TYPE OF WORK
Participatory theatre workshops and professional
performance packages for training and awareness raising

TARGET GROUPS
Celebrates diversity and involves a wide range of communities in the creative process, including the elderly, marginalised young people and social and healthcare professionals

GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT
UK

COMPANY POLICY
Immediate Theatre works in partnership with other organisations to create work that is:

• Inclusive – working at the grass roots and celebrating diversity
• Interactive – involving communities throughout the creative process
• Imaginative – finding new ways to engage with vital issues.

SCALE OF PROJECTS
Number of practitioners: 3–10
Number of participants: 20–40
Preparation time: Varies
Contact time: 14 hours/week

PERMANENT STAFF
Jo Carter, Artistic Director
Anna Sexton, Administrator
Julie Creffieild, Project Leader (young people’s work)
Charmain Humphrey, Workshop Leader (young people’s work)

We All Fall Down (UK, 1999–2002)
Immediate Theatre has developed three projects with and for older residents in Hackney, north London. The company was originally approached by the North London Mobile Repair Service in 1999. It had funds to carry out home safety checks and repairs in pensioners’ homes but was finding it difficult to encourage people to use the service. Working with a range of older people’s health professionals, a director (Jo Carter) and writer (Michele Celeste) held a series of discussions with older people’s social clubs from a number of different cultural groups about how they fell and their grief and anxiety about falling.

A script was developed, overseen by a steering group of older people and workers. The play looks at Sally who has lost her husband and believes that his ghost is making her fall because of her new romantic attachment to an elderly refugee, Yusuf. Moving between slapstick, melodrama and romance, the play is moving and uplifting and focuses the audience on the dangers they face in their homes. The action is stopped when Sally has a major fall. At this point a representative from the Mobile Repair Service talks to the audience about Sally’s accidents and encourages them to talk about their own stories. The action is concluded with Sally marrying Yusuf.

The play has proved extremely popular and works for audiences of different cultural groups. It is now used across north London to promote home safety checks. A brief introduction to the play is sufficient for a non English speaking audience as the work is essentially visual.

Young Free and Legal
A performance and peer education project to help young people understand their rights and enable them to make use of legal services. In partnership with Hackney Law Centre. (UK, summer 2003)