(Image: Staff)
More than half a century ago, Bradford’s streets became the unlikely stage for a new kind of entertainment when university students helped launch the city’s first Bradford arts festival.
The original Bradford Festival was created in 1970 by art students at the University of Bradford, at a time when experimental street theatre and “underground” entertainment were becoming increasingly fashionable.
It was a far cry from the large, professionally organised city celebrations that Bradford residents would become familiar with in later decades.
The festival reflected the mood of the period. The late 1960s and early 1970s had brought enormous social and cultural change, and university campuses were often at the heart of it.
Bradford had only gained university status in 1966 and was still a young institution with a developing student culture. Its students enjoyed a lively cultural scene encompassing music, theatre and politics.
In 1970, the students took that creativity beyond the campus and into Bradford itself.
Seen today some of the attractions have a charming slightly ramshackle look about them, not least the palace of fun, a large tent erected on Leeds Road just outside the Exchange Station consisting of ' puzzles, sensations and oddities'.
There were more conventional displays at Cartwright Hall and in other parts of the city.
One striking image from February 1970 captured the unconventional nature of the event perfectly. It showed Ed Berman, of the Dogg’s Troupe, performing on the Ripleyville demolition site while police officers looked on. Berman was finishing a story about Eskimos and penguins. It was certainly not the sort of entertainment traditionally associated with a civic festival.
But that was precisely the point. This was entertainment which could appear in the street and surprise passers-by rather than being confined to established theatres and concert halls.
The festival was also part of a broader cultural life already thriving around the university. The Students’ Union had become an important entertainment venue, with acts appearing there during the 1960s, while Bradford itself attracted some major performers. Surviving student publications provide a remarkable record of music and entertainment in the city during this period.
What those students probably could not have anticipated was how enduring their idea would prove.
The Bradford Festival developed considerably over succeeding decades, but traces of its origins remained. Street performers, including jugglers and magicians, continued to be part of later festival weekends, while major events such as the Mela demonstrated just how ambitious Bradford's public celebrations could eventually become.
Looking back, the 1970 festival feels particularly appropriate for Bradford. It was unconventional, youthful and willing to use parts of the city that might otherwise have been overlooked.
A demolition site becoming a theatre perhaps says everything about the spirit behind it.
What began with a group of students and a taste for experimental entertainment helped establish a tradition of celebrating culture in Bradford's public spaces. Fifty years later, that first festival remained significant enough to be remembered as the moment when a distinctly different kind of entertainment arrived on the city's streets