Norwich’s 2025 art festival will kick off with a parade of 150 local people playing electric guitars backed by a deconstructed marching band, followed by two weeks of music, theatre, performance, and visual arts.
The Norfolk and Norwich Festival’s Welcome Weekend will start on Friday 9 May with Speak Percussion and local musicians reimagine the concept of a marching band, along with High Voltage’s impromptu garage band. The following Saturday and Sunday will see a host of premiere performances of outdoor art across Norwich city centre including trapeze, hip hop, Chinese pole acrobatics, and puppets.
The festival will take in dozens of venues in the city centre during its fortnight run, along with events in Cromer, Great Yarmouth, Houghton, King’s Lynn, and Swaffham.
Music highlights include Grammy award-winner Arooj Aftab (9 May) and DJ and record collector Gilles Peterson (10 May) performing at Norwich Cathedral, 2024 Mercury Prize nominated Liam Shortall aka corto.alto (22 May) and the return of the multi-award-winning Chaos String Quartet (14 May).
Celebrating their 30th anniversary, experimental chamber music group Apartment House will present Music in Four Parts (19 May) which includes a new work by Cassandra Miller.
There will be musical residencies from mezzo soprano Lottie Betts-Dean, with a trio of shows, and guitarist Sean Shibe playing lute, acoustic and electric guitars across the programme.
Magic is featured in several shows during the festival, with Jo Bannon’s The Dirty Work (14 & 15 May) blending the trickery of magic with the lived experience of visual impairment, Gandini Juggling’s new show Heka (13 & 14 May), which combines juggling, magic and contemporary choreography; acclaimed magician Vincent Gambini’s Close-Up (16, 17, 23, 24 May) offering intimate one-to-one performance in a cafe; and Alex McAleer’s unnerving Mind Reader show.
Norfolk’s nautical environment is reflected in several shows including River of Hope (9 – 25 May), which explores the Norfolk rivers that empty into the North Sea and brings together the work of around 500 young people in a large installation, and Sea Like a Mirror (15-26 May), an ambitious national partnership programme led by Cement Fields and commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Performances includes a circus residency at the Adnams Spiegeltent from Upswing, with Showdown (14-25 May) – a mix of circus thrills and cheeky humour as six contestants battle to the top in a fast-paced game show style competition.
Norwich Theatre Playhouse hosts Songs of the Bulbul (20 & 21 May) – a new dance work by Aakash Odedra, with choreography by Rani Khanam and music by Rushil Ranjan and Show Pony (16 & 17 May), a new show from Still Hungry and Bryony Kimmings, which brings a new perspective on women in circus.
Live poetry outfit TOAST will bring six poets to the Festival Speakeasy in Chapelfield Gardens, and the National Centre for Writing’s City of Literature Weekend (23-25 May) will feature events and talks with writers including Hattie Crisell, Nicola Dinan, Erica Hesketh, Seán Hewitt, Val McDermid, Noreen Masud, and Nicola Streeten.
A new Little ‘nn’ Fest strand brings together events for younger festival goers, including the music mash up of Baby Bedlam X Messy Play (17 May) and the Paper Cinema’s Rock Charmer and Night Flyer double bill at Norwich Puppet Theatre (18 May).
Festival artistic director Daniel Brine said: “We’re delighted to unveil this year’s programme in full. It feels like a really vibrant and dynamic mix with a number of international voices peppering the music programme; exciting new performance pieces; some fascinating literary conversations; and a strong sense of community with a number of events that showcase our participation work.”
- Visit the Norfolk and Norwich Festival website for full listings and to filter events by genre and dates. Public booking opens on Friday 21 February 2025.
