Towns, Boroughs & Neighbourhoods

Our work in Towns, Boroughs and Neighbourhoods celebrates the loveliness of localities and the people who make them. We work in partnership with local artists and communities to create new pieces of play for public spaces, including high streets, pubs and cemeteries. With our unique expertise combining site-specific play, community engagement and everyday tech, we create impactful new work outside traditional cultural infrastructures.

The work can take the form of…

• a smartphone audio adventure in the streets of a neighbourhood
• immersive theatre in a local building
• a game
• an exchange of gifts
• or a good conversation between strangers.

Our approach involves landing to meet communities, gathering local knowledge, and developing a network of local makers. Recurring projects include We The People (of this Place) – our signature gameshow created by and for the people of a place; the Playful Secret Agency – a series of workshops inviting local people to create lovely secret interventions for their community; and Ends and Tales, our series of audio adventures on foot celebrating the untold stories of local communities, in partnership with Tamasha.

We work at a range of scales, from celebrating the stories of an estate to taking over an entire borough, but always building true meaningful connections with local people. In the last few years, we have created projects in Liverpool Chinatown, Quezon City Manila, Margate, Gloucester and the City of London. Besides one-off collaborations, we also build sustained cross-sector partnerships in specific places, including our local borough of Tower Hamlets.