Introducing… the Festival of Ale! For the first time, the National Arts Festival had its own signature drinks. In partnership with the Featherstone Brewery, we crafted the Festival Ale so that thirsty patrons, tired technicians and excited artists could look forward to something cold, frosty, and truly special at the end of each day!

The programme also included a lovely dedication to the Fringe, written by our own Ayanda Mjekula, Chairman of the National Arts Festival Board:

“70 years ago a collective of artists, feeling ignored and neglected by mainstream arts institutions and festivals in the UK, created a ‘fringe’ festival on the margins of the Edinburgh International Festival.

The Edinburgh Fringe thus was born and, today, it continues to thrive. That same independent spirit and determination has spread even wider, and runs through hundreds of Fringe festivals on every continent, putting bold, brave, outspoken, edgy and exciting new work in front of millions of people across the globe every year.

 Our event in Grahamstown is part of this global movement – established in 1979 (five years after the Festival itself was born), the Fringe has established a solid reputation for presenting great shows, and being an open access platform for both emerging and established artists.

Uniquely, in Grahamstown, the Festival manages both the selected ‘Main’ and ‘Fringe’ programmes, and most of our visitors seldom draw a distinction between the two. And why should you – with close on 700 events on offer this year across both, the vast array of work will dazzle and inspire you and leave you hungry for more. But as you feast, we urge you to seek out the nuggets – the special, uncurated, unplanned, inspiring moments on our Fringe programme that keep the global Fringe spirit alive in Africa. In South Africa today, more than ever, we need our artists to have a voice, and the space to have that voice heard loudly and clearly. We thank our artists for honouring us with their talent, and our sponsors for letting us create the spaces for the artists to be heard. And we thank you for joining us, either once again or for the first time, at this Festival of Festivals, and hope you have an inspiring visit.”

 The Fringe programme this year did Ayanda’s glowing words full justice. The Family Fare programme was packed with treats for children from Wacky Wizard to Florence Watson and the Sugarbush Mouse. Dalin Oliver, Alan Committie, Siv Ngesi, Rob van Vuuren and Loyiso Golo were among dozens of other actors and comedians in the Comedy venues, and the theatre programme included works like Njinsky’s War; James Cairn’s in El Blanco, The Devil and Billy Makham and James Cairns Against Humanity; and the Fleur du Cap nominated Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi in A Man and his Dog.