Towards the end of 2024 Barnaby Festival announced that the festival was being wound up. The final commission would be a film reflecting on its legacy after fifteen years, acting as a visual archive of the Festival and exploring how Barnaby has enriched community and cultural life in the town. Artist Mike Thorpe, of twentysevenb studio, was commissioned to create the film along with Danny Thorpe.

From the Barnaby statement: ‘Established in 2010 as a midsummer festival of arts and culture, the Festival’s vision was to engage the community and empower it to create and commission work inspired by the heritage of the town. The founders of Barnaby Festival were local people who wanted to see arts and culture made in partnership with the residents of Macclesfield and to create and celebrate a distinctive sense of place. Barnaby Festival was credited with igniting a cultural renaissance in Macclesfield. It delivered exceptional programmes, based around a theme for each of its ten festivals. One of the highlights was watching the popular parade weave its way around the streets in a carnival procession with flamboyant costumes and floats. ‘A spokesperson for Barnaby Festival, says: “Barnaby has delivered what it set out to do and created a more culturally diverse town.”’

I was delighted to be commissioned to write a poem for a performance to close the film. In addition, I provided a voiceover for the opening sequence taken from ‘Under Silk Wood’ which was written by Jo Bell and me for Barnaby 2014.

I called the commissioned poem ‘Painting the Town’ after the promo phrase used by the Festival ‘Come and paint the town Barnaby’. The poem looked at Macclesfield history and the events which have given it colour, from medieval markets to parades of soldiers to protests and riots. Angela Aiken, cellist, wrote music to go alongside the words.

The performance was recorded between the silk jacquard looms at Paradise Mill, Macclesfield on 16 December 2024 and the premiere of the film: ‘Barnaby: Painting The Town’ was shown on 21 February 2025 in Townley Street Chapel to an audience of over 100 artists, organisers and volunteers who had worked to create Barnaby Festival over the years. Folks had travelled from London, Northumberland and Ireland to be there. It was special and joyous and sad.

The film is to be housed by the North West Film Archive. I’ll post the link here when I have it.