Some cities provide decorative backdrops for festivals. Manchester seems to vibrate with the work itself. The opening of Aviva Studios, MIF’s new permanent home, adds to the architectural jostle of new and renovated buildings in the centre. The programming jostles too: thank goodness, there is no dominant theme or style; it just pushes vibrantly on through different events.
First, the roar of carnival. The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions, based on extracts from Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta’s 1977 book of the same title, is a wonderful tumble of talent. Ted Huffman (direction and text) and Philip Venables (music) have created a call to arms for the dispossessed, the hunted and excluded. It attacks othering rigidity – in the shape of an all-male, bureaucratically paper-obsessed place called Ramrod. It celebrates openness and fluidity in its generosity and pliability: operatic, punkish, dance-driven, teasingly spoken, an affair not of stars but of a company pulling together, presided over by Kit Green, slinking in red satin.
