FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Open Air Festival runs 22 July-6 August 06
Summer 2006
CANNIZARO Park's Open Air Festival 2006 returned to its traditional venue in the Italian Garden from 22 July- 6 August. Online box office bookings were available from the web site at www.cannizaroparkfestival.com
As usual the festival included music and entertainment to suit a wide range of tastes from pop and jazz to opera and classical works as well as comedy. Among the stars were veteran popular singer Elkie Brooks (above left), celebrating 45 years in the business, and the great Humphrey Lyttleton, one of Britain's leading jazz performers for half a century and presenter of radio's classic comedy panel game, "I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue".
This year's opera was Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" (above centre), performed by the European Chamber Opera. Elkie Brooks performed on Tuesday, 1st August. Tickets cost £22 or £18. Humphrey Lyttleton appeared on Saturday, 29th July. Tickets £18 or£15. "Madame Butterfly" was on Monday, 31st July. Tickets £25 or £22.
Other attractions included
X-Factor soul star Andy
Abraham (Wednesday, 2nd August); the versatile singing team Boheme (Monday
24th July); Wimbledon Light Opera Society (Tuesday,
25th July); Musicals
of the Millennium (Saturday, 5th August) and the ever popular
Last Night of the
Proms Spectacular (Sunday,
6th August). Comedy was provided by the Jongleurs Comedy Club
(Sunday 23rd & 30th July)
and
the Comedy Store Players (Thursday,
27th July). Wimbledon's own Paul Merton was among the performers. The traditional afternoon jazz was also heard.
First held in 1989, the annual festival has been organised by various groups over the years, contracted by Merton Council on an ad hoc basis. Originally celebrating a wide range of arts including concerts, opera, dance, Shakespeare, jazz and children's events, it has developed a more populist format in recent years.
Its financial history has been shaky and it was cancelled altogether in 2003. The company that revived it in 2004 went bust afterwards and last year Merton financed the event itself late in the day after the expected contractor failed to deliver. The Council worked with a different organiser, Maximum Exposure, to put on a shortened festival with a heavy concentration on nostalgic popular music.
Merton decided not to finance the festival in 2006 so Robert Holmes & Co and PMB Holdings, two longstanding local business sponsors, established a consortium to fund it instead, contracting with Merton to run it.
They set up Cannizaro Event Ltd which raised the necessary funds from a consortium of approximately 25 mainly local individuals. The company contracted with Merton to run the festival this year, with the option to do the same for the next three years in order to try to bring some continuity to the event.
The Ambassador Theatre Group, owner of the New Wimbledon Theatre, helped with the ticketing while event manager Lee Cooper and Maximum Exposure produced the programme and organised the infrastructure. There was covered seating for 600 people and the stage returned to the lower part of Cannizaro's Italian Garden after last year's one-off move to the grassy section nearer the pond.
