The dark nights are about to become a lot more exciting thanks to a series of light festivals and displays. Viv Hardwick reports.

DURHAM Cathedral is about to be washed with light sculptures based on the Lindisfarne Gospels while the banks, bridges and weirs along a one kilometre stretch of the River Wear will be illuminated for four nights during the November 12-15 Lumiere festival.

Visitors can also witness huge light sculptures based on drawings made by Durham prisoners and a torch-lit processions featuring fire-eaters.

Event producers Artichoke, in partnership with Sky Arts, has commissioned seven new works and involved more than 50 leading British and international artists.

Projection artist Ross Ashton and composer and arranger Robert Ziegler plus Imagination sound designer John del’Nero have created the 12-minute cathedral project using the elaborately illustrated pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels, on loan from The British Library. They will be projected across the entire 100m span of the building.

Ron Haselden has worked with offenders at Durham prison to produce the thoughtprovoking Nine Men Drawing for his commission for Lumiere.

Nine huge recreations of the prisoners’ sketches, depicting their feelings about imprisonment, will be displayed next to the cathedral. Haselden attended a prison art class, encouraging nine class members to draw pictures relating to their lives and experiences. In two hours, they produced 50.

United Visual Artists will show Chorus, a series of eight, huge swinging pendulums of light, suspended high in the cathedral nave. The UK’s leading lighting design company, Speirs and Major Associates, will celebrate the people of Durham with A Place for the People in the city’s Marketplace. A hundred residents will have their portraits projected onto the ancient buildings of Durham’s town hall and St Nicholas’ church. Visitors will be treated to a performance by French theatrical magicians Quidams, who recreate Herbert’s Dream.

Mysterious, white, stilted figures invite viewers to follow, step by step, as they transform into huge four-metre high figures, leading the audience on a nighttime procession through the darkened streets (Friday, November 13 only). La Salamandre will parade Durham’s medieval streets in a parade of fire and flame effects (Saturday, November 14 only).

Other highlights include: ■ Mark Anderson/Anne Bean/Jony Easterby/Kirsten Reynolds/Ulf Pedersen: Power Plant The hit of this year’s Edinburgh Festival, Power Plant was created by some of the country’s most innovative visual and sonic artists.

Tae Gon Kim: Dress Paris-based Korean artist Tae Gon Kim’s shimmering, ethereal dress is made of fibre optic cables. Its mysterious, ghostly shape can be glimpsed by eagleeyed passers-by in an unused shop, on the route along Saddler Street.

■ Lumiere is part of Durham’s bid to be UK City of Culture in 2013.

lumieredurham.co.uk SADLY all the tickets have already gone for the light displays of NewcastleGateshead Winter Festival Enchanted Parks, based in Saltwell Park, Gateshead, in December .

But on New Year’s Eve the whole family can celebrate on the streets of Newcastle as floats, musicians and dancers of the Winter Carnival parade through the centre of the city, from the Monument to Haymarket. The carnival will culminate with an early evening firework display at Newcastle Civic Centre.

There will also be a dazzling array of Art Cars, transformed and illuminated by artists, on display around the city centre on New Year’s Eve. New vehicles have been specially commissioned for this event to join others which are musical, fiery and magically mechanical.

Each vehicle uses light and sustainable power sources. The Glowmobiles have been created by Walk the Plank.

Prior to this, on December 11- 15, Glow will highlight some of Newcastle’s medieval town walls using large-scale architectural light projections to reveal buildings, spaces and views largely lost to the public, tucked away among late 20th Century roads, buildings and development.

■ THE famous turntable at York’s National Railway Museum is to become a light installation, called Brief Encounters, and displayed between November 26 and January 3.

Funding has come from a Lottery award through the Grants for the Arts programme.

Media artists, KMA Creative, will use 12 screens to create a massive free light display.