‘Hull has done itself proud’ in bid to clinch city of culture title

IT has had more than 43,000 views, but none more important than yesterday when judges saw a film promoting Hull’s bid to be City of Culture 2017.

By The Newsroom Friday, 15th November 2013, 12:01 am

The four-minute video, This City Belongs To Everyone, part-narrated by Sir Tom Courtenay, was played to a panel of judges headed by writer and producer Phil Redmond in Derry-Londonderry.

After emerging from a two-hour grilling yesterday afternoon, bid adviser Andrew Dixon declared that “Hull has done itself proud.”

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The team set out a £15m programme, including a spectacular aerial show by the director and writer Mark Murphy using the tidal barrier in the city, which they estimate could reap an £184m in extra tourism spending between 2015 and 2020.

The video, which also features the poetry of Philip Larkin, emphasises what the team says is their strongest point – the input and involvement of people living in Hull. By yesterday 22 businesses had agreed to pay a combined £374,000 towards funding the programme of events, exceeding expectations.

Mr Dixon said: “I think the whole team is really positive about the way Hull has promoted itself. You can only present what you have to offer and what Hull has to offer is a great cultural story.

“People have really got behind the bid and can see the benefits of promoting Hull as well as the private sector businesses coming behind us and showing in hard cash they value what culture delivers to the city.

“We are all feeling we have done everything we can and there were lots of compliments about the strength of the bid, the complexity of the bid and how much Hull has moved on from when we didn’t get shortlisted.”

This morning Dundee will have its chances before the judges followed by Leicester.

Swansea bay – which is leading the running as far as bookmakers William Hill is concerned, at two to one, were the first up yesterday.

The bookies have Hull in third place at 11/4, behind Leicester at 9/4.

Mr Dixon said Dundee’s bid had “great strengths” in digital arts and gaming, Leicester’s in diversity, but “the distinctiveness of Hull’s bid was something that the judges mentioned several times.”

Andrew Pearson, artistic director of the Hull-based theatre company Ensemble 52, who was also in Derry, said: “One of the things which has been great has been the sheer support on social networking sites, we have 9,000 followers on Facebook and for a few minutes this morning we were the top trending Twitter subject in the world.

“From the very beginning of the process when we first started we had workshops with the public and creative industries. “The whole city will be the venue – it is not about focusing on the Ferens or Hull New Theatre, it is about the city and the people of the city.”

The package – featuring 15 national and international commissions, 12 artists’ residencies, 25 festivals, and 1,500 special events – ranges from putting a graffiti artist on a wind farm, to some of the country’s top folk musicians heading off to St Petersburg along the international E20 route picking up other musicians on the way to form a huge band.

One project aims to give everyone in the city the opportunity to display works of art in their own living room windows – using digitised images from the city’s Ferens Art Gallery.

A programme Looking Up will shine a light – or compose music – for a different hidden architectural gem, like the blitzed ruins of the National Picture Theatre, every week of the year.