It was Ripon’s third Theatre Festival last week, and the weekend was to be given over to the streets and the park for theatre-in-the-street. The first two festivals had been sunny, warm, and everything good the weather could offer. Last weekend’s forecast was unremittingly vile. Rain, wind, thunder … everything you don’t want. Ripon’s luck had run out.
Except it hadn’t. Apart from one short sharp shower in the middle of Sunday, the weather was – sunny, warm enough, and everything anyone could have wished for.
Come and have a stroll. We could join Struzzo the ostrich and Maxim as they wander round the park.
Kit and Caboodle told a good yarn from their laden mule- cart. It was nicely illustrated by a moving picture show, transcribed onto an apparently unending scroll of paper unfurling before our eyes. And with added paper puppets.
We could watch the swirling-skirted clog-dancers rhythmically and musically clickety clacking their clogs.
Or we could wait for a train with the Rhubarb Theatre and their Three Suitcases as they try to set off on holiday. We’d have a long wait. Ripon doesn’t have a station.
Oh, hang on! There’s plenty going on near the Market Square too…. such as Fireman Dave …
… I want to catch the Bachelors of Paradise …
… and Logy on Fire, who does astonishing feats of acrobatics and balance with batches of discarded cigar boxes …
And there’s so much more. I only managed to see Four Hundred Roses, whom I photographed here, as they wandered up Kirkgate between performances.
I wish you could have been actually – rather than virtually – there too. Maybe next year?
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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