Choir to put Otley Run grievances into song

Concerns, opinions and praise for a well-known Leeds pub crawl will all feature in a song performed along the route by a community choir on Saturday.

The Otley Run Complaints Choir, a University of Leeds-led project, hopes to encourage "runners" to consider the impact the popular crawl, frequented by students and visitors alike, has on Headingley residents.

The song "represents different perspectives" about the route and its future, according to Anna Douglas, the project's lead artist.

"Through a creative, joyful project we're trying to help others understand the complexity of the situation. The Otley Run brings some colour to Headingley, but we do believe it needs regulating," she said.

The Otley Run includes 21 pubs and bars and spans a route along Otley Road into the city centre.

"Runners", as they are known, now travel from all over the country to take part, with many choosing to wear fancy dress as they attempt to have a drink at each stop.

The activity has also become popular with large groups, including stag and hen parties, on weekends and spread beyond its traditional student base.

Debate about anti-social behaviour and the benefits increased footfall can brings to the local economy have been raised over the years, Douglas explained.

"One of the things that was really incumbent upon us was to try and understand how complex this problem was," she said.

"Pubs are defending their rights to make a lot of money, and many residents are very cross about how their day-to-day living has been impacted.

"We wanted to try and change the tempo and change the energy. And what better way to do that than to use art to try and think through the complexity of it."

Working with students, long-term residents, local business owners and University of Leeds alumni, Douglas said the project collected a vast range of opinions and ideas.

Sue Jennings, director of arts and cultural organisation Left Bank, a project partner, said the impression was work needed to be done "to find a balance that's going to work for everyone".

She runs a non-profit arts shop along Otley Road and has "a vested interest" in the impact the pub crawl can have on small, non-hospitality businesses, she added.

The project group even dressed up and joined revellers on the crawl, to find out their reasons for doing it, which Douglas described as "a real eye-opener".

"There was this broad range of people who were using the Otley Run in many different ways. It really helped us try to understand these different perspectives."

Freelance songwriter and the choir's musical director Nicky Bray then turned the thoughts and some verbatim quotes into a song for the group to perform.

"We're a complaints choir, but we're celebrating as well," she said.

"We're trying to incorporate people's worries and people's joys and everything."

The idea for a complaints choir was created in 2005 by two Finnish artists, and first performed in Birmingham.

Since then, more than 160 have popped up all over the world, offering an outlet for frustrations or divided opinion.

The Otley choir, made up of 14 members, will all dress up in costume to perform opposite the pub Skyrack, in homage to one of the Otley Run's main draws.

Each outfit will be specially made to promote creativity and sustainability over single-use costumes that end up discarded at the end of the night, Jennings said.

"We want to be extra big, colourful, exciting. We want to show people what you can do with a little bit more imagination."

Douglas added she hoped the project was the start of "more creative thinking" to "innovate a different kind of future for Headingley and Hyde Park."

"Everybody needs to be open to what could be designed that would create a vibrant local community that can support year-round living and students and independent businesses and the pubs.

"It's only by collectively creating that trust and working together that we're going to be able to go forward."

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