Thursday 25 to Sunday 28 September 2008

Various venues throughout Glasgow's Merchant City

Programme Highlights

Merchant City Festival returns to the architecturally rich area of Glasgow for its seventh year, running from Thursday 25 to Sunday 28 September and attracting over 55,000 in 2007. This year's programme features over 300 performances of theatre, music, comedy, fashion, visual arts and film spanning more than 80 venues, with many free of charge.

This year's Merchant City Festival has an urban feel with world class parkour in The Urban Playground sure to thrill audiences around Merchant Square, the Brand New You're Retro Catwalk Show in conjunction with Joy featuring some of Scotland's hottest new designers and with all proceeds going to ChildLine in Scotland, the buildings of King Street and Parnie Street scaled in Two Urbanologists from France's Compagnie Lezards Bleus and dynamic dancing courtesy of maverick Liz Aggiss' Guerrilla Dances. All this, plus some of the biggest and most exciting names in comedy including Jenny Eclair, Jeremy Hardy and Jim Jeffries, Scottish Opera performing in the bars and lanes, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the BAFTA Scotland Winners' Night and the World Premiere of Six Acts of Love at the Tron.

Parkour originated in urban France and has featured in films such as James Bond Casino Royale. It is the art of moving from one point to another as quickly as possible, making exciting viewing. Two of the original parkour creators, Charles Perriere and Malik Diouf formed Gravity Style, and with Prodigal Theatre, they will present The Urban Playground at Merchant City Festival. Performed at Merchant Square, it utilises an obstacle course and creates a wordless drama of dance at a death-defying speed and height. This engrossing spectacle will be proceeded by a parkour workshop led by the performers for audience members who wish to attempt to navigate their own way around the 'urban playground'.

The buildings of the Merchant City will be utilised further in Two Urbanologists from France's Compagnie Lezards Bleus. Presented as part of the Directors' Choice, nominated by Viva Cite Festival in France, master of heights Antoine Le Menestrel will navigate his way along King Street and Parnie Street, high above the audience as sound and visual language specialist Jean-Marie Maddeddu remains firmly on the ground below, amongst the audience. Together, they combine to surreally study, measure and reveal the life and memories which exist in the walls and pavement.

Another Directors' Choice, Liz Aggiss' Guerrilla Dances will see the woman dubbed the Vivienne Westwood and Banksy of the dance-world appear unannounced, armed only with a beat-box and a whole host of attitude as she presents her series of dances to audiences throughout the four days. Her sharp choreography mixes up the past with present, fact with fiction and astounds audiences with her ability to change the mood, appearing as simian, seal or distressed child in one fell swoop.

Christian Eisenberger's Vietnam Scene will see the characters in the infamous Vietnam War photograph enlarged to life-size proportions and situated around George Square and Wilson Street, enabling audiences to walk amongst it and become part of the scene. A Directors' Choice nominated by La Strada Festival in Austria, this thought-provoking installation is all the more relevant more than 35 years after the original photograph was taken.

The final Directors' Choice nomination comes from Lieux Publics in France - 1 Watt's Parfait Etat De Marche. This walkabout performance presents an unusual character as he runs away from his organised composure and confront his permanent anxiety.

St Andrews Cathedral Sunday 28th at 2.30pm there will be a concert with The Cross Border Band with guests: Mary Lou Graham(cello), Carissa Boville (Harp), The Schneeburger Family (Operatic and Classical pieces on vocal and Clarinet) and Steve Nelson (Saxophone).

Merchant City Festival will coincide with the opening of the Tron's new season, marked by the World Premiere of the Tron Theatre Company's Six Acts of Love, written by Ioanna Anderson and directed by the venue's new Artistic Director, Andy Arnold. Set in Ireland and starring Una Mclean, Six Acts of Love touches on themes of love, life and death with great warmth and wit as it presents a woman whose life has come to a standstill.

A theatre piece being performed unannounced during the Festival is Dot Comedy's The Chain, in which a 'chain' of events trigger a domino effect which leads to a catastrophic conclusion. So watch out!

Fashion also features strongly in this year's programme with the return of the Ingram Street Shopping Day on Saturday 27 September. Following the enormous success of last year's inaugural Shopping Day, some of Glasgow's top fashion retailers will present their Autumn/Winter 08/09 collections with live models in the windows and a variety of in-store activities including djs, drinks, canapes, makeovers and goodie bags to assist with the retail therapy. Participating stores are Agent Provocateur, All Saints, Boudiche, Bravissimo, Crombie, Cruise, Cruise Jeans, Jaeger, Jigsaw, Mulberry, Ralph Lauren and Viyella.

Continuing the urban theme, the Brand New You're Retro Fashion Show at Byblos on Saturday 27 September will present Joy's new collection including labels such as Religion, Yumi, Blend and Dephect along with some of the hottest new Scottish designers - Mark Conlin, Rebecca Torres, Hilary Laing and William Chambers Millinery. The catwalk will also present vintage clothes shop Retro Village and be interspersed with DJs, breakdancers, live music and celebrity models. Shopping opportunities will come from a market hosted by the Glasgow Craft Mafia and there will also be a boudoir with make-up artists, therapists and stylists. All proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to ChildLine in Scotland.

An extensive comedy programme will run in venues throughout the Merchant City Festival, courtesy of the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival and Ha Ha Comedy. Performing across the four days of the Merchant City Festival are Perrier Award Winner Jenny Eclair, star of numerous satirical TV and radio programmes Jeremy Hardy, Tom Stade, Jim Jeffries, Mark Nelson, Susan Calman, Bob Doolally, Raymond Mearns, Stu Who?, Charlie Ross, Billy Kirkwood & Austin Low. This year's programme also sees the return of Alan Anderson's Comedy Coach Tour, the Comedy Pub Crawl and the Scottish Comedian of the Year Award hosted by Des Clarke.

BBC Symphony Orchestra will present the first concert of their Autumn season on the Thursday of the Merchant City Festival at City Halls. This season is Ilan Volkov's last as Chief Conductor and this concert will feature Beethoven's Symphony No.9 Choral.

Another National Company involved with this year's programme is Scottish Opera who will be performing in Babbity Bowster's lane and in Metropolitan with Aria Adventures. Scottish Opera will then present a Schubert and Mozart programme in St. Andrew's in the Square on Sunday afternoon.

The newly-opened Winchester Club becomes a significant venue for this year's Merchant City Festival with a series of nightly gigs featuring up and coming rock and indie talent including Sinking Cities, Danse or Die, Day of Days, Skinflints, Some Boy and Standing Order.

Throughout the weekend of the Merchant City Festival, the streets will come alive to the live music stages, providing the perfect soundtrack to the street entertainment. This year features an additional stage, programmed by PM Music situated on Hutcheson Street hosting the emerging hip-hop, rock and indie talent. On Bell Street, the Blackfriars Music Stage will present jazz, blues and rock; the John Street Music Stage programmed by Committee Room No.9 on the Saturday and Grand Fish & Chips on the Sunday will feature swing, jazz and folk; the Brunswick Music Stage will present live bands including Isosceles as well as DJ sets and Laurie's Music Stage on King Street features popular covers, jazz and acoustic sessions.

The BAFTA Scotland Winner's Night at Corinthian on Thursday will present four BAFTA Winning Scottish short films in one evening. Selected films are Specky - winner of Best New Work, How To Save A Fish From Drowning - winner of Best New Director (Factual), Bulb - Best Innovation Award and Flung - Best New Director (Fiction). Audiences will also have the chance to vote for which film receives the Merchant City Festival Audience Award. A selection of BAFTA Scotland Award-winning films will also be screened in diverse venues across the Merchant City for the duration of the Festival including 2Canvas, 20/20 Opticians, ArtDeCaf, Brazen, Coffee Republic, Fraser Suites, Russian Cafe Cossachok, Slater Hogg & Howison and Tiger Tiger..

A selection of some of the best of the Festival will be presented every night at the Festival Club, this year taking place in the Tron's Victorian Bar. Listings will be announced nearer the time.

Bailie Matheson, Chair of the Merchant City Festival and Councillor for Anderston/City said:

"I am proud of the fact that Merchant City has become the principal cultural quarter of Glasgow - Scotland with style. I am especially pleased with the standard of the street artists who have been attracted from across the world to this year's Festival, and with the quality of the work we will see and hear from both local and national arts companies."

Neil Butler, Merchant City Festival Artistic Director said:

This is the seventh year of the Merchant City Festival which has seen it flourish into one of the most exciting and vibrant multi-arts platforms in Scotland, enabling audiences from far and wide to get a real taste of what is happening in Scottish arts and culture.

The programme encompasses Scotland's National Companies and selected programmes from the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival, the National Review of Live Art and BAFTA Scotland. From mainland Europe, we showcase selections from acclaimed Festivals in France, Spain and Austria.

www.merchantcityfestival.com

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