Category: Podcast

The Slaughterhouse Club

Posted on by tim.lightfactory@googlemail.com

For the last 5 years I have been working with Artists Robin Whitmore and Mark Whitelaw on Duckie’s The Slaughterhouse Club.

The Slaughterhouse Club was a participatory arts project with homeless vulnerable Londoners struggling with booze and addiction issues. The project ran for forty weeks per year until 2020.

The participants – about 45 hostel residents regularly working throughout the year – were treated as artists and encouraged to make creative work. Together they make songs, poems, stories, short plays, animations, puppet shows, slide shows, paintings, films and videos. The Slaughterhouse Club engaged residents of the hostels to connect with themselves and their community through the creation of these arts activities – to aid harm minimisation and personal growth.

The work was very delicate and the hostel environment is very unpredictable. Our participants lead chaotic lives, and struggle with entrenched alcohol and drug addictions, fragile mental health and often run-ins with the authorities. Most of the work was one-to-one, drawing out creativity through personal conversations and developing inventive exercises. The Slaughterhouse Club was produced by Duckie in association with Thames Reach Hostels and funded by the Big Lottery Fund and Vauxhall One.

We Said No!

Posted on by tim.lightfactory@googlemail.com
We Said No! Screenshot

One of the things I’ve been working on over the last few years is the community podcast ‘We Said No!’ about the fight to save Rimrose Valley Country Park in Sefton, Merseyside.

I suggested the idea of doing a podcast to the friends group and they were excited by the prospect. Since then, we’ve put together a small core team, initially planning 6 episodes focusing on different aspects, such as the parks history, how National Highways operates and Peel Ports role in all this. We’ve learnt a lot, particularly about air quality and public health and how destructive the plans are where already the life expectancy is a shocking 12 years less for residents who live close to the port. Building another 4 lane highway in the area is not the solution.

It’s been a great collaborative project, from developing the script, to looking at positive alternatives to road building, that seem to be a win win for everyone in the long term. Next year, the consultation by #nationalhighways begins so it will be interesting to see what we can uncover about that process, which will be useful I’m sure for other places in the country fighting to stop the building of these polluting, unnecessary roads.

Before The Act Podcast

Posted on by tim.lightfactory@googlemail.com

Over lockdown I was lucky enough to work with a couple of friends Bev Ayre and Lou Muddle creating a podcast about a ‘Before The Act’ a remarkable but often forgotten about theatrical celebration held at the Piccadilly Theatre in London in 1988.

It showcased the work of lesbian and gay authors, poets, playwrights and composers and was intended to highlight the harmful impact of Section 28 – a notorious piece of legislation which prohibited the ‘promotion of homosexuality‘.

It’s been interesting working out the format for the story, weaving archive material with present day interviews using the actual performance recordings as a narrative structure. Episode 3 will be out shortly.