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Culture city

Home to the world's first free library and the UK's first repertory theatre company, Manchester has always been a rather unsung cultural pace-setter. But since the arrival of Manchester International Festival director Alex Poots, the city is re-emerging as an original modern cultural hub and this time it is letting the whole world know.

Home to the world's first free library and the UK's first repertory theatre company, Manchester has always been a rather unsung cultural pace-setter. But since the arrival of Manchester International Festival director Alex Poots, the city is re-emerging as an original modern cultural hub and this time it is letting the whole world know.

Alex Poots is the picture of calm as he sits in his inconspicuous office on Portland Street shortly after the end of the inaugural Manchester International Festival (MIF). But then again, the soft-spoken Scot did not look stressed before or during what was the world's most adventurous (and most high-risk) festival - an exciting showcase of original new work by some of the world's greatest artists.

"I was nervous before the festival because you are so in the thick of getting the detail right that you wonder whether people are going to like it," he admits.

"I remember a few days before the opening I had a little moment of doubt. I know I said that people should be prepared for some of the commissions not working out that well, that's the nature of world premières. But what surprised me was that I didn't see a show that was absolutely terrible."

The inaugural festival has been hailed as a huge success for the city, attracting over 300,000 visitors from far and wide and raising Manchester's profile as a world-class cultural destination. But it would not have been what it was had it not been for one man who came up with two words to point to the future of Manchester.

Poots never tires of telling the story: "When I was asked to apply for the festival director job I initially said 'no' because I had just started a job in London. But my curiosity was triggered and I decided to go and talk to Peter Saville, who I had worked with since 1998 and who I knew was from Manchester. I went to see him, not knowing that he was already the creative director of Manchester, because Peter is someone who has a very smart way of thinking through ideas and problems and coming up with interesting creative solutions.

"Peter said, 'you know, of course, that Manchester was the fist industrial city and then every other city copied it'. When Peter said 'first' that gave me the idea of a festival of world firsts. I thought, rather than coming up with a second or third-rate Edinburgh Festival or an urban Glastonbury, which would be copying, we should do something that grows out of something true to Manchester.

"And then I realised that there wasn't any other festival entirely of new work in the world, so we had a world first as well."

Original modern has become Manchester's manifesto pledge; a clear vision for the future and a template against which every aspect of the city's evolution is judged. A festival aiming to signal the city's cultural renaissance had to be an original modern festival and the world's first festival of original new work certainly fitted the bill. But that did not make it any easier to deliver. Could Poots have pulled it off anywhere else?

"I don't think so," he unhesitatingly replies. "Because there is no other city that I know of that has such an effective and evolved public-private partnership. The way the city council works with major businesses from this city and the region is extraordinary - and it's why I ended my contract in London early and moved to Manchester to work here.

"I'd been in London for 18 years - I'd worked at the Barbican, Tate, English National Opera, all of the big players there - but I moved here because this city quickly proved to me that they were serious about what they wanted to achieve, that they knew they could help the festival achieve it and that they would support it through thick and thin.

"I'd never seen anything like this city's determination to succeed. And I'd never known any other city to acknowledge so firmly that culture is an asset, not a drain."

Poots and his team were given free rein by Manchester City Council to stage a festival that would push boundaries and be talked about in all corners of the world. But the leader and chief executive of the council were always there to throw their weight behind controversial decisions, as Poots explains:

"When it came to the Il Tempo del Postino, for example, at six different times people tried to cancel it because there was a lot of misinformation about bulls copulating on stage so animal rights people thought we were the Antichrist, Live Nation were worried about their licence and the police were worried about protests.

"But the council were absolutely firm. Richard [Leese] and Howard [Bernstein] asked me 'in your heart of hearts is there anything weird going on here?' And I said 'no, we've risk assessed it, there's no danger and the animals are going to be safe'. So they phoned up the various distressed parties and said 'it's going to be fine, we believe in our festival'. That show would not have happened without that support."

Manchester City Council supported the inaugural Manchester International Festival to the tune of £2 million. But the festival team also raised millions of pounds in private sector sponsorship, with some major companies putting their hands in their pockets, including Bruntwood, Virgin Trains and City Inn. How did they react to some of the most controversial commissions?

"There was never a word of, 'this is a bit extreme, can't your culture be nice landscape paintings?' They were absolutely supportive. They almost revelled in the fact that we were pushing the boundaries because they knew that was good for the city."

This year's Manchester International Festival was ground-breaking, but it was not the first time Manchester marched to its own tune. The city has a number of firsts to take pride in and Poots finds one especially moving.

"When I first heard that Manchester was the first city in the world to make its library free to the public it brought a lump to my throat. In a way you're talking about the information revolution. Everyone was allowed access to knowledge and to enhancing their minds and it wasn't about who could afford it any more. And the library then was the Internet - it was where you found out information. Maybe economically it didn't make a huge impact, but it shows the state of mind of the fathers of Manchester that they would bother getting round to doing that remarkable thing."

Manchester International Festival signals Manchester's re-emergence as a cultural hotbed and Poots says there are other encouraging signs.

"Manchester is famous for its brains in new media and I think that's an area of real expansion. In the next ten years we're going to have one of the world's greatest universities, so we should see more and more creative minds developing here.

"In the past the city lost a lot of talent to London and abroad but I think with a serious investment of energy from Manchester City Council we should be able to keep people here because Manchester is developing into a really exciting, innovative city to live in. And of course the BBC moving to Greater Manchester is a plus because they're going to need new media experts, providing job opportunities for graduates."

Peter Saville has often said building a future as the original modern city is down to Manchester's innovative, creative, entrepreneurial people. Who are some of the key players in the city's creative class, who can push Manchester forward?

"Maria Balshaw at the Whitworth Art Gallery is a really good appointment. I also admire the work of John McGrath at Contact Theatre - he and his team are doing stuff that the whole UK is aware of, that punches through, not because they're working with celebrities but because they're doing great work with young kids.

"And of course Manchester is fortunate to have great supporters of the arts. People like the city council's Richard Leese and Howard Bernstein; Philip Green of United Utilities; Mike and Chris Oglesby of Bruntwood; Bryan Gray at NWDA; Michael Eakin from the Arts Council England; Geoff Muirhead from the Manchester Airport Group; and Nick Johnson and Tom Bloxham from Urban Splash."

With so many great thinkers and creative forces, past and present, in Manchester, surely it must be very difficult to choose one individual for the title of 'ultimate Mancunian cultural icon'... or is it?

"It's a really obvious one, actually. If what you mean is someone who has done something that was felt around the world and who did it off their own back, it's Tony Wilson. Manchester was the coolest city in the world partly because of Factory Records and the bands that Tony represented and because of The Hacienda."

Tony Wilson died a few days after this interview and although he will sadly not be around to see Manchester complete its transformation from Cottonopolis to capital of culture, Poots and Manchester's other creative minds are forging ahead.

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