The streets of Scarborough, the UK’s oldest resort and Queen of Watering Places, will come alive over the next few months as the new Scarborough Fair steps up another gear and brings art, theatre, music and more to the town
The year-round festival – actually a collection of small, regular festivals under the overall banner of The Scarborough Fair – kicked off last winter with the first element, Scarborough Lights, which saw local artists work alongside national and international names to paint the town red (and green, and blue, and yellow) with dazzling art installations, all involving – yes! – light.
And now the Fair moves into phases 2, 3 and 4 with Scarborough Streets, Scarborough Art and Scarborough Fringe all incoming over the next few months.
Festival Director Julian Caddy says: 'At the core of The Scarborough Fair is the community aspect – that’s absolutely paramount, and crucial to our thinking. We have government funding for the first three years, but this needs to be a long-term project with a legacy for the town, the region – and nationally and internationally, too.
'I started by looking at what people in the town are doing already, alongside what they’d like to see in the future. There’s also an element of possibly reviving things that used to happen, and that people miss. I hope that mix will make The Scarborough Fair sustainable.
'We want to involve as many local people as we can to create an event that is genuinely designed by, created by, inspired by and, I hope, loved by, the town for many years to come.'
The first event of the spring and summer is Scarborough Streets, taking place over the early May Bank Holiday weekend (Saturday May 4 to Monday 6).
This three-day festival of outdoor events, murals, street art and performances has already seen local artists attending workshops in the run-up to create a new and inclusive community event for the town centre.
A variety of free and affordable performances and activities will inspire, celebrate and showcase local creativity, as well as bringing national and international artists to the coast.
Look out for a community parade, street performances, interactive, walkabout performances, interactive installations, workshops, site-specific theatre performances and street art.
Next up is Scarborough Art, an exciting new affordable art trail taking place at various venues across Scarborough and beyond. It will run for seven weeks from Saturday June 15 to Sunday August 4 – plenty of time to browse! – and will potentially cover all aspects of the visual arts, including sculpture, photography and even the moving image. It will also allow people to visit different and unusual different places and spaces around the town, not just conventional galleries or other arts spaces. It will also provide an online platform for artists to introduce their work to potential buyers via The Scarborough Fair website.
The final ten days of June will bring Scarborough’s first ever Fringe festival to both locals and visitors. Scarborough Fringe (Friday 21 to Sunday 30) runs alongside Scarborough Art – Julian sees them very much as ‘sister’ festivals within the canon.
The Fringe will feature theatre, music, comedy, spoken word, children’s shows, and a wide variety of other events and performances, some free and some ticketed. Some will take place in traditional arts venues; others will be in less conventional venues: think pubs, shopping centres, the beach or even usually private homes and gardens.
A former Brighton Fringe Festival director (he ran the world-renowned event for 12 years) Julian is steeped in fringe thinking. 'The fringe, I think, is part of the fabric of my being: I’ve been involved in it, one way or another, for getting on for 30 years,' he says.
'To my mind, it’s possibly the most important part of the arts – a festival very much owned by the people who take part, curated by the artists themselves. It’s a pure, down-and-dirty platform for people to try things out – so it could be quite chaotic! But it’s a really important springboard for new talent. I’ve had the great privilege of working with people who are just starting out, the fringe was their break, and five years later, they’re headlining major festivals.'
For more information on Scarborough Streets, Scarborough Art and Scarborough Fringe, please visit the Scarborough Fair website: scarboroughfair.uk. And to find out what else is on across the Yorkshire Coast and the North York Moors this month, please visit discoveryorkshirecoast.com
ARE YOU GOING TO SCARBOROUGH FAIR?
It’s undoubtedly one of the world’s most iconic song lyrics, familiar around the world. But what was Scarborough Fair?
A lot is, as with so many things, lost in the mists of time. But it’s believed that Scarborough Fair was a colourful six-week long summer event packed with traders and entertainers, which was held in the town following a charter issued by King Henry III in 1253. It was held annually for an impressive almost 550 years – the last recorded fair was in 1788. It quickly established itself as an international draw, with merchants travelling to sell their wares from as far afield as Scandinavia, the Baltic and Asia.
It wasn’t without controversy – in the late 13th century, Scarborians less than keen on the rival fairs held at nearby Filey, Sherburn and Brompton successfully lobbied for their abolition (although they failed in a similar, and long-running, altercation with Seamer Fair).
The song, first published in 1891, reflects the theme of a number of other traditional English ballads, its male singer setting a series of impossible tasks for a former lover who lives in Scarborough, including making him a cambric shirt with no seams or stitching, and then washing it in a dry well. It has taken the name of Scarborough around the world, most notably in the version recorded by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel on their 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. What’s perhaps less well known is that Paul Simon was inspired to record the song after learning it from folk singer Martin Carthy, who still lives on the North Yorkshire coast.
