Gladiator bouts, a Shayne Ward supergroup, a national digital singalong … as the ‘Festival of Brexit’ calls for ideas to bring together leavers and remainers, artists offer their suggestions
The first rule of creating a festival designed to unite Britain is probably: don’t call it the Festival of Brexit. Ever since Theresa May announced a huge national event celebrating our departure from the EU, set for 2022 and with a budget of £120m, it’s acquired that nickname, suggestive of drizzle, stale pies and being forced to listen to Rule Britannia (with the words) on loop. Even the organisers are keen to stress that the current working title is actually Festival UK.
Name aside, the gargantuan task remains – how can a festival possibly unite the country given the enduring bitterness between leavers and remainers? Last week, organisers put out a call for creative minds to come up with “daring, new and popular” ideas aimed at conjuring instant national harmony. How hard could it be? A quick brainstorm around the Guardian office brought up the suggestions “reform Oasis?” and “get David Blaine back in his box – that united people”, whereas the best I could think of was a big screen playing repeat footage of that time Michael Gove fell over. Clearly we needed to turn to artists instead.
