Citylife in Lichfield July and August 2020

Cars, Fireworks
and Fountains!
By Jono Oates
..................
Lichfield is known as the City of Festivals and in recent years the
Food Festivals have brought thousands of visitors from all over
the Midlands and beyond to the city. Due to the Covid-19
lockdown most festivals have been cancelled, including two of the
most loved and longest running – the eponymous Lichfield Festival
and Cars in the Park.
Cars in the Park was first held in 1997 in Beacon Park and has become
the one of the most significant displays of cars, both vintage and modern,
in the Midlands. Organised by the Rotary Club of Lichfield, the classic car
show usually attracts well over 1,500 cars and vehicles and brings in
thousands of visitors to the city. Next year’s event is scheduled for 3rd-
4th July 2021.
The Lichfield Festival has a longer history, dating back to 1982 and was
originally the brainchild of the Dean of Lichfield, the Rt Revd John Lang,
who proposed the idea of an arts festival in Lichfield in 1981.
The first Festival took place in July 1982, with the Halle and Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra’s performing at Lichfield Cathedral and the
flamboyantly-suited, and controversial, jazz and blues singer George Melly
performing at the same time at the Lichfield Civic Hall (now the Garrick
Theatre). The Civic Hall was also the venue for the Cambridge Footlights
Revue, which featured Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and
Tony Slattery, all relatively unknown then, and well before the days of
Blackadder!
Over the next few years the Festival welcomed a number of wellknown
actors to Lichfield. In 1984 Renee Asherson, Honor Blackman,
Harry Andrews, Phyliss Calvert and Marius Goring all visited. Marius
Goring was a film and TV actor and had starred in The Expert TV series
about a forensic pathologist. During his time in Lichfield he visited The
Scales pub on Market Street and, after ordering a half pint of lager at the
bar, he proceeded to unpack his own salad sandwiches and started
munching away! When challenged by the landlady, the noted actor wolfed
down the remainder of his lunchtime snack and calmly walked out!
Lots of musicians, soloists, groups and orchestras appeared too, with
Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson performing at the cathedral in 1985.
Ticket prices ranged from £8 to £15, a lot of money in those days, and
the Lichfield Mercury reporter hoped that his performance would be
legendary as his appearance fee had clearly hoisted the ticket prices! The
year 1985 also saw the conductor and pianist Andre Previn and the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra, when hopefully they did not ‘play all the right
notes… but not necessarily in
the right order…’. Guitarist
John Williams appeared in 1987,
deaf percussionist Evelyn
Glennie performed in 1990,
singer Cleo Laine and her
husband, saxophonist John
Dankworth, sang at the
cathedral in 1991 and twinklyeyed
Irish flautist James Galway
took to the stage in 1996.
In autumn 1983, director
David Clark had booked a littleknown
pop group, The Flying
Pickets, to make their first
appearance at the 1984 Festival
for a substantial fee of £300.
However, in December 1983,
the group had a massive number
one Christmas hit with their
acapella version of Yazoo’s Only
You and their stardom was in
ascendancy… they pulled out of
the Lichfield Festival a couple of
months later as their
appearance fees rocketed from
hundreds to thousands of
pounds.
As well as music and arts, the
Festival also put on other events
and spectacles. In 1999 a
Medieval Market was hosted in
the Cathedral Close and a
Georgian theme was adopted in
2009 for the Samuel Johnson
300th birthday celebration. An
illuminated water fountain
spectacle in Stowe Pool was one of the highlights of the 1988 Festival,
with the water shooting 45 feet in the air, and the fountains cascading to
form the plumed feathers of the Prince of Wales emblem. In 1989, rather
bizarrely, a two-day horse show jumping event took place in Beacon Park
although readers of the Mercury were outraged at a sports event as part
of an arts festival! For many years the closing day finale always featured
the spectacular fireworks display in Beacon Park, which were
discontinued in 2012.
The Lichfield Festival may be taking an enforced break this summer but
it will return, hopefully bigger and better, in July 2021 – and I’m looking
forward to it already!
Sources: The British Newspaper Archive; www.lichfieldfestival.org;
www.carsinthepark.com
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