UNTOLD STORIES: FANDOM
2022 - present
Working with men’s crees and community groups across East Durham towns and villages since 2022, theatre company, The Six Twenty, have co-created a project celebrating the hobbies, interests and fandoms of men from this geogrphical area. Bowling, music collecting, building Meccano, pigeon fancying, beekeeping and wrestling are big passions authentically retold for a traditionally hard-to-reach segment of the creative community.
As part of this commission The Six Twenty Theatre have been working with men’s crees and community groups in Blackhall, Horden, Trimdon Station, Eastlea, Thornley, Shotton and Easington, telling the overlooked stories about the passions and hobbies of local people living on your doorstep.
The Six Twenty have been engaging men of the East Durham area through socials, story-telling workshops, and giving participants a space to share their passions, hobbies and interests. They are working with us to co-create a new performance and exhibition that celebrates these untold stories. This includes working to develop a script through theatre making, devising and storytelling workshops, audio design and music curation workshops to develop the soundscape for the show and set building workshops to co-design and develop a tourable set and exhibition.
As part of this project participants have shared their wealth of skills with us and invited us to partake in their hobbies. It has been a joy to learn how to bowl, build Meccano, pigeon fancy, beekeeping, and wrestle, to name a few. We have been able to learn and share skills, passions and hobbies with one another allowing us to understand why these fandoms are so important to each person.
This project is a celebration of local men and their untold stories of fandom. It’s about their passions and the things that bring them joy. It’s about championing the local heroes that are right on your doorstep.
Read the project case study: Engaging Men in the Arts, here.
Project Partners:
— Blackhall Community Centre, Thornley Village Hall, Trimdon Station Community Centre, CCW Colliery Championship Wrestling, Horden Hub House, Roseby Road Wellbeing Centre, Eastlea Community Centre.
— The Six Twenty Twenty theatre company.
— Commissioned by No More Nowt and funded by funded by Arts Council England.
