South Bank re-creation of confidence-boosting 1951 festival aims to provide a similar tonic on a slimline budget
It was one of the most austere of years but the Labour government spent a fortune on buildings and cultural events to cheer up the battered nation. Yesterday, 60 years on from the Festival of Britain, the Southbank centre announced plans to mark the anniversary with a similar summer of celebrations ? on a fraction of the budget. The four-month event will see the centre, including the Royal Festival Hall and Hayward gallery, taken over in celebration of what was a defining moment in 20th-century Britain. The Festival of Britain cost �8m ? more than �200m in today's money. More than a quarter of the population came to visit the "people's palace", or be amazed by the "dome of discovery", or be photographed next to the 296ft Skylon which towered over everything.
While the rerun may not have the same levels of financial backing, Jude Kelly, the Southbank centre's artistic director, said it hoped to bring some of the joy and optimism of the 1951 festival. "We're going to celebrate everything that the thinking conjured for us in that period and then re-interpret it for now."
The festival will see Tracey Emin taking over the Hayward gallery with a show of old and new work; Billy Bragg leading performances over the royal wedding weekend; Ray Davies curating a Festival of Britain-themed Meltdown and Heston Blumenthal updating the Afternoon Tea.
There will be talks by "national treasures" such as Meera Syal and Tony Benn; and a "great thinkers" series with people such as Francis Fukuyama and John Berger.
The designer Wayne Hemingway will bring his successful Vintage festival, which debuted last year at Goodwood, to the South Bank in July. He is also co-designing a museum of 1951 memorabilia.
Among the musical events is a May visit by pianist Lang Lang, who aims to inspire a new generation of musicians, and there will be weekends given over to guitars, choral music, light music, black British music and hip-hop.
For some people, the Festival of Britain could only be properly marked if Skylon ? the architect-designed tower that stood on the South Bank throughout the festivities ? was returned or rebuilt. It was dismantled on the personal instructions of Winston Churchill, who saw it as a symbol of socialism and the Attlee government.
There are no plans. "We don't even know where Skylon is," said Kelly. "It's like the Loch Ness monster. People have sightings of Skylon ? they think ? and bits of it, but nobody really knows what happened to it.
"Skylon is a very potent image and when you see it, the design elements of it are amazing, unbeatable. It's very hard now to understand why they threw it away."
There are stories of it being simply thrown in the Thames or buried in Jubilee Gardens. Kelly said there was also a story that it was dumped in the river Lea and she might, with the Museum of London, send divers in to search for it. A spokesman for the Museum of London later contradicted that and said there was no evidence of Skylon being in the Lea.
The festival, taking place between 22 April and 4 September, will be the first of three themed festivals on the South Bank, all sponsored by MasterCard.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jan/19/festival-of-britain-anniversary-skylon
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