Excavate

07/05/2026

Andy's latest substack post looks at how a community play for Birmingham foreshadowed remarkable ideas around place that were about to be unleashed by the formidable and brilliant geographer Doreen Massey - https://thecommunityplaywright.substack.com/p/routes-not-roots-heartlanders-in?r=77p1iw

06/05/2026

We've been working with photography students from Nottingham College today on our Colwick Woods Audio Guide and Nature Connections projects. This was the first time any of the group had been into the woods and they were treated to a real show by the buzzards.

27/04/2026

Andy's latest Substack post looks at the 'lost' community play by Arnold Wesker for Basildon in 1989.

Chapter Three ('The Problem with Place', 1984-1997) / Part Three)

21/04/2026

Andy's latest substack post looks at how the community play and political geographers were faced with a major challenge around the celebration of place - how can a sense of the rooted and authentic co-exist with the potential for dynamism and change, avoiding the dangers of insiders and outsiders / us and them.

Chapter Three ('The Problem with Place', 1984-1997) / Part Two)

16/04/2026

We are almost ready to record the Colwick Woods Audio Guide and are looking for as many different voices as possible to be a part of it. The recording will be at Snug studios in Nottingham on Tuesday May 26th and Wednesday May 28th. If you are interested please email [email protected]

13/04/2026

Andy's latest substack post, introducing the challenges of celebrating place faced by the community playwright (and community artists more generally) - https://thecommunityplaywright.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-place-an-introduction

07/04/2026

Andy's latest post looks at a moment of change for the Arts Council and Colway Theatre Trust, Jon Oram's play for Hull, and his new approach to the historical work of the community play. https://thecommunityplaywright.substack.com/p/an-end-and-a-beginning?r=77p1iw

26/03/2026

Andy's latest substack looks at how history, politics, and carnival came together in the first Dorchester Community Play.

Chapter Two ('Theatre as History, History as Theatre', 1984-1992) / Part Four

21/03/2026

It's the time of year to get out and about. These seven audio storytelling walks, all free, involved well over 200 people in their making. Do have a look.

A walking project based on stories from the towns and villages of the Sherwood Forest area

21/11/2025

It's the tenth anniversary of the first iteration of But I Know This City! a community reading / performance of one of the most celebrated experiments in British literature. It's one of the projects of which we're most fond (with the name, suggested by David Belbin, coming from the first line of the chapter First - one of only two of the 27 chapters, separately bound and to be read in any order, that is named (the other being Last).
We did it again four years later with an even bigger cast to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the book, with Johnson's widow and son - who are in the book - coming to visit. The Spectator wrote a nice article about it - https://new-dev.spectator.com.au/.../nottingham.../ - ending with the words 'Many of the readers are keen to try it again, perhaps — with luck — to celebrate Nottingham getting that Unesco status', which it did a few weeks later.