25ft Puppet Roams The Streets Of Norwich To Launch Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2024

Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2024 opened this Friday (10 May) with the spectacle of a 25ft puppet roaming Norwich's streets in front of thousands of spectators following the route of the procession.

Mo and The Red Ribbon is by French company L'Homme Debout, exploring the experience of migration from a child's perspective, offering an ultimately optimistic look at the world we inhabit and those we share it with.

Festival Director Daniel Brine said: “It was a thrill to see thousands of people on the Norwich streets as we launched this year's festival. Mo and The Red Ribbon was a fantastic event, awe inspiring with a gigantic 25ft puppet greeting spectators, and poignant, with its exploration of contemporary migration.

“Now, the festival continues with an exciting blend of international acts alongside local artists from the East of England with world premieres and extraordinary dance, drama and music in spaces across Norwich and beyond until 26 May.”

The festival continues this weekend with a range of free performances as part of the Welcome Weekend. Acts popping up across the city include a gravity defying spectacle from NoFit State Circus, roaming New Orleans rhythms from Das Brass and interactive spoon playing with Betty Brown Bags. For full listings, locations and times visit the button below.

Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2024 runs untill 26 May including world premieres from Circolombia with their new show Corazón and the new eight hour epic organ composition 268 years of reverb, composed by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, plus the UK premiere of Rachel Ní Bhraonáin's high-octane dance theatre piece, MOSH.

Listings for the full programme for Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2024 can be found below. For more information and tickets visit the button below.

 

NORFOLK & NORWICH FESTIVAL 2024

 

 

THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE

 

WELCOME WEEKEND

Friday 10 - Sunday 12 May

Norwich City Centre

FREE

Free performances across the city centre - see website for full listings.

STEVE WATERS

Phoenix Dodo Butterfly

Saturday 11 May, 7.30pm, UEA Drama Studio

Saturday 25 May, 7.30pm, The Drill House, Great Yarmouth

Tickets £20 (Norwich), £16 (Great Yarmouth) | U18/YoungNNF £7.50

What future do we want to live in? On a Norfolk farm, Martin and Becky seek to find their way through three futures: one of flood, one of fire, and one of drought. Does their estranged daughter Aimee hold the secret to survival? This unique show will be followed by a panel discussion on the climate crisis, including speakers Patrick Barkham (UEA) and Tom Heap (Drill House).

The performance on Saturday 11 May will be BSL interpreted.

SHEILA GHELANI & SUE PALMER

Common Salt

Tuesday 14 & Wednesday 15 May, 6pm

This performance will also be live streamed on Wednesday 15 May at 6pm for free (please book in advance).

Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery

Tickets £16 | U18/YoungNNF £7.50

Common Salt is a performance around a table – a ‘show and tell', exploring the colonial and geographical history of England and India. Sue and Sheila activate insights into our shared past, laying out a ‘home museum' of objects and stories; creating ‘a miniature with epic undertones.' All of this is accompanied by laments on the shruti box, a traditional Indian instrument.

CIRCOLOMBIA

Corazón

Wednesday 15 - Sunday 26 May, 7.30pm (Sundays 5.30pm)

Adnams Spiegeltent

Weekdays £25, £22, Fri-Sat-Sun £27, £24 | U18/YoungNNF £7.50

A brand new show. All the way from South America and created especially for the Adnams Spiegeltent! Circolombia invites you into their home to experience Corazón (Heart). This world premiere, commissioned by Norfolk & Norwich Festival, is a fun-fuelled circus concert, packed with breathless circus feats and infectious music where you, the audience, are warmly invited right into the beating Latin heart.

TANIA EL KHOURY

Memory of Birds

Thursday 16 May - Saturday 18 May, every hour 11am-4pm

Sainsbury Centre Sculpture Park

Tickets £16 | U18/YoungNNF £7.50

Immerse yourself in a guided sensory experience. In collaboration with a trauma therapist and migrating birds, Memory of Birds is an interactive sound installation in the trees. The work explores political violence that both literally and figuratively gets buried in contested land.

Ages 14+

HIGH TIDE & MOLLY NAYLOR 

Make Me

Thursday 16 May, 6pm

Walter Roy Theatre, Hewett Academy

Tickets £7.50

Set around a struggling secondary school in Ipswich, Make Me tells the story of an inept drama teacher with a saviour-complex, and the three young women she's determined to save.A Festival Connect & Create project, in partnership with High Tide, Make Me was devised in collaboration with GCSE drama pupils of Hewett Academy.

This is a work in progress performance.

Lucy McCormick

Lucy & Friends

Thursday 16 May, 10pm

Adnams Spiegeltent

Tickets £18 | U18/YoungNNF £7.50

In a despairing world, Lucy McCormick attempts to create community and connection the only way she knows how – through a smattering of sing-a-longs and a celebration of silliness. A master of theatrical manipulation and crushing personal vulnerability, Lucy leaves her audiences needing a hug, a cry and an immediate shower.

Contains strong language, scenes of a sexual nature and nudity.

Ages 18+

TANIA EL KHOURY

in conversation with Lois Keidan

Saturday 18 May, 4pm

Elizabeth Fry Lecture Theatre, UEA

Tickets £5

Join Tania El Khoury as she talks to Lois Keidan, founder of the Live Art Development Agency, about Memory of Birds and notions of migration, the politics of interacting with humans and the more-than-humans, the production of collective memory and the cultivation of solidarity.

NORWICH THEATRE PRESENT OCKHAM'S RAZOR

Tess

Tuesday 21 & Wednesday 22 May, 7.30pm

Norwich Theatre Royal

Tickets £25, £20, £10

Classic literature, physical theatre and circus collide in Tess; a groundbreaking adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles. An inventive and evocative retelling, Tess has extraordinary relevance for contemporary audiences, exploring privilege, class, poverty, sisterhood and female desire.

Ages 12+

ROBIN DEACON

Through the Round Window

Wednesday 22 May, 7.30pm

Norwich Arts Centre

Tickets £16 | U18/YoungNNF £7.50

Robin Deacon presents his haunted memories of 1970's and 80's television culture. Robin charts his journey as a child learning from the television screen to his adult experiences as a lecturer and a professor, examining the relationship between education and representation.

SUSANNAH HEWLETT & ORIGINAL PROJECTS PRESENT

Hard Leisure

Friday 24 May, 8pm

The Jube, Great Yarmouth

Tickets Pay what you can, £20, £15, £10, £5

An anarchic club night of performance and disco, bringing together some of the most outrageous queer talents from across the country. Hosted by Great Yarmouth's very own Bigg Taystee and Pussyfoot, keeping you on the dancefloor until 2am.

NORWICH THEATRE PRESENT MARC BREW & Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

an Accident / a Life

Friday 24 & Saturday 25 May, 19:30

Norwich Theatre Royal

Tickets £35, £32, £28, £24, £10

In this exciting new collaboration, Marc Brew and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui attempt to find new forms of movement and question socially standardised images of people with disabilities. They explore profound events and fraught memories using dance, storytelling, film and a car.

Ages 14+

SPARE TYRE

On The Beach

Thursday 23 May, 11.30am & 2.30pm | Sheringham Little Theatre
Saturday 25 May, 11.30am & 2.30pm | St George's Theatre, Great Yarmouth

Book via venues. Tickets Pay what you want, £15, £10, £5, £3

On The Beach is an intimate and interactive sensory experience for 6–8 people living with dementia and their carers. Join us for a day in the life of a working beach, as we explore its myths, magic, perils and ever-changing beauty through dance, music and visual storytelling. On The Beach is entirely non-verbal. As such, it can be enjoyed by d/Deaf audiences and those with English as a second language.
Click here for images

 

DANCE

 

A FILM BY Dan Canham, WITH KATIE BOAG, ASH GOOSEY AND Benji Bower

Fenland Elegy

Saturday 18 & Sunday 19 May, 11am-4pm, drop ins

The Gallery, The Forum

FREE, no booking required

A short and stirring dance film shot at sunset in the Fens of East Anglia, Fenland Elegy combines heart-rending symphonic music with the immense technical and expressive form of Krump dance to lament the passing of a landscape.

RAGROOF TEA DANCES

The legendary Ragroof Tea Dances return to the beautiful Adnams Spiegeltent – expect vintage music, glamorous costumes, and glorious dance displays. Enjoy a tipple at the bar, or tea and a delicious Jarrolds scone!

The Strawberry Ball
Saturday 18 May, 11am
Adnams Spiegeltent
Tickets £18 | U18/Young NNF £7.50

Put on your fanciest frocks and join us to dance whimsical waltzes and feathery foxtrots

The Coconut Club
Sunday 19 May, 11am

Adnams Spiegeltent

Tickets £18 | U18/Young NNF £7.50

A tropical cocktail of vintage Latin favourites, from sizzling Sambas and sexy Salsas to melodic Mambos and merry Merengues.

XENIA AIDONOPOULOU

Skydiver

Wednesday 22 & Thursday 23 May, 11.30am & 1.30pm

The Garage

Tickets £11 | U18/YoungNNF £7.50 | Group of 4 £30

Take your little ones on a magical journey with Skydiver and experience how movement, sound and stunning visuals bring whimsical characters to life in an enchanting encounter in the skies.

Age recommendation 3-5 years

RACHEL NÍ BHRAONAÍN

MOSH

Thursday 23 - Saturday 25 May, 7.30pm

Epic Studios

Tickets £20 | U18/Young NNF £7.50

MOSH is a high-octane dance, theatre and music show about the culture of the mosh pit. Consisting of five dancers, one drummer, humour, heart, and a hell of a lot of headbanging, this show is like nothing you've ever seen before.

Ages 12+

 

MUSIC

 

GUILDHALL SESSIONS

Saturday 11, Sunday 12, Saturday 25 & Sunday 26 May, 11am-4pm drop in

Norwich Guildhall

FREE

Six new music films screened in Norwich Guildhall. Over 600 years the building has been home to the centre of city government, a jail and courthouse and is now home to the Festival. This history inspired commissions by Stick in the Wheel, Laura Cannell, Rakhi Singh, Tamsin Elliott, Una Lee and Sian Croose. The works are also available to view online, and to buy as a limited-edition CD or download.

The showing on 11 May and 12 May will take place up a flight of stairs.

AURORA ORCHESTRA

Eroica by Heart

Saturday 11 May, 6pm & 8pm

Norwich Cathedral

Tickets £27 | U18/YoungNNF £7.50

Aurora Orchestra present a unique performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3. Performed entirely from memory and stripped of music stands, get up close and personal in the atmospheric surrounds of Norwich Cathedral.

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