Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival 2022 Closes With Hundreds of Audiences Attending Performances Across the Region

The 43rd Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival hosted 31 shows and events across Dumfries and Galloway from 20 - 29 May, in local venues, outdoors and online. The ten day celebration saw world-class artists and performers join together to share theatre, music, dance, comedy and spoken word with audiences from across the region and beyond.

The festival celebrated the stories of communities at the heart of the region as well as welcoming national artists from across the country to perform in Dumfries & Galloway. Building on the instilled pride in the region fostered by the 2021 Festival, the 2022 edition celebrated the power of art to bring people together to share in something special, to find and to connect with community.

Performances ranged from award-winning folk artists performing at Dumfries' Theatre Royal to a sell-out success for The Village and the Road by Tom Pow and The Galloway Agreement; comedy from Britain's Got Talent winner Lost Voice Guy to a new film screening from Sanctuary Queer Arts and incredible aerial theatre Egg closing out the ten day extravaganza.

Melanie Purdie, Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival's Strategic and Creative Director said: "The 2022 Arts Festival has provided unforgettable moments for over 1,500 people across the region, connecting with a range of communities with entertaining and inspiring performances. Our events have provided a variety of work from local and national artists that has brought people back together again to celebrate the culture in Dumfries & Galloway. We look forward to continuing to bring performing arts events with our year-round Arts Live programme and be back next May with our 2023 Festival."

A spokesperson from Dumfries & Galloway Council stated: "The 2022 D&G Arts Festival programme was thoughtfully curated and helped to tell a myriad of stories from across the region. Hundreds of people took part in the Festival and there was so much to see and do. We hope that you got along to as many events as possible."

The Festival programme kicked off with Bogha-Frois (Scottish Gaelic for "Rainbow") presenting folk music from across Scotland, with artists including Marit Fält and Rona Wilkie; piper and flautist Ailis Sutherland; singer songwriter Lizzie Reid; Bogle Mufty; storyteller Finn Anderson and Dumfries born guitarist Jen Mac. They shared exceptional folk music and stories with a packed audience in the Theatre Royal for a grand opening to the 43rd Festival.

The team hosted two brand-new community focused events, The Gallovidian Gathering on Saturday 21 and The Doonhamers Gathering on Saturday 28 May. Bringing together local artists to share their stories, delight in local produce and dance the night away with The Whirligig Ceilidh Band, these events brought communities back together to celebrate and honour the spirit of the festival - togetherness and a love for the culture of the region.

The Festival team also worked with local artists Claudia Wood, Alex McQuiston, young prodigy Will Archibald and Katherine Durran to create A Life in Music - a musical celebration in dedication to Derek Rangecroft MBE who was instrumental in creating a thriving classical music scene within the region and helped many young musicians to start their careers. Audiences came from far and wide to celebrate his life and those who he inspired to pursue their artistic careers, all while raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Tom Pow and The Galloway Agreement presented their highly acclaimed show The Village and the Road to sell-out audiences who travelled from across the nation on Sunday 22. Their homegrown story brought together the lived experiences of musical and oral history, giving a new voice to rural communities in modern times.

For the first time, the Festival partnered with Glasgow's world-famous Oran Mor to bring A Play, A Pie and A Pint to venues across Dumfries & Galloway. Specially created show, The Infernal Serpent put a modern twist on one of the oldest stories in the world, asking why -and how - we protest. Audiences were delighted with this lunchtime offering paired with pies from Kilnford Farmshop.

Also in the theatre programme, acclaimed theatre company Vanishing Point presented The Metamorphosis: Unplugged, their take on Franz Kafka's mysterious and compelling tale in a warm-hearted, acoustic retelling and Lubna Kerr shared her semi-autobiographical and bilingual play Tickbox, which took audiences through her mother's journey from a comfortable, middle class life in Pakistan to Govan, Glasgow - intertwined with her own story the barriers they both faced.

Building on their work with young people across the region, the Festival's youth strand Stage iT curated a celebration of young musicians giving them a platform to perform as part of the 10 day Festival, developing their artistic practice and performing alongside headliners, rock band TORRS at Sounds of Stage iT, as well as showcasing new film THREADS from Sanctuary Queer Arts on what the word 'sanctuary' meant to the artists.

Heading into the second and final weekend of the festival, Britain's Got Talent Winner and Edinburgh Fringe favourite Lost Voice Guy brought the house down with his new show Cerebral LOL-SY, which had audiences in stitches. The show poked fun at his life as a disabled person in a post-apocalyptic world, learning to cope with the newfound fame and fortune brought by his TV success.

The final day of the festival opened with a bang as Oi Musica's newest street band The Tubes took over the amphitheatre at Crawick Multiverse in a stunning celebration of one of the region's most beautiful attractions, bringing together audiences from throughout Dumfries & Galloway, and those who travelled from afar to experience the final day of the festival.

Paper Doll Militia's acclaimed aerial theatre production Egg closed both their Scottish tour, and the 43rd edition of the Festival. Their powerful, evocative performance moved audiences in an unforgettable end to this regional arts festival.

The Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival brought together audiences and artists, presenting world-class theatre, music, dance, comedy and spoken word to every corner of the region. In this 10 day celebration, the Arts Festival shone a light on the amazing culture Dumfries and Galloway has to offer, the many beautiful locations to be discovered in the region with the incredible community at its heart.

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