Andrew Kay: In a festive mood

May arrives in Brighton, as ever, with a frantic frenzy of festival fun – and I love it! It probably will kill me in the end, but I simply love the three weeks of art and entertainment that makes it the biggest arts festival in England and second only to Edinburgh nationally.

Being as great as it is, I am amazed at some attitudes. Supposedly cultured friends seem loathe to embrace it, poo-pooing the event with statements like “Oh, we don’t do the festival”. Why not? I mean, why ever not? There is a rich menu of stuff to do and plenty of it for free. Even the paid-for events reflect a tightening of budgets with lots priced at £10 – only a few quid more than a seat at the cinema these days.

The other attitude I see is snobbery. What’s in it for the common man? Well, plenty I reckon. Free events that see masses cramming into open spaces for spectacular displays of pyrotechnic (and general) weirdness – not always my kind of thing, I have to say, but popular enough to fill the city’s streets with revellers hell bent on making the most of things and having a very jolly time.

The way I see it is this: it’s an arts festival, and as such one should expect to be presented with arts of all kinds. These days we see a lot of circus arts; juggling on the street has faded, but acrobatics on stage have never been more feted. It’s an art of course, but a popular one, and hats off to that. Visual arts are always represented in an accessible way, and this year at Fabrica Swedish artist Jacob Dahlgren has created two interactive works that celebrate the aesthetic of the mass-produced object. Or so the brochure tells us. In fact, this is great fun – a floor tiled with bathroom scales that give strange readings, and thousand of metres of ribbons that form a forest of colour in which you can immerse yourself. I loved both, although the catalogue description did make it all sound rather high-brow.

“Events are popular enough to fill the city’s streets with revellers hell bent on making the most of things and having a very jolly time”

Nowhere and Everywhere At The Same Time No. 2 at the Old Municipal Market is a pure joy; beautiful to watch, mesmeric, and fascinating to dance through. Yes, you have to move through it in a freeform pattern of dance, dictated by the myriad swaying pendulums – fascinating as you watch how others, young and old, negotiate their way through. Seeing children skip through and adults sway was as fascinating as watching the structure itself, as it progressed through a series of choreographed moves that changed the nature of the swing. Simplistic and complex at the very same time, I certainly plan to go back and do it all again.

So is the festival good value? Hell yes! It draws a huge number of visitors to the city, it focuses local attention on our arts and venues and it provokes discussion and debate. Few things achieve this as well as Brighton Festival, and of course Brighton Fringe Festival which adds another exciting level of arts and entertainment.

One thing that thrilled me was the diversity of the audience. Hofesh Shechter drew a very young crowd, balanced with the usual dance audience that one has come to expect; perhaps his rich blend of contemporary ideas with the strict rigours of modern dance achieved that. Mani Soleymanlou drew a huge party of visiting Italians: what they made of it I cannot imagine, but they expressed themselves with a rousing ovation.

May, for me, is Festival. I embrace it whole-heartedly and cannot understand why you would not. Even with a small budget there is much to be enjoyed, to provoke thought, to love, and to hate too. That is what it’s all about; experiencing and processing in your own way. To dismiss it is a sin.