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Well, the festival has finally wound to an end. Today I saw my final two performances, which included the Festival Finale – The Festival Gala Concert.

But first. This morning I followed up brunch with Ten Bush a play about witchcraft and deceit in a small African village, the village of Ten Bush. It was an excellent performance, with its limited set design and raw stage feel of the Box Theatre. It did have its slightly explicit moments, and left one feeling slightly odd, but was really made by the voices. I am going to be hearing “Ten Buuush” (not that this does it any justice) for ages to come.

This was followed, finally, by Richard Cock’s Gala Concert, which included The Orchestra, some Opera, some Sax, and even Audience participation. It was also a tribute to the Festival CEO who has retired after being at the helm of the festival for many years.

The performance was a superb mix of classical and modern music, all chosen because of some significance to the year 2008. Unlike the performance yesterday, Richard Cock continuously addressed the audience and the whole occasion was less formal. (Indeed he was an a bright yellow shirt!) The grand finale was The 1812 Overture which made use of the audience and paper bags to create the cannons. An effect which worked quite well. For an encore, they performed (almost to my horror) the song NAFG – or National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. Richard Cock claimed that this had been commissioned for the festival, but it turned out to be the YMCA.

Quite appropriately, the sun was just setting over the horizon as we left the monument. A builtiful red and orange orb to place an air of finality on what was a wonderful celebration of culture.

Today should have had three different plays, but unfortunately, I had to trim one out because of work. Nevertheless, I saw two productions of very very different styles.

The first was a play entitled The Quiet Violence of Dreams and was – like 4.48 Psychosis – centred round mental hospitals. Unlike the former, however, it was set in South Africa. It also seemed very complicated to me. I’m uncertain if I actually understood the play completely. With an age restriction of Sex, Nudity, Violence and Language, it came as little surprise that it contained such things as rape and much sexual innuendo. Unlike Equus, however, there was no full on nudity, nor any very graphic sexual scenes. The set contained a projector which every now and then played a clip over the set. I found these clips to be a waste and did not add anything to the story. Indeed, I felt that they distracted from the overall production.

This was followed by the first of the Orchestral Performances which I booked. Like the ballet, I had a pre-assigned seat in the Guy Butler theatre and made my first use of the Festival Hopper Buses to get to (and from) the monument. I thoroughly enjoyed the concert. The performance was very classical – the conductor was even in Tails! We were even treated to an unexpected dose of Opera. (Although, I would have known that if I had read the programme properly.) It was good to get the opportunity to see an orchestra for a very rare change. I am looking forward to tomorrows performance.

After this afternoons awful performance, I was not really in the mood for more theatre and so went into this play slightly negatively. It did, however, turn out to be an enjoyable and informative piece.

It was a recount of the live of the political activist Steve Biko and followed a number of important points in his life. I did, however, feel that it encompassed a number of points which were of little interest and which dragged the play along for me. A slightly shorter production would have been preferred. The use of a screen to recount time was reminiscent of Cissie but unlike Cissie, I found it poorly integrated and distracting.

This was the second student performance which I saw at Fest this year – and was even more disappointing than the first. It was marketed as a parody of our excessive use of technology but really didn’t speak about anything but mobile phones. Even then, it was more a discussion of our social lives, rather than of the technology behind it. I felt that the performance was amateurish and the comedy was not to my taste. I would have left if there had been an interval.

This evening was the expected festival highlight. Don Quixote, performed by The South African Ballet Theatre Company. It was performed to live music, which was an added bonus.

I usually associate the Guy Butler Theatre with Grad and other Rhodes functions, and tend to forget that it is actually a theatre – Orchestra Pit and all. This evenings performance was superb, certainly the highlight it was supposed to be. The two ballerinas were superb and their male counterparts were also excellent. I did, however, feel that the Corps de Ballet could have been better – there were a few minor mistakes.

I did struggle to follow the story (from the programme blurb) in the actual performance, and the division of Scenes into Acts was different in the programme than on the evening. It was also significantly shorter than the programme indicates.

It was certainly an enjoyable performance, and the addition of an orchestra was an added pleasure not usually offered in South Africa. I know many of the people at the performance and I know a number of people going tomorrow.