TOWN CRIERS

performance for public spaces, 2023

 

Town Criers is an outdoor performance co-created with local community participants. Donning the traditional livery of town criers, with bells and paper scrolls, they shout, on the streets, at the tops of their lungs. But these town criers don’t just deliver the news of the day. They may choose, instead of making top-down pronouncements, to ask questions, share secrets, crack jokes, demand things from the powers that be, tell the world how they feel.

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For us, this piece is circling the questions: What would people not used to being given a platform to speak choose to say? What means or methods of speaking in the streets are permitted? What is unsaid or unprocessed in our society? Could the town crier’s crystal clear delivery be used to express fear, uncertainty, doubt?

 

Crucially, there is no microphone, no technology, no media to amplify the choir of criers -  just a costume and the permission to make oneself heard.

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Read an interview with Ben and Clara about the project here.

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Commissioned by the Developed on Drummond Street partnership (Old Diorama Arts Centre and Camden People's Theatre)

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Lead artists Clara Potter-Sweet and Ben Kulvichit

Performers San Devan, Dorothy McDowell, Debbie Radcliffe, Dan Badger, Francesco Pelliccio

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Photos Claire Haigh, Zbigniew Kotkiewicz

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Past dates:

29 July 2023 / Regent’s Roots, Regent’s Park Estate Community Festival

1 July 2023 / Tolmer’s Square Festival