Fools
May 7th, 2009
Each year I look forward to Belfast’s own street performance festival: the Festival of Fools, for I have a respect for those who can gather a crowd in the street and entertain them for 30mins without too many nodding off/going about their shopping.
This, the 6th Festival of Fools, “Ireland’s biggest street theatre festival,” took place from Thursday 30th April until Monday 4th May 2009 in various locations around the city centre. Although I didn’t get the opportunity to see many of the performers, I had a wonder around on Saturday afternoon, and got a few laughs along the way. Though admittedly one or two of the performers were crap, and I’m surprised the fairly large crowd which had gathered performance stuck around until the end- I didn’t however.
That’s not to say that I don’t respect what they do, good or bad, it’s surely a tough act, and most of them pull it off well, whether it’s riding on a tall unicycle (I still don’t understand how they get on those things!), juggling knives, or being a little funny. It brightens up the streets of Belfast for a few days at least.
It’s got me excited for the Street Performance World Championship in Dublin (18-21st June) and Cork (13 & 14th June). The acts for the event in both cities were recently revealed; some of them look and sound great – I look forward to seeing them when I’m there in Dublin.
