in the vicinity, including Malvern Water.
Great Malvern is an area of the civil parish of Malvern, in the Malvern Hills district, in the county of Worcestershire, England. It lies at the foot of the Malvern Hills, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, on the eastern flanks of the Worcestershire Beacon and North Hill, and is the historic centre of Malvern and includes its town centre.
Jerry Sadowitz is an American-born Scottish stand-up comedian and magician.
North Malvern is a suburb of Malvern, Worcestershire, England. It nestles on the northern slopes of the Malvern Hills. It is a contiguous urban extension of Link Top, and other neighbouring centres of population are Great Malvern, Malvern Link, West Malvern and the former village of Cowleigh. It is part of the civil parish of Malvern, administered by the Malvern Hills District, and is included in the informal region known as The Malverns.
Hatfield and the North were an experimental Canterbury scene rock band that lasted from October 1972 to June 1975, with some reunions thereafter.
Worcestershire Beacon, also popularly known as Worcester Beacon, or locally simply as The Beacon, is a hill whose summit at 425 metres (1,394 ft) is the highest point in Worcestershire. It is part of the Malvern Hills which run about 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north-south along the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border.
The Theatre of Small Convenience was a theatre in Malvern, Worcestershire, England. In 2002 it entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's smallest commercial theatre, seating up to 12 people. It is less than half the size of the previous record holder, the Piccolo Theatre in Hamburg, Germany. The theatre looked like it might close on 25 February 2017 when Dennis Neale retired from the theatre. Warwickshire College Group is currently the tenant of the theatre building and a future programme of events is currently under consideration. The theatre is featured in a recent publication entitled Twenty Theatres You Should See Before You Die by Amber Massie-Blomfield.
St. Ann's Well is set on the slopes of the Malvern Hills above Great Malvern. It is a popular site on a path leading up to the Worcestershire Beacon and lies on the final descent of the Worcestershire Way. The spring or well is named after Saint Anne, the maternal grandmother of Christ and the patron saint of many wells. A building that dates back to 1813 houses the well or spring. Malvern water flows freely from an elaborately carved water spout. The building also hosts a cafe. During the early 20th century, the now-defunct Burrows company bottled and sold Malvern Water from this source under the "St Ann's Well" brand.
The Malvern Gazette is a weekly tabloid newspaper published every Friday in Malvern, England. Its offices are based in Hylton Road, Worcester. The newspaper covers events across the county of Worcestershire as well as some on the outskirts of Herefordshire. There is also a sister title called the Ledbury Reporter.
Malvern Hills Arts and Community College is a non-profit company set up in April 2021 to manage the bid to save the site of the former Malvern Hills College / Malvern School of Art from being sold to developers by its current owners who received the site for free as part of a merger in 2016. Known for a short while from 2009 to 2016 as South Worcestershire College, in August 2016 the college merged with Warwickshire College Group (WCG) and reverted to its historical name. The school was closed down in 2020 by WCG and a campaign, 'Save Malvern Hills College' was set up by arts students, staff, business leaders, councillors, community representatives and educators to try to save the important site and provision. The campaign gained the support of The Bransford Trust who pledged a large sum of money to the project and was followed by grants totaling £800,000.00 by local authorities. As yet no deal has been reached as WCG are keen to get a protective educational covenant overturned, against the community and local authority wishes, in order to maximise sale value. No date has been set for this court date yet.
Malvern water is a natural spring water from the Malvern Hills on the border of the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire in England. The Hills consist of very hard granite and limestone rock. Fissures in the rock retain rain water, which slowly permeates through, escaping at the springs. The springs release an average of about 60 litres a minute and the flow has never been known to cease.
Hanley Castle High School is a non-selective mixed secondary school and sixth form centre located in the village of Hanley Castle, 1.4 miles (2.2 km) from the small town of Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire. It was formerly known as Hanley Castle Grammar School, and was probably founded in 1326, making it one of the oldest schools in England.
Sarah Townsend, known professionally as Sarah McGuinness, is an Irish singer, composer, producer, director, and screenwriter.
Malvern Water is a brand of bottled drinking water obtained from a spring in the range of Malvern Hills that marks the border between the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire in England. The water is a natural spring water from the hills that consist of very hard granite rock. Fissures in the rock retain rain water, which slowly permeates through, escaping at the springs. The springs release an average of about 60 litres a minute. The flow rate depends on rainfall and can vary from as little as 36 litres per minute to over 350 litres per minute.
The Seven Dials Jazz Club opened its doors in 1980 as a venue for live music in Covent Garden, London. It hosted a range of artists and styles of jazz and began to attract a regular audience. Starting in 1983, a series of saxophone festivals was held on the premises each year.
The Holy Well is set on the slopes of the Malvern Hills above Malvern Wells. The well is believed to be the site of the oldest bottling plant in the world. The Malvern spring water was first bottled on a commercial scale at the well and the building houses a modern commercial bottling plant.
The Festival Theatre, now known as Malvern Theatres, is a theatre complex on Grange Road in Malvern, Worcestershire, England. Malvern Theatres, housed in the Winter Gardens complex in the town centre of Great Malvern, has been a provincial centre for the arts since 1885. The theatre became known for its George Bernard Shaw productions in the 1930s and from 1977 onwards, along with the works of Edward Elgar. Up until 1965, 19 different plays of Shaw were produced at the Malvern Festival Theatre, and six premiered here, including The Apple Cart at the opening Malvern Festival in 1929, Geneva, a Fancied Page of History in Three Acts in August 1938 and In Good King Charles's Golden Days in August 1939.
{{cite news}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(help){{cite news}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(help){{cite news}}
: Missing or empty |title=
(help)