Everyone is invited

Our emotional home is Cornwall, where the work started and where many company members live. Our practice draws together several threads that are defining features of the arts and culture ecology of Cornwall. Our work draws its form and inspiration from our geographical peripherality, our extraordinary natural and post-industrial landscapes and from the diversity of artists and art-forms working in close proximity in a narrow peninsula…  

Our physical environments are heavily marked by the history of human activity, written into the landscape in so many ways we scarcely notice.  

The landscape has ghosts; it has narrative and it has meaning. In each new residency we look for powerful locations that have deep resonance for communities in transition.  

As a company we are drawn to stories that are both epic and intimate, human stories that can touch and resonate with audiences across barriers of language, age and nationality.

This work attracts new audiences - people who have never wanted to go to the theatre - and makes them active. We create sensory worlds where everything is narrative; the light, the night, distance and closeness, from vast to tiny, a flag on the horizon, a character holding a rose so close you can smell it.

The performances are often promenade – the audience go on a journey through the show, encountering installations and scenes that knit a story.

The company uses an eclectic mix of media and art forms to make its shows – music, dance, puppetry, food, sailing, fire, engineering, hairdressing, gardening, choral singing, film, motorbikes, embroidery and abseiling have all featured in recent projects!

Participants contribute in many ways and at many levels. They might join a scratch choir rehearsing twice a week, they might make a memory box to contribute to an installation, or they might give up normal life for a few weeks to participate fully in rehearsals and preparation.