We’re excited to announce a special collaboration with Sightlines to bring you a week-long online festival exploring performance and wellbeing this October. Launching on World Mental Health Day on Tuesday 10 October, we’ll explore mental health and wellbeing through a variety of events including performances, workshops, talks and panel discussions.
Sightlines Festival Programme
10 - 15 October, 2023
This “unique, innovative show about grief which is not only funny but goes beyond entertainment” is available to stream throughout the week. There will be a Q&A with Ugly Bucket about the show on Sunday 15 October. Book for free.
A dying man’s last wish: for his friends to create a show about death.
Will it be subtle? Will it be sophisticated? Probably not, but it’s his funeral. Literally.
Multi award-winning physical comedy company Ugly Bucket process the death of a friend in the only way they know how – through a kinetic maelstrom of outrageous clowning, personal testimony and a thumping techno soundtrack.
‘It’s fast, it’s funny and it plumbs the emotional depths exquisitely… exciting, innovative work’ – The Stage
The UNTAPPED award winner and Edinburgh Fringe sell out hit Good Grief is a paranormal physical performance of loss, and the memories left behind, brought to you by ‘one of the UK’s most exciting young theatre companies’ – New Diorama.
Ugly Bucket’s Good Grief will be available to stream throughout the week of the festival, get a ticket and you will be sent a link to watch the performance.
There will be a Q&A with Ugly Bucket about the show on Sunday 15 October. Book for free.
★★★★★ FEST MAG
A breathtaking, important piece of work. Go. It’ll make you feel alive.
★★★★★ EDINBURGH GUIDE
A unique, innovative show about grief which is not only funny but goes beyond entertainment and is profoundly affecting.
★★★★ The Scotsman
Thinking about death has inspired a show packed to brim with life and joy.
★★★★ The Stage
It’s fast, it’s funny and it plumbs the emotional depths exquisitely.
About Ugly Bucket
Ugly Bucket are a multi award winning Liverpool based company that combine clowning, music and verbatim text to tackle taboos head-on. Their shows are funny, fast, physical, and hit you right in the gut. Their previous Edinburgh Fringe sell out productions include Bost-Uni Plues and 2 Clowns 1 Cup. More recently in the pandemic they we’re commissioned by HOME Manchester to create ‘ABC’ (Anything But Covid) – which is available to watch online. Ugly Bucket we’re part of the New Diorama Emerging Company Programme and have been described as ‘one of the freshest companies at the fringe ‘– The Stage, and ‘One of the UK’s most exciting young theatre companies’ New Diorama London.
Content Warning:
This show is about grief and contains personal accounts of bereavement. Every story has been treated with love and respect and, in sharing these stories, Ugly Bucket and the voices featured in the show hope to spark healthy and open conversations about grief, to help audiences feel less isolated.
Tuesday 10 October, 2023
8 PM - 9.30 PM
Join other artists, producers and audience members in Northern England to discuss the relationship between performance and wellbeing.
Join us for a networking event bringing together performance artists, producers and audiences in Northern England, across disciplines, to discuss what the relationship between performance and wellbeing means to you.
A chance to meet other practitioners and discuss
- How performance can be used to explore and support mental, physical and societal health
- The potential and limitations of formal arts settings
- The significance of intersectionality in how we understand the impact of performance
- How making and watching performance has impacted you and the people in your community
Wednesday 11 October, 2023
5 PM - 6.30 PM
Sammy Glover leads a workshop exploring consent, boundaries and conflict resolution in rehearsal rooms.
How do we as directors, practitioners and artists create rehearsal rooms and creative spaces that are free to take creative risks but remain safe? Isn’t it a contradiction to have a ‘safe’ space that also dares? What are boundaries and what is consent? How do we handle conflict responsibly and productively in a room?
About the facilitator:
Sammy is a queer theatre director based in London specialising in Young People, at-risk Young People and community-focused theatre. Sammy works closely with young people to stage their experiences and ideas and they are committed to making the form accessible and intersectional, and seek to celebrate neurodiversity and gender diversity within their work.
Sammy was Targeted Work Associate Director at the Lyric Hammersmith, Resident Director at the Almeida, Associate Director of The Big House Theatre Company and currently works as National Theatre Mentor Director for Connections and a facilitator for Synergy Theatre Project.
They have just directed The Last Show Before We Die, for the Roundabout Theatre at Edinburgh Fringe 2023.
Wednesday 11 October, 2023
8 PM - 9.30 PM
This panel will explore how trauma and racial identity intersect with artistic practice.
This panel will explore how trauma and racial identity intersect with artistic practice, within institutions, individuals’ identities and in communities.
How can we have nuance in how Global Majority stories are told?
How can artists be cared for and empowered in the process?
Led by Nicole Joseph, we will explore these and other themes that emerged during Bradford Producing Hub’s Empowered Black & Global Majority Programme.
About the facilitator:
Nicole Joseph is a Writer, Theatre Maker and Community Artist based in Bradford. She is Creative Instigator at Bradford Producing Hub and has led on their Empowered programmes for Black & Global Majority, LGBTQIA+, and Deaf, Disabled & Neurodiverse artists.
She has led on the Empowered: Series of Care programme for artists covering: preventing burnout, sustainability, knowing your worth & rights and in partnership with Mind The Gap: inclusive practice, building creative accessible spaces and access riders. She project-managed their recent Make The Change event holding space for discussion around what changes we want to see in the industry for marginalised artists and allies and showcasing and celebrating the artists in BPH’s Empowered cohorts.
As a Writer and Theatre-Maker Nicole has a holistic, spiritual, human centred and community-care focussed practice. She was awarded in the most recent round of Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice funding to progress her playwriting practice. She is a director for Graeae’s Crips Without Constraints co-produced by Theatre by The Lake (2023) and has worked with the RSC, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Crucible Theatre, Tamasha Theatre, Royal Exchange Theatre and Leeds Playhouse as a Writer and Theatre-Maker.
Friday 13 October, 2023
5 PM - 6.30 PM
A discussion on the intersection of neurodivergence and queerness.
A discussion on the intersection of neurodivergence and queerness and its exploration and significance in performance practice, with neurodivergent LGBTQ+ panellists from different art forms, led by Sammy Glover.
Sammy runs a workshop looking at a number of strategies and schools of thought in all these areas, building towards more competent and safe rehearsal rooms for participants, directors and facilitators alike.
About the facilitator:
Sammy is a queer theatre director based in London specialising in Young People, at-risk Young People and community-focused theatre. Sammy works closely with young people to stage their experiences and ideas and they are committed to making the form accessible and intersectional, and seek to celebrate neurodiversity and gender diversity within their work.
Sammy was Targeted Work Associate Director at the Lyric Hammersmith, Resident Director at the Almeida, Associate Director of The Big House Theatre Company and currently works as National Theatre Mentor Director for Connections and a facilitator for Synergy Theatre Project.
They have just directed The Last Show Before We Die, for the Roundabout Theatre at Edinburgh Fringe 2023.Sammy runs a workshop looking at a number of strategies and schools of thought in all these areas, building towards more competent and safe rehearsal rooms for participants, directors and facilitators alike.
Saturday 14 October, 2023
1 PM - 2.30 PM
A panel discussion exploring the experiences of chronically ill theatre-makers.
Join us to hear about the experiences of chronically ill theatre-makers.
Chaired by Katrina Woolley
Katrina is a chronically ill theatre-maker and producer and director of Sightlines Festival. She is the founder of Big Mind Theatre, has worked with companies including Utopia Theatre and MAYA Productions, and was previously a supported artist at Sheffield Theatres, where she ran a creative affinity space for other chronically ill theatre-makers. She also works as a Support Worker and Youth Engagement Officer for mental health charity, Young Minds.
Saturday 14 October, 2023
3 PM - 5 PM
Online performance by the participants of our Storytelling for Mental Wellbeing workshops.
Sunday 15 October, 2023
3 PM - 4.30 PM
Martin Willis from Objectively Funny leads a workshop exploring how we can make our comedy spaces healthier.
How we can make our comedy spaces healthier? What challenges do we face?
How would you go about building a supportive and sustainable industry from the ground up?
Martin Willis from Objectively Funny leads a collaborative workshop, open to anyone – whether you are a seasoned stand up, a big wig producer, a fresh faced open mic-er or just a lover of laughs.
Sunday 15 October, 2023
5 PM - 6.30 PM
Join the wonderful team of Ugly Bucket to discuss their production, Good Grief.
Good Grief is available to stream for the week of the festival, get your online performance link here.
Join the wonderful team of Ugly Bucket to discuss their production, Good Grief, and ask them all your burning questions.
This discussion will be hosted by Lily Asch (founder of Real Talk and facilitator of Storytelling for Mental Wellbeing workshops for Sightlines).
Sunday 15 October, 2023
7 PM - 8.30 PM
Join us to celebrate the end of our festival with a closing night cabaret of music and other performances!
Wolf Peaches (they/them) is the solo project of Hazel Thompson, setting emotive, original melodies within a swoony harmonic landscape; fusing pop and folk sounds with a teaspoon of soul. Politically fuelled reflective songs, floating in dream scapes and grounded in a deep respect for flora. Resisting any single genre, each song inhabits its own world; yet all are linked by the same confident lyricism and singular, fluid vocal. They recently toured Slovenia with Hannah James and the Etno Histeria World Orchestra, as well as performing at Floating Castle Festival. They are one half of the duo Lucy & Hazel, performing original, politically fuelled songs that are equal parts love, rage and humour. They are a facilitator with Key of She and a member of The Emmergene Collective.
Diyo Bopengo (he/him) is a Congolese from the DRC who grew up in South Africa and lives in the UK. He volunteers with Volunteer Action Sheffield and other humanitarian organisations. He is part of Good Chance Theatre’s poetry collective Change the Word and has co-published two of their anthologies
Orola (she/her) was born in Ireland to parents of Nigerian and Guyanese descent, which has given her a beautiful yet complex insight into her diverse world and defined her identity. Her journey of self-awareness is heavily reflected in her poetry. She loves scribbling her thoughts on paper and bringing those words alive as spoken word. Performing at many spoken word nights in the North West has allowed her to connect with people from different walks of life. In February 2020, her work was published alongside 30 other writers in a Change the Word Anthology.
Michael Haj (he/him) started DJing whilst studying in Edinburgh. In that time, he founded club night Pleasuredome, known for its anarchic mix of art, visuals, and uplifting music, as well as presented a show on local radio station EH-FM. An eclectic collector of all kinds of groovy, soulful and uplifting tunes, regularly playing vinyl only set at Orbit Taproom. He is also a theatre-maker and his play Going Slightly Mad was shown as part of Sightlines 2021.
