Creator Frank Cottrell-Boyce, author of the London Olympics opening ceremony, is visitor director of Brighton Competition – England’s largest multi-arts competition – this spring. The programme is formed round his perception within the energy of hope, as he seeks to extract surprise and pleasure throughout turbulent instances

“I’ve by no means carried out something fairly like this earlier than,” says Frank Cottrell-Boyce (foremost image), who has been concerned with extra inventive initiatives than most. Acclaimed kids’s e-book creator, screenwriter of movies comparable to 24 Hour Occasion Individuals, and author of the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony, he’s most just lately taken up a curatorial function as visitor director for the 2024 Brighton Competition.

“I really like Brighton,” he enthuses. “It feels very completely different from the remainder of the UK in a number of methods. It’s a really forward-looking place – and it seems ahead in enjoyable. There’s undoubtedly a way of optimism concerning the place.”

This sense of cheer that Cottrell-Boyce feels radiates from the picturesque seaside metropolis aligns completely together with his personal ideas about life, artwork and tradition. “I’ve been in search of someplace to speak about hopeful issues,” he says. “So, as quickly as I used to be requested to curate Brighton Competition, it felt like the perfect platform. The competition is a platform to speak about optimism as a result of pessimism is a luxurious for good instances. We’re in dangerous instances, so we have to look for a manner out.”

And so this Could, Cottrell-Boyce gives up a different and uplifting competition that’s rooted within the themes of hope, surprise, magic and enjoyable. “I wished to solid the online as vast as doable,” he says of his curating course of. “We’ve every part from wonderful aerialists and road performers to a world document try by a desk tennis membership.” The lineup is huge, from the musician and poet Kae Tempest to the illusionist Scott Silven. The competition will comprise greater than 120 occasions over three weeks, spanning music, literature, theatre, circus and extra.

Speaking of inspiring magic, Cottrell-Boyce has fairly actually seen and skilled that first-hand. “Simply earlier than my mum died, she had a celebration and I organised a magician to come back,” he explains. “She was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, as my father was dying. I watched this magician do close-up magic along with her and she or he turned a bit baby. I might like individuals who come [to the festival] to have that chance to be like a child once more – to be amazed.”

That second would go on to assist him throughout a tough time. “In my grieving I misplaced my mojo,” he recollects. “I remembered considering: ‘I’ve misplaced my magic, the place ought to I look?’ So I realized magic. If you happen to do a magic trick rather well, individuals ask: ‘How did you do that?’ Adults get so little alternative to be susceptible and open. To see individuals’s defences go down and simply go: ‘Wow’, is so fantastic. So, instilling that in individuals turned my standards.”

The competition is a platform to speak about optimism as a result of pessimism is a luxurious for good instances. We’re in dangerous instances, so we have to search for a manner out

Cottrell-Boyce is a lifelong advocate for the facility of the humanities in schooling. Through the in depth kids’s programme on the competition, he additionally desires to faucet into the sense of surprise that studying via artwork can deliver. “You possibly can’t do something with out imagining it first,” he says. “We didn’t go to the moon with out imagining what it could be wish to go. Artwork and tradition can lead to an experiment in occupied with what the world may very well be like. So, the competition is like an enormous thought experiment.”

Except for being a spot to study, revel and discover, he hopes the occasion can even be unpredictable – stuffed with the eye-opening energy of shock. “The beauty of festivals is that they give you issues that you simply didn’t know existed,” he says. “It’s one factor watching out for what’s approaching at your favorite venues and going to see that however this competition is a very completely different factor. It’s stuffed with stuff you didn’t know you wished.”

And in curating a competition stuffed with hope, surprise, magic and enjoyable, a few of that has rubbed off on Cottrell-Boyce himself. “It’s been a very joyous factor to do,” he says. “Once I’m writing a e-book, the ending ought to be a shock, so that you get to be the primary particular person to be shocked by it. Curating the competition has been like this too – and practically every part has shocked me.”