‘Freedom Festival is one of the most exciting arts festivals in the world – we’ll keep pushing to make it better’
‘I KNEW I WAS A WILD CARD BUT I PROPOSED A SHIFT AND GOT IT’: Freedom Festival CEO & Artistic Director Mikey Martins. Picture by Freedom Festival
Chewing the Fat, out to lunch with Phil Ascough
This week’s guest: Mikey Martins
Venue: Nostalgia Bistro
With a bit of sunshine outside and the northern chill abating, Mikey Martins is talking about gardening.
Growing broccoli and, as we spot it on the menu, beetroot. Yes, you can buy both in most supermarkets but surely homegrown is best?
In the same way that bringing in top performers from around the world can inspire the growth of a thriving, original arts and culture scene here in Hull?
Imagine how far we might have pursued the analogy, possibly into the realms of irretrievable ridicule, if we’d had a second bottle of wine on such a warm day.
But we resisted and instead chatted about arts and culture, audiences, resources, barriers and Madeira, where the temperamental wind at Cristiano Ronaldo Airport is often responsible for what the Flight Radar website describes as “some fairly sporting landings”. What they mean is the plane bounces like a tennis ball along a runway with more than a passing resemblance to the Ouse Bridge.
Mikey once took three days trying to land there on a visit with his parents to the place of their birth. They’d left by the time he was born and he grew up in Cornwall, so not that far from Devonian Mark “Mak” Page of Humber Street Sesh.
“I do think it’s funny that me and Mak are both south-westerners, quite a coincidence!” he notes.
“Being Cornish I have always been attracted to places with a strong sense of identity. I also gravitate towards coastal towns, places that are on the edge.”
The CEO and Artistic Director of Freedom Festival didn’t come straight to Hull but he has always been passionate about performance, effectively running away to join the circus as soon as he was old enough.
“When I was 17 I ended up in London and fell in love with the street theatre of Covent Garden and never looked back,” he said.
“I was a street performer turned circus artist, cabaret performer and eventually created my own street theatre company touring all over the world. I stopped doing that in 2007 and started making festivals.”
He was working on a festival in remote, nearly coastal Norwich when he heard about an interesting job which was available in Hull.
DELICIOUS: Mikey Martins enjoying the fare at Nostalgia Bistro in Chanterlands Avenue
He said: “I didn’t know anything about Freedom Festival but I knew there was a festival project in Hull that sounded great but wasn’t really on the map in a big way on the national or international stage, and I was quite interested.
“I felt there was a lot more work that could be brought here. It felt like an opportunity to bring world-class work to an audience who were really hungry for it. Could we get an organisation to push Freedom Festival up on a par with the other ‘big’ arts festivals? Build it from the audience up? I knew I was a wild card so I proposed a shift. I applied for it and I got it.”
Mikey sensed all the attributes which most new arrivals experience on meeting the people of Hull for the first time, and in his field they add up to a generosity which makes his job so rewarding.
“We all say the same thing about Hull. It’s about earthiness and honesty,” he said.
“It’s also a different type of audience that enjoys and genuinely appreciates good things so much. I found it amazing to see thousands of people watching artists and working in creative locations with an audience that was really keen. That’s what inspires you to push and find even better work to bring to the city year on year, making Freedom Festival one of the most exciting arts festivals in the world, not just the region!
“I want to bring artists here because I want them to meet Hull audiences. Artists talk to other artists and people want to play here because they have heard about how great the audiences were and how great the experience was. That’s something the city should be very proud of, not lose sight of, and protect.”
Hull’s international heritage is also a big plus, a port city attracting people from far and wide to visit, to work, settle and live.
We’re enjoying the fare of Mata and Yiannis Makris, who have done more than most to bring authentic Greek cuisine to the city. They were part of the team which opened The Greek in Princes Avenue to capacity crowds and rave reviews in May 2018. In autumn the following year they launched Artemis Greek Taverna in the city centre but, like most in the hospitality sector, they were forced into a long sabbatical by Covid.
Late last year they bounced back and opened Nostalgia Bistro at the premises in Chanterlands Avenue known years ago as Potters Tea Room and, more recently as Café Amici and then Per Te Café.
The drinks selection with its array of continental beers made it my watering hole of choice before and after Hull City matches towards the end of last season, and the food is outstanding.
The main menu is pared down yet still offers some intriguing surprises, including grilled Greek sausage, grilled vegetables and a warm beetroot salad alongside such Mediterranean staples as calamari – cut into chunks and deep fried in a delicious herb batter – grilled vegetables, and spinach and feta pie.
The specials are frequently sensational and feature fresh fish, choice cuts from the butcher a few yards down the road, and a variety of vegetarian and vegan options. If you’re nice to them, Yiannis might select you to trial a nice small plate of something new that Mata is developing. Paprika potatoes packed a punch with the post-match beers after the last home game of the season. The star of a recent lunch was a casserole of sliced sausage, pepper and tomatoes. I’ll be watching for both dishes appearing on the specials board.
STUNNING: Instant Loneliness by ViaBerlin. Picture by Moon Saris
We tucked into a selection of dips, the spinach and feta pie, warm beetroot salad and calamari. With a beer each and a bottle of pinot grigio to share the bill came to about £40, easy on the pocket yet still a strain on the belt so ruling out a raid on the dessert selection. Suffice to say some people call in between meals just to enjoy great coffee and baklava, or lemon cake, or walnut cake, but I’ve said too much already.
Such places are an essential part of the city’s social and cultural fabric. I can’t remember the last time I went to a gig or a show without also supporting a bar and/or restaurant. Most recently the Hop & Vine, Dram Shop and Tanyalak after Sully at Hull Truck. Next dining destination to be decided ahead of the Red Guitars at O’Rileys.
“All sorts of different forces are pulling on what a festival could be”, said Mikey.
“A flagship event to help drive tourism, to affect the economic impact on the businesses and the hospitality sector, a thing to evolve and come up with new ideas.”
Freedom Festival started in 2007 with the city council wanting to do something to mark the 200th anniversary of the passing of the Slave Trade Act and its link with one of the city’s most famous sons, William Wilberforce. It became an independent charitable arts trust in 2013.
“It’s easier to raise money from different sources if you are not embedded in the local authority but work in partnership with it. Diversification of income strands is key to survival with the work we do and how we present it, for free to access,” noted Mikey, who took up his role in 2015 charged with building a team locally instead of outsourcing to production companies.
Now there are nine people who work year-round to deliver Freedom Festival and The Awakening, which again proved a phenomenal success in pulling huge crowds into the city centre in March.
Mikey is eternally grateful for the public and private funding which makes the work possible, but he’s also testing his own circus skills to the limit as a juggler and on a tightrope.
“The city council have been great in supporting us,” he said.
“There are not many councils that do that. A lot have cut their culture budgets but there’s a mentality within the city council that understands why these things are so important. That trust keeps you here. It’s encouraging in terms of financial support. There’s something fundamental about that. It’s not the same in other places I have worked.”
Not everybody is on the same wavelength. I tell Mikey about a small engineering business which devised a cunning plan to generate investment for the City of Culture programme. If Rosie Millard, Martin Green et al came up with a load of commemorative plaques for businesses which supported their work this business owner would definitely buy one. For £100.
The guy wasn’t tight or short of cash. He was known as a generous employer and frequently spent more than his proposed plaque outlay on lunch. But he just had no idea of the cost of culture – or plaques for that matter! And he certainly couldn’t comprehend the value to the city and its communities.
“The private sector in particular need to step up and support the cultural sector,” said Mikey.
PERSPECTIVE: Mikey Martins on the set of The Vigil in Hull in April 2021. Picture by Freedom Festival
“There’s a lot of reliance on public funding, which is obviously stretched. As we saw in 2017 and 2018, business and public subsidy made a really powerful and significant cultural offer for the city but that kind of investment is just not there now, it’s not a great legacy.
“If you want to attract people to work in your business you need the city to have a vibrant cultural offer, and something like Freedom Festival and the Stage @ the Dock are massive parts of that. A lot of businesses understand that it’s their employees who are coming to Freedom Festival.
“It’s something they have all enjoyed but the challenge for the arts sector generally is that there’s a lot of reliance on public funds but they are under huge pressure. So if there are any philanthropists and generous companies out there tell them to get in touch!”
Among the likely highlights in this year’s programme is Beautiful Bones: “It’s musical theatre. A lot of trombone. Working with loads of young people from various schools alongside professional players and actors, Hull City Brass band and Hull Music Services participants – completely bonkers!”
Instant Loneliness by Via Berlin from the Netherlands, coming to Hull Truck: “More challenging. It’s very clever in a very powerful way. Very visual and a real spectacle on stage.”
Six different international circus shows from across Europe: “Circus is a particularly exciting, cool and accessible art form. We’re using some of the city centre’s big, outdoor areas, some during the day and some in the evening. The skill levels are unbelievable. Three of the shows are award-winners. Some of the best acrobats in the world and the way they present their skills is so different. This is just a small selection of what’s coming this summer, much, much more to be announced very soon.”
Any business struggling to find bright, motivated, young staff might want to explore the impact of one of Freedom Festival’s most memorable participatory shows such as “Haircuts by Children” from 2017. That’s 10-year-old children cutting your hair.
The first time he experienced this project, Mike let a child cut his hair.
“I sat there in terror,” he recalled.
“But it starts with a conversation – where are you going on holiday? – and it’s brilliant. It was a fantastic project about responsibility. I had to bring it to Hull! One of the kids who was ten at the time became a Saturday girl in a city centre salon.
“These more audacious participatory projects genuinely have a long-term effect. They look bonkers but they teach life skills and confidence. We don’t expect everybody to get a job in the arts but we know that getting them involved in the many creative projects we are delivering can give them life skills. Employability is exactly where it goes.”
However impressive a festival might be, there’s always more ambition. Even in good times, which are increasingly difficult to recall. The uncertainty and tightening of purse strings which accompanied austerity was followed by more of the same with Brexit.
SPECTACULAR: Les Filles Du Renard Pâle. Picture by Ian Grandjean
Mikey explains: “Freedom Festival is still part of one of the biggest networks in Europe – In Situ. It’s the European platform for artistic creation in public space and there are only two partners in the UK.
“We were able to be in the project and get some subsidy but at the end of 2024 we don’t know if we can be supported by anything in the Creative Europe cultural programme and that would be very, very bad for the arts, for so many across the country, not just us.
“From the age of 19 I was playing and performing all over Europe. I would never have survived as a performer if we had not been able to do European tours. Mine was street theatre, circus, cabaret. You would not make a living without being able to tour overseas.
“There are thousands upon thousands of people who rely on that international market. It was partly Brexit, and then Covid knocked it further back.”
Now there’s the impact of war and the wider cost of living crisis – more challenges for an organisation with something of a vulnerable commercial model.
“We work extremely hard to raise loads of money and then we give the programmes all away for free,” said Mikey.
But he adds that Freedom Festival is much more than a one-weekend operation.
“We are a production organisation in the city, creating work locally and nationally and internationally, new productions and we want to do more. We want to be able to do two major events every year.
“The output we have isn’t dissimilar to a theatre but we don’t have a building so nobody sees us until the events go on. The most people see is the tip of the iceberg. How do we change that perception of what we are as an organisation? How do we keep reinventing and evolving and delivering a genuinely world-class festival or two for Hull?
“We will because we are a resilient, tenacious bunch of people. We are somehow perceived by some people as being too well supported but what we do costs a significant amount of money.
“To put the same show on year in, year out would cost more every year and we aren’t here to stand still. We need to develop the festival and the team members, putting on an event where artists we work with are always paid properly. We are working with award-winning, international companies alongside brilliant local talent.
“We have really good support, and we are really grateful for that, but the work that we do is an extremely expensive operation. I still think about the future of it, and have so much more to bring to the city but right now it’s important to establish these two brilliant festivals for the city of Hull and for us as a business.
“I love it when you see families and people of all ages out on the streets late at night enjoying the world-class programmes that we create for Hull. It’s such an important thing and we do that well with Freedom Festival and The Awakening, we just hope it can continue.”
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