This experiment in close-up theatre is designed for performance in everyday places like pubs, clubs, and kitchens. It has even been toured on a boat.
What does it mean to “belong” to a particular environment, or to migrate from place to place?
Danny and Barb greet a small audience as if they are friends in the local pub. They recount memories of growing up in Dockfield, a small neighbourhood of Bradford sandwiched between river and canal. As they talk, they build a 3-D map of the area, using ordinary household objects.
Woven in among the characters’ personal stories is a longer history of Dockfield, as it became industrialised in the 19th Century, and ‘post-industrial’ in the 21st. It’s a story of pollution and child’s-play, of death and new life. It’s a story of nature recovery, and of coming home again.
The close-up staging enables spectators to join in the conversation, as if just sitting with friends. Listening to Danny and Barb’s story, spectators find their own feelings and memories being stirred up in unexpected ways.
The scripted performance lasts about 35 minutes if not interrupted (though interruptions are welcome!), and audiences usually keep talking afterwards for at least that long again…
This Island’s Mine was originally developed in 2017, as a community project for Dockfield, in association with Shipley’s Kirkgate Centre. Yet we’ve discovered that it works just as well for audiences who don’t know Dockfield at all.
In 2021, the play toured up the Leeds-Liverpool Canal on a barge, in support of the Aire Rivers Trust and its DNAire project (Developing the Natural Aire). Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the focus of DNAire was on restoring the natural heritage of the River Aire — getting “salmon back to Skipton” by building fish passes on some of the river’s old, industrial weirs.
This Island’s Mine explores the intimate connections between natural heritage, built heritage, and the living community heritage that exists in memory and everyday life (Steve’s reflections on all this can be read here).
This Island’s Mine is not currently available for one-off performances, as it demands rehearsal time with a second actor. However, it offers another example of the kind of work we can be commissioned to make.
This Island’s Mine (2017, revised 2019/2021)
Co-devised by Steve Scott-Bottoms, Simon Brewis and Kat Martin.
Written by Steve Scott-Bottoms.
Directed by Simon Brewis.
Performed by Steve Scott-Bottoms, Kat Martin (2017/19) and Claire Seddon (2021).
With thanks to Kirkgate Centre, Canal Connections, and Aire Rivers Trust.
