Photo: How we accessed Manchester’s theatre in 2022

Hello, Danielle here!

We’re back and raring to go for an exciting and jam packed year ahead! But before the year gets fully under way we wanted to take a look back at all the amazing places that we visited last year (and what a busy year it was!).

Between our Look Out! visits this year and our summer Gambit we visited:

  • The Palace Theatre
  • Gorse Hill Studios – for our very own, Chrissy Jones’ Shadow Girl Origins
  • Contact Manchester
  • HOME
  • The Royal Exchange
  • The Lowry
  • The Edge Theatre and Arts Centre – to catch a flight to SPACED by Michael Gleave
  • Manchester Metropolitan University – Birley Street Campus
  •  University of Salford – Media City Campus
  • The Plaza Stockport

Of these wonderful venues, we’d like to highlight the places and spaces who are getting access right.

The Royal Exchange

We started our rehearsals for Gambit at The Royal Exchange. We all loved our short time here. To go along with the beauty of the theatre itself, and its’ very blue rehearsal room, accessibility here was good (although the lifts were quite small which meant only one wheelchair user could go in it at a time). We also loved the location of this space, it was great for being able to pop out for a cheeky McDonald’s at lunchtime!

HOME

Next up is HOME, where we really did make ourselves at home. We were here for almost two weeks! HOME and it’s surroundings were brilliant. We really loved the facilities here and also enjoyed making use of the outside space and relaxing on the deckchairs (we did work hard, honest!) . Access here was great, they were even in the process of having a Changing Places toilet fitted. Being at HOME really had a great vibe about it which really helped with creativity in the rehearsal room. We were sad to leave HOME but I’m sure we’ll be back at some point!!

Summer Gambit rehearsals – HOME environs

The Universities

Both Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Salford Campus’ were brilliant and accessibility was amazing. Everything we needed was on the ground floor at both venues and both had a fantastic Changing Places facility. MMU had a big outdoor space which allowed us to take GAMBIT outdoors for the first time in preparation for further exploration around Univeristy Of Salford and Media City!

Contact

Our Wednesdy group has nestled into Contact’s rehearsal spaces since spring 2021 – but visiting as an audience is a different kettle of fish.

Here’s what Kelly said about our visit to Contact to see Not Your Circus Dog: Not F**kin Sorry

I didn’t really know much about the show at the time so was really interested in what it was going to be like. It was brilliant, covering serious subject matters like mental health and disability. Done in a cabaret style, all singing, all dancing – which is right up my street. The actors were amazing, getting the audience involved and really making everyone laugh. I will be looking out their return to Manchester and recommend  definitely see it again and recommend Not Your Circus Dog collective. It was such a great, welcoming night at Contact and gave me some thoughts for my own work.

Kelly Hoye, Individual Artist, and Proud and Loud Arts’ Member

Overall our experience visiting all these different Greater Manchester venues was fantastic and we’d like to thank all of them for making us so welcome and playing an important part in bringing us together and our performance ideas to life.