The train strikes didn’t stop us travelling to Greenwich for the first day of the Greenwich+Docklands International Festival on Bank Holiday Saturday. Family-friendly street theatre, circus, dance and installations took over the spectacular and historic grounds of the Old Royal Naval College, Cutty Sark Gardens and Greenwich Park.
After a commute along the Thames, first stop was a catch up with Sara and Ralph from Without Walls to hear about artists they had supported and their recommendations. Fashion, dance and lip synching from Ghetto Fabulous was certainly one of the most fun catwalk extravaganza I’ve ever experienced. A quick break for Trigger telling the story of tea and the rituals of tea-making from their hand painted Tuk Tuk. Then on to disabled artist Oliver Macdonald’s exquisite woven willow sculptural installation – part theatre, part sanctuary – where Julie McNamara and friends performed A Woodland Wake for Midsummer. The words, music and scents of herbs under the canopy of trees were so moving.
Caroline Cardus’s celebrated disability protest artwork – together with new signs created especially for the Festival – called to courage, power and hope for disabled people in the UK was also on display in the park. Sadly, as we went for our second helpings of Fussy Foodies with Just More Productions, the storm rolled in and the entertainment was paused. But it made for an atmospheric trip back up the river….
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness”
We were joined by the public at Brandon Country Park to celebrate the opening of the new performance space – the FireCrest Theatre. The space was made possible through a collaboration between Brandon Creative Forum, Brandon Country Park and MarketPlace, working alongside an incredible team of volunteers led by Mike Willett who worked to bring this vision to life.
We all celebrated the new space in style in the afternoon sun, with live music, poetry, storytelling and singing.
Local artist Flaming June, (led by marvellous our Creative Producer Louise Eatock) kicked off the afternoon. They performed a number of original songs which resonated beautifully within the space, showcasing the impressive acoustics that the venue offers.
Claire Sawford, Programme Manager at MarketPlace, opened up the rest of the performances by saying a few words. She spoke about MarketPlace’s work with local communities in Forest Heath (and Fenland) to help develop and support innovative and fun creative experiences.
She went on to give a big thanks to everyone involved in creating the FireCrest Theatre including: Jill, Mike, members and volunteers at Brandon Creative Forum; Head Ranger Sarah Austin and Jackie, Paula and Malcolm and their volunteer helpers at the Country Park; West Suffolk Council for permission to create this space; and Louise Eatock AKA Flaming June, MarketPlace lead on this project.
Claire said: “We are absolutely thrilled to be a part of this great project which encourages people to come to such a beautiful spot and get creative in nature.”
Brandon Poetry Group stepped into the performance space next. They read from ‘Lovely as a Tree: Poems of the Forest‘ which was created from a recent poetry writing workshop with Melinda Appleby earlier this year. One poem ‘Plum Tree’ was written about the poet’s neighbour, who spent hours stewing the fruit from a plum tree while her husband was recovering from illness.
Celtic Essence performed by Diane Jackman Plum Tree performed by Rosemary Appleton
The mic was handed back to Louise who wrapped up the day by thanking everyone involved, the performers and the members of the public who came to give their support.
What a great addition for the Brandon community. We look forward to witnessing the performances and experiences that will take place in this remarkable space in the future!
Playday is the national day for play, celebrated each year across the UK on the first Wednesday in August.
MarketPlace works closely with the children and playworkers at The Spinney Adventure Playground, Wisbech. We were invited again to be part of this exciting annual event in the centre of Waterlees Estate.
The Playday theme for this year was ‘Playing on a shoestring – making every day an adventure’, with the focus on the everyday low-cost or no-cost play adventures that children can enjoy at home, in settings, and in our communities.
Having spoken to the playworkers and children at the Spinney, they were keen to see something sculptural as well combining the textile elements from the Wisbech Stories arts programme MarketPlace is producing in partnership with the Spinney Adventure Playground and Wisbech & Fenland Museum.
MarketPlace put together an exciting activity pushing the boundaries of traditional cross stitching. Participants used yarn, string, cord and even shoe laces to stitch directly onto fence panels. This, alongside stitching onto some hessian fabric using coloured wools with Textile Designer Karin Forman, created a wonderful learning platform for children and adults alike. An inexpensive, frugal way to create, craft and play. Graffitiing with yarn!
One mother said how good it was for her son to improve his motor skills, through play. Other children were surprised at how much fun it was to stitch with coloured wool to make a picture. Someone asked if they could stitch on their fence at home – we said they had to ask their parents or carers first! But it shows how art, play and a few household items can engage the imagination.
The activity inspired participants to sit and play with string and yarn – some people stayed for hours, stitching on the fence and fabric. We also handed out free cross stitch kits for those who were eager to continue the activity at home.
Fancy Fencing was also a catalyst to inspire people to come and join in our Wisbech Stories programme taking place on Saturdays from 23 September to 21 October at the Spinney Adventure Playground.
With the hope of some sunny weather, we programmed a Go See to Millfield Community Carnival which has been running since 2017. Each year the organisers work with over 100 community groups and organisations in the local area. We were delighted that Godfrey Smith from Fenland Arts, Town Clerk Joanna Merton and Councillor Sharon Selman (who are also on the Chatteris Midsummer Festival committee) from Chatteris Town Council accepted the invitation to join us for an invaluable opportunity to see a festival come to life, and gain some valuable inspiration for our forthcoming festivals in Fenland.
Unfortunately, the hopes for sun were dashed and the weekend turned out to be the first of the big summer storms of wind and rain. This for us, was actually a positive, and a really good opportunity to see how well-established Peterborough Presents, another Creative People & Place project, reacted to conditions out of their control; something we and our partners will no doubt experience at some point in the future!
The Carnival was moved inside to a local community centre, just the other side of the original location of Rock Park, Peterborough. The move from outside to inside seemed seamless from a participant’s point of view; however a huge adaptation of acts and activities had to happen in a very short space of time. Although a different feel to being outside, it became a more intimate experience for the viewer, and equally impactful as if an outdoors event.
There was a main stage, a story teller, craft stalls and a crafting/makers area. Professional artists had worked with the women’s prison to produce carnival parrots for the parade which adorned the walls and entrance. A food doodle workshop was run with a local food development organisation whilst a local textile artist and cultural activists offered interesting workshops for the participants to have a go at and discover more about the city of Peterborough.
There was a varied programme of dancers, poetry, singing, music and carnival characters on the main stage. The dancers/musicians were predominantly local groups of different nationalities, Raskila (Lithuanian Dance), Ritu Ranga (Bengali Sanskriti Club) and some from further afield to push the boundaries of the community’s creative culture, such as, Mughal Miniatures (Sonia Sabri Company).
We and our Fenland partners took home some valuable inspiration, ideas and thoughts with which we can build upon in our forthcoming development meetings.
The names of the Wisbech war dead are etched into the granite cross – the Reeves, Shaws, and Whiteheads, the names of the lost. ‘Love thou for England, it says, ‘for evermore,’ the past tugging on the sleeve of the present.
The relentless wind makes it hard to believe it is summer. I wander past the windows of an old shop selling overalls, caps, and workmen’s gloves from another century. This town, I think. It’s like a stage set waiting for a story with its brick alleys and ancient steps. I can hear the voices of the town drifting through Ghost Passage, unpicked conversations, curses, and laughs. I want to understand Wisbech and the people who have lived here, live here still. I want to understand how they got through the last two years. I want to hear of them, the things they thought, the things they did and the things they do.
To me, there is an unsettled atmosphere. Wisbech is a town struggling to unite itself. Is that unfair? I am a stranger tasting the air after all. Daily life sits in the shadow of the architecture, in the corners, the cafes, the shops, in the houses, on the estates, behind the high walls, behind locked doors, in the buildings that have fallen from grace. Wisbech voices are everywhere. Can I claim to be witness and interrogator of the experience of the pandemic, of lockdown, of living in this place?
Wisbech. Seven letters. Anglo-Saxon origins. The name means on the back of the River Ouse, anchored then by its geography.
On the corner of the street is WMS Recruitment Agency advertising workers for factories and agriculture. It feels as if it has just drawn breath and closed its doors. Abandoned.
I turn right into the marketplace to escape the wind shunting across the heavy water of the River Nene. Here, there is a slow bustle. I pass the Polish grocer’s and try to count the discount shops adjacent to each other – so many I give up and head across the square past the marquee offering free Covid tests with its two bored volunteers staring into their phones.
A man with a muzzled dog walks by. ‘Lovely dog,’ I call out and he laughs. ‘He’s a working dog,’ he calls back at me and I realise there’s nothing lovely about this dog after all; he’s been trained to take your hand off.
A slew of voices in the open air. Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Latvian, Romanian, Bulgarian. Everyone in groups bubbled by language. Men on mobiles, unrestrained, loud. In Costa Coffee I watch the young, effortlessly slipping between Polish and English as if they are switching on and off a light.
I love the sound of a foreign tongue, but I get how lonely it can make some people feel and there has been more than enough loneliness in Wisbech these past two years – more than enough ‘lockdown loneliness’.
I tweak back time’s curtain and see what was there; an old man sitting in Loafer’s Café from the first peek of morning until the early afternoon. People measuring loneliness by the length of a conversation they could have or on the other side of speech – measuring the silence. What stole the voices of the children and young people? Shut us all down and robbed us of a kind of innocence. No longer the comfort of touch, of being near, of being together. It had, observed a shop owner, taken its toll on the people who ‘wear their silence’ as if they have forgotten what it is to be going out, to say hello to another on the street.
That’s when the See you Soon project came to town. The packs of cards distributed to shops and cafes, wherever people pass. Available to send to friends and family, to connect, to do, to celebrate, to have and to hold. People jumped on the idea. The cards were like a colourful stone thrown into a still pond, rippling outwards. And one of the places, the cards went was the Oasis Centre on the Waterlees Estate.
Pretty much nothing silences Chris who manages the place. Waterlees is where more than a third of its children are living in poverty. Lots of rented properties and plenty of HMOs or Houses of Multiple Occupation. The estate has got a bit of a name for itself, but she wouldn’t be anywhere else.
I cross the border from stage set Wisbech with its elegant facades on one side of the river to a different reality on this. The low, modern building with concrete flower beds and a sweep of vigorous summer annuals opens into a carpeted hallway. There are community leaflets and books to share. It’s a quiet time of day, near empty. I follow Chris into a wide-open room, plenty of air and light where people come to do courses.
‘I love this area,’ says Chris. ‘It’s the most deprived in Cambridgeshire but the community spirit is brilliant.’
The centre was closed but locked doors couldn’t keep Chris away. ‘I was here, on the phone every day to chat,’ she said, ‘to see if they needed help with their shopping. It’s been a frightening time for all of them.’
I close my eyes and imagine the Oasis closed. A cold, empty building hemmed in on all sides with need.
‘You see, the pandemic highlighted the lack of services. Health and well-being was horrendous and this escalated. There were many people struggling and not claiming the benefits they are entitled to…the support groups are not there. These people are isolated.’
‘A lot of the government,’ adds Chris, ‘haven’t even got mental health on their radar but it’s the biggest issue everybody is facing. We must have lots of empathy.’
She explains, and don’t I know it, the accumulation of difficult things. How it strips away self-esteem.
‘Wisbech,’ she goes on. ‘You have people of the two extremes, it’s very divided. The people here need to give it a whirl. There’s a weird thing about the river, the south and the north, one side is more affluent. They don’t come here in case they catch something.’ And yet… ‘This community is unbelievable. There was a house fire and the whole place responded. Those people were given everything they needed…You wouldn’t catch me wanting to work anywhere else.’
When we leave, I can sense the strong communal beating heart of the place, ‘people are starting to believe in themselves more, that’s slowly starting to happen.’ And if it is, it is mainly down to people like Chris.
Before I take the road back to the town centre, I visit two barges big as day, marooned on a sea of sand in a cluster of trees. The Spinney is a marvel, a put together place managed by Violet and it is a primary-coloured Neverland for children, created for them and by them. Tramp around the Heath Robinson tower or peer into an underground lair, journey through the sand dunes with murals on the walls, sit, dream, reflect, hide, or shadow box the sky, it’s a world of story, a truly good place to be even if the teenagers did burn down the pavilion.
The sun comes out with Rachel. Young, striking, full of warmth, a rich glow about her and a graceful determination. She works with children and is soon to fly back to the Spinney as if carried on a Mary Poppins wind.
Images from Click Therapy Lockdown and Easing. MarketPlace.
We sit in Costa Coffee while she remembers the first lockdown and how it affected children in her care. How they have had a hard time understanding what has been happening. ‘Some of them feel as if they have been punished while others have adapted really well’ she says and sips her hot chocolate. She was still with The Spinney then just before leaving to take up with a nursery in the centre, and Violet and the other women tried to find a way around problems of online access for parents and kids stuck at home. They helped with Rainbow Boxes full of things to do provided by a local consortium of organisations. Imagine finding a rainbow at your door on a day of going nowhere.
At that time, she recalls, families grew more withdrawn, parents were on their phones more, less engagement with anyone. Rachel, herself had a lot of training online, ‘not taking anything in but ticking boxes. And your work is coming into your house. It’s invasive, me and my boyfriend feel that it (the lockdown), came into our home and blurred the lines. It’s had an effect on everyone and now it’s trying to reverse the effect. We have to try to get people back to enjoying things, to use it but not to find it invasive.’
Accumulation – and Rachel snaps out the numbers: ‘There have been more referrals to social care, domestic violence up by 65% and according to Ofcom 84% of 3-4 year olds are using video-sharing platforms on phones. There is less outdoor activity and an increase in child depression. I know a child on suicide watch. He’s only thirteen,’ she adds.
There is a lack of communion. ‘The young babies, their interactions are slower. It impacts on their development…the babies are isolated and have not seen another baby before. We have masks on our faces so they cannot see us talking properly. We have literally been seen as a pair of eyes and that is so sad.’ And I think, how much this young woman is observing things we don’t even think about, absorbing deeply the entire experience of what is lost and what can be gained.
Rachel knows it’s not an equal experience. She teaches piano in a private school and the mental health of the children there seems so much less affected. ‘They will moan about it, but they are not up against it and kids at the school are quite happy.’
I leave Rachel and turn onto Hill Street, pass the Britannia Café with its pavement menu offering gammon and chips, past the beauty salons, hairdressers and nail bars clustered together as if this was a medieval street with its glovemakers and tanneries. I pass a thin woman fidgeting with worry. She has been there for a while now. Who knows what she is waiting for.
How long the road is back to the Georgian houses. Across the river to the playing fields of the grammar school, the thick walls of a house burning with vine lilies, the shop of chandeliers, the cultivated ivy clambering over Peckover House, the gates locked, the windows shuttered, and the Town Council entrenched in rooms lined with panelled wood, decked with portraits of power, and the regalia of rule in reach for important occasions. You can see from their windows the statue of Thomas Clarkson, champion campaigner against the slave trade and a little further down on the other side of the silted river, the birthplace house of Octavia Hill.
I am drawn to her home on the darker, poorer side of the river where the Victorian buildings have an air of loss. Octavia Hill was a celebrated social reformer; her heart lay with the Victorian poor and she rescued families from their slums. Her own house now, is closed up and through the neglected windows are odd items for sale like old teeth. I can’t help wondering what she would think of her birth town today. What she would do.
I walk back to the war memorial where my journey began and will now end. Two girls in crop tops and leggings practice a dance routine in the small public space behind it. Opportunistic pigeons circle the benches. One of the girls holds her phone high to capture their moves. The pigeons rise up in a cloud of wings. The sun lifts for a moment and bathes the centre of Wisbech in light.
What is Brandon but an island in a sea of forest and heath? A small town resting on its 90-million-year-old chalk feet. Slipping out of itself, shaking off the great level of the Fens. Divided by the Little Ouse and the soft step of its water meadows, dreaming of an age-old displaced sea. This town is quartered by its roads. Full of HGV dust, a mute language, helps to foster the silence of this place, choked off conversations we used to have back in pre-pandemic days, Before when hand over heart, non-essential visits to non-essential shops were the lifeblood of some, And then Covid like a bleaching wind blew the loneliness in.
We hesitated to engage and said, it was the pandemic. The fear of contamination splintering us into an archipelago of the missing. But maybe, Brandon has always been full of islands, Concocted silence, hesitations, Cautious about curiosity, Whatever was not the same as them already came.
I arrived by train. Ready with a sense of departure, It’s a straight walk from the railway station to find the Hare Salon. A seven-minute wander past abandoned grandeur, dead hotels. I am cold and feel grey, winnowed out, In a speechless mood I watch a man shuffle to the bridge and peer into the river, Looking for answers only melancholy water can give.
There are flags on all the buildings, a seraphic blue and sun-yellow, a symbol of the town.
They’ve only been up a day or so. Still clean and gaudy against blistered brickwork, Ladbrokes, and the Polish convenience store, shops with signs that thank the NHS. The Town Council likes a flag or two – later in the empty town square the Union Jack billows out in shiny hard-wearing silk-thin nylon. This is a town of practical dreams, at least once it was famous for flint-knapping and rabbit fur. Until the March Hare arrived.
And created wonderland.
There are ten hairdressers in Brandon. The Hare is one of them and although you can have a trim, a cut and blow-dry, a colouring of the roots, in any one of them, it is only in The Hare, that you can go down the rabbit hole.
I wanted it to feel like a front room, being a farmer’s wife, my mother always felt she was being judged in hairdressers. People just come here for a coffee.
And find Craig in a front room full of eternal flowers. The kind that never die on you. A hairdressing salon with an artistic bloom. Even the grandfather clock has flowers that tick and tock inside its casing. The Hare Salon is a small space turned inside out, a secret lodging for imagination and in a place as prosaic as Brandon that means, a sanctuary of colour and expectation. Through the door is through the looking glass.
There’s no money in art. My Mum pushed me into hairdressing. I was the only male student studying hairdressing on day release in Lowestoft. Combined everything, I did, art and the hairdressing – but hairdressing first and art second.
There are hares everywhere, leaping, boxing, posing and much of what is here is made by Craig. And it all fits. Craig, the artistic farmer’s son who came to Brandon for love and stays out of a sense of family.
I have created my own little island. I have a family at home and a family here.
He used to do all the drag queens’ hair in Norwich, and he brought his sense of the theatrical to a town where to walk into the pub and you risk more than a hostile stare.
Brandon is a hard place. The forest was my lifeline when we first came here.
And we both look for a moment at the depiction of tree and river that squares up at the window, knowing that the natural world helps the heart live even as the HGVs batter the tarmac outside.
Gail arrives for a trim. Her hair is like a neat grey cap to my unpractised eye. But no…
Never seen such a sight in all your life.
She looks at her masked face in the mirror as Craig’s scissors twitter around the nape of her neck.
With pride, she tells me, she makes all her own masks.
Lockdown was devastating for the Salon. I was ringing the customers every week to see that they were ok. It affected the older customers because they were more on their own.
Gail finds her purse and I know this visit is about more than hair; it is touching base, it is being part of a family, a community. The Salon is more than twirls and curls. Just as the March Hare pressed tea in a china cup on Alice in Wonderland; this salon opened its doors for themed charity coffee mornings – Alice in Wonderland, wreath-making at Christmas.
Covid has stopped a lot. Here, they could concentrate on doing something. I had customers who did it. Reflected on what kept them going through the lockdowns.
When Brandon turned its small-town face to the wall people found something to look forward to. Our capacity for comfort undiminished.
I have to say telly has been a big one. Two seasons of the Rockford Files and watching Dr Who from the ninth to the twelfth doctors has been ace… said Lorna.
And Leanne read books – finally learning to cook curry from scratch and buying a new bicycle, cheered her muchly. And Emily had puppies, Roger had gardening, Sophie too, while Jack did home improvements and played games. Patrick looked forward to fish and chips with curry sauce. It’s the small things that make us glad, while Regina read old favourite books again…and Claire held fancy dress nights with the family and wandered out for beach walks.
It takes Genevieve to agree with Jack – DIY, painting, upcycling, and having a good clear out. It’s been cathartic. And Holly too, it was all about trying out new arty activities, making and then eating lemon drizzle cake. But if you ask me, Dom has it in the bag, his highlight Cadbury’s Giant Chocolate Buttons. Julie says it all. What kept her going and she chose to share was the knowledge that good people were there.
And the postcards – the See You Soon Postcards, the keep-in-touch, the missing-you- morning-surprise, the-creative-moment-have-a-go postcards handed out to a constituency of women by this trusted emissary of art.
I handed sixty of the postcard packs out. The response was really good. They are like family, family members, an inspiration. They engaged, it was quite nice.
I look around at Wonderland. It is hard to leave this warm domain, this tiny Craigdom.
First year I struggled. Hard to make friends outside work. I found myself looking after the old ladies. They have moved here and lost their husbands. I look after them. They look after me.
The phone rings. It is an old man who lost his wife and rings often, rings every day and is never turned away.
I’m here until five, mate.
And he agrees to drop in on the 90-year-old on his way home. Helps to see a face to know that someone cares. It is so much more than just looking after hair.
Casson & Friends, an award-winning dance company based in London spent early Summer 2021 bringing their own unique style of dance and ‘people powered performance’ to our area. The goal? To speak to as many people as possible to create a dance inspired by what people love about where they live.
Dancers engaging with community members, especially young people, to create a bespoke dance for their towns and districts resulting in a Collaborative Choreography
The Community Producer POV
We asked Jodie Hicks, our Community Producer, to give her point of view about her summer worling with Casson & Friends.
Events in March, Wisbech, Brandon and Newmarket
Across four events in Fenland and West Suffolk two teams of dancers had the chance to engage with people of all ages, to dig deep and mine their thoughts and memories for choreography ideas and inspiration. It was a real joy to observe someone, with great animation, describe a cherished memory about their town or a certain place within it, and then to see the dancers transform these words into fluid movements.
Casson & Friends brought their dance moves to Forest Heath in Brandon and Newmarket in August 2021, inspiring choreography moves with creative people in their creative places. Photography credit: Malachy Luckie.
A moment which stood out for me was at National Play Day at The Spinney Adventure Playground in Wisbech. Not only did the parents and children speak to the dancers, but they actually got involved physically to help create these moves alongside them.
On a couple of occasions, some of the children would correct the dancers and suggest their own alterations to more accurately capture what they loved about their hometown. The connections and collaborative process was a truly wonderful watch after we have all spent the past two years keeping distance from each other.
Slowly but surely, as each day would draw to a close, singular movements would grow into short sequences and in turn develop into a dance performance lasting a few minutes long. Alongside this, MarketPlace was on hand to invite people to also write down thoughts, feelings and also provide some suggestions for filming locations for the final stage of the project, producing a dance film.
Casson & Friends dancers performing their finished #TinyDance in Fenland for the final film. Filming day photography: Jodie Hicks.
Bringing the moves together…
After our days in March, Wisbech, Brandon and Newmarket the dance teams went away and explored all of the information they’d gathered, narrowed down the filming locations to just three in each town, (no easy task) and put all of the choreographed motions together to create two distinct dances for Fenland and Forest Heath.
Casson & Friends dancers performing their finished #TinyDance in Forest Heath for the final film. Filming day photography: Jodie Hicks.
All that was left to do was film it. Our travels took us to all sorts of places from racetracks to mausoleums, and even a castle. The #TinyDance teams accomplished the astonishing feat of filming in 6 locations per day and performing the Tiny Dances a staggering 18 times over the course of each day!
It was exhausting just watching them! Not only this, but in true East Anglia fashion, the dancers and filmmakers had to compete with weather ranging from sunshine to wind and rain and back again and often in the space of an hour (which could be a little detail to look out for in the Forest Heath film).
Clips from the Casson & Friends performers creating the final video on location in Brandon, Suffolk (Forest Heath).
What was never lost was the sense of fun and wonder from the Casson & Friends team. They had the chance to visit all of these little gems we have in our towns, and really experience for themselves; what we are proud of and what is distinctively unique about living in Fenland and Forest Heath.
The #TinyDance films will be ready very soon so be sure to keep an out on our social media pages or sign up for our newsletter to have it sent direct to your inbox.
With all that said, where’s my popcorn…?
Written by MarketPlace Young Producer, Jodie Hicks.
On Thursday 10th and Friday 11th June 2021, I had the pleasure of accompanying the team behind the immersive theatre game Escape from Fort Lagoon, by Adam McGuigan (Wake the Beast) and Jude Jagger (Submersion Productions), around several towns in West Suffolk and Fenland. They were scouting out possible locations where they could produce their water-based immersive theatre game experience as part of their Research & Development. Alongside this, they were testing out an app which audience members would use during the performance, experimenting with original songs with a choir and meeting lots of local people who would be able to advise and assist them on this journey.
We started in Brandon and were guided around the town and their local riverside walk by members of Brandon Creative Forum who had some valuable insights into the town and the people who populate it. As the company would need access to a body of water to perform in, they could specify which places of the river were safe to swim in and where performers and audiences could enter the river. We discovered a series of jetty’s which could be ideal for little pockets of performance spaces.
Members of Brandon Creative Forum, the MarketPlace team and Submersion Productions gather together in Brandon to discuss the plan of the day.
Next, it was onto Mildenhall where the team met Imogen Radford, a regular ‘wild swimmer’ in the River Lark. She went into great depth about the different safety considerations for swimming in rivers. Safety tips such as wearing waterproof protective footwear and getting into the water slowly to ease your body in gently to the sudden change in temperature and prevent performers and audience members losing their breath.
Jude and Adam from Submersion Productions, and digital artist & app designer Jack get ready for wild swimming in the River Lark in Mildenhall.
Finally, we arrived in March and I helped Godfrey Smith show the team around the area surrounding the River Nene before meeting up with the March Can’t Sing Choir. I have lived and grown up in March my whole life and it was interesting to see it through the theatre company’s eyes. I think I forget to appreciate how green it is and how many open spaces we have on our doorstep. Coming from Manchester and London, they were amazed at just how far you can see and how many wide-open spaces we have.
When we met up with the choir, we split into two groups; one group was trialling the app which Jack Hardiker had designed to test if the choir members could learn some short phrases to sing from their mobile devices, and one group to be taught these singing parts by the choir master Sally Rose. Speaking with Jude and Jack who led the app group, I think they found this exercise especially enlightening as they realised that learning these short songs from an app was no replacement for a choir master who could correct things as she went along, and practise blending these different parts together to make a really beautiful sound.
The groups join together on the green for singing with Sally Rose and March Can’t Sing Choir in March.
On the second day, we met with David Johnson at the Empress Pool in Chatteris where the team experimented with the acoustics of indoor pools and used the time to reflect on what they had learned and brainstorm new ideas for how the show would need to adapt to what they now know. After this, David gave us a walking tour of Chatteris town centre. He provided the team with information on his experiences of how to organise events and arts projects in Chatteris.
From there we drove to Gildenburgh Water in Whittlesey where the team swam in the lake and learnt about the different safety measures that the owners would insist upon should performers and audience members need to go into the water. We walked around the area and found some quite interesting little patches of field which could be suitable for performance spaces.
The groups explore suitable performance areas in Chatteris and Whittlsey, including the local pool and green spaces.
At all of the places that we visited, the team were taking pictures of everything and making notes on what would work and what wouldn’t work at each location. They were taking into consideration factors like how accessible it would be for members of the public, how far people would have to walk, how loud the noise in the surrounding area would be, how enclosed it is and what (if any) access they would have to the water. I believe that actually trying out wild swimming for themselves and learning how they would need to adapt the show to take into consideration what they now know has been a crucial step towards putting on a show here.
Jodie, Colin and Buster the dog from MarketPlace stand together for a photo in Chatteris town centrewith David Johnson, a film maker based in Chatteris, Jude and Adam from Submersion Productions, digital artist & app designer Jack and theatre designer & costume maker Abby.
Also, testing the capabilities of the app they are developing with members of the public and learning what tweaks would need to be made, would not have been achievable without this Research and Development stage, supported by the Arts Council of England with National Lottery funding.
The project has the potential to be unlike anything Fenland and Suffolk have seen before, so now more than ever I have learnt how important this stage in the creative process is, and how it will now go on to inform so many decisions – both creatively and logistically in the future when Submersion Productions take the plunge and perform it.
Written by MarketPlace Young Producer, Jodie Hicks.
It was a shock. I lost all my arts in education work and income overnight. At first, I pretty much panicked in that I applied for any work, anywhere with a sense of dread that I would end up having to leave behind a creative life I had spent so many years trying to put together. At the same time, suddenly there was a space which I couldn’t negotiate productively. I would have loved to have used the time that opened up before me creatively, but I was too anxious about money. And then I benefitted from an emergency grant from the Arts Council. I was so grateful and promised to use my time well, even as I disinfected everything in sight, even as I limited going out to an early morning gallop with the dog, even as I stressed about my keyworker daughter exposed to the public.
Developing Ideas
Gradually, my heartbeat slowed, and I began to think and write again – in that gloriously beautiful weather in the first year. I sealed off the world and zoomed. It has made me think of hybrid theatre forms and I have discovered the potential for intimacy, as well as theatre’s wider online reach, but still, a year on the yearning for the energy of live performance is very strong.
I count myself lucky. I was commissioned to write a play with funding put in place before the pandemic. It was a stop start experience for the theatre company – even as auditions, and script read throughs were held and rehearsals began, they were postponed, the project settling into a waiting time as theatres closed and new variants emerged and made being together impossible. I think we learnt patience this year.
There are limitations to not being in the same room. Part of my working life is spent in a writers’ room with two other scriptwriters where we develop television and radio drama. It is a crucible where we hammer out a series, it is so much harder to interrupt each other passionately, the creative energy is missing in action. We adapt but it is not evolution.
Belona Greenwood’s book The Flying Shop of Imagination, is full of inspiring ideas to get children writing and inventing.
Final Thoughts
It is a year since I have spent time in a school with real, 3D children. Delivering an arts project to six-year-olds for a day in maverick weather this week was brilliant. A real return. But I cannot forget. We all carry a sorrow for the suffering of then and now. I cannot but believe that as artists we are in a fragile peace, we live in uncertainty and with that there is a challenge. Out of chaos comes creation.
