Despite being London’s most populous borough, Croydon has often felt culturally underserved. It’s a problem that arts festival Croydonites has been trying to rectify for the last 10 years. “There wasn’t a lot going on,” says Anna Arthur, who set up Croydonites in 2015 to energise the local arts scene. “I saw a big gap in the market.”
In 2021, actor and theatre maker Katie Hurley came onboard as associate director, and has since helped develop the festival’s reputation for bringing some of the city’s most exciting artists to Croydon. “We’re trying to get people from all over London to come to Croydon,” Hurley tells Broadsheet. “We’re also trying to change people’s perceptions of the area.”
“People think it’s a concrete jungle,” says Arthur. “People think it’s a shithole,” Hurley says, laughing. In fact, Hurley’s own show You’re So Fucking Croydon, which has previously staged at the festival, addresses this perception – taking its title from an infamous David Bowie quote (“it’s the most derogatory thing I can say about somebody or something: God, it’s so fucking Croydon!”).
This year, the festival will also stage Philosophy of the World, a riotous show about the 1960s outsider proto-punks The Shaggs – considered by many to be the “best worst band of all time” – performed by anarchic theatre makers In Bed With My Brother. It’s the first time the show is playing in London after smashing it at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. There’s also work from comic storyteller James Rowland and an early chance to catch Shit Theatre’s Evita Too, a show about the life of Isabel Perón, the world’s first female president, ahead of a run at the Southbank Centre. The festival closes with its first immersive work: Trainwreck by Tom Yum Sim, inspired by the disastrous Glasgow Willy Wonka experience (of “sad Oompa Loompa” fame).
While most of this year’s work will be presented at music venue The Front Room, the festival also takes place at Stanley Arts, the David Lean Cinema and Braithwaite Hall, part of Croydon’s atmospheric 19th-century town hall.
In 2023, when Croydon was London Borough of Culture, the festival delivered its most ambitious program to date, bringing well-regarded contemporary performers – including Lucy McCormick, with her hit queer show Triple Threat – to Croydon. But it’s not just about drawing artists and audiences from outside the area, Arthur and Hurley stress. A large part of what they do is develop and support local talent. Simon Manyonda presented an early version of his show Blessed, Tryna Shake This Curse at the festival in 2022, as part of the Croydonbites program, which gives local artists a platform to try out new ideas. It’s gone on to bigger things. “Support from us has helped him grow the show,” Hurley says.
Fundamentally, they want people to come to Croydon and have a good night out. “Our audiences are great,” says Hurley. “They’re up for seeing something at the beginning of its life by a local unknown as much as they’re up for seeing a show by someone like Lucy McCormick that’s been performed all over the world.”
Croydonites runs from October 8 to November 1.
