The Anfield Home Tour
Site-specific immersive performance with community performers
Role: Director, script development, research
Developed as a way to contextualise Homebaked/2up2down as part of Liverpool Biennial 2012.
With: Deborah Morgan, Graham Hicks, Jayne Lawless, Fred Brown and Sue Humphreys
Photography: Mark Loudon
With input and inspiration from Lynn Tolmon, Laurie Peake, Angela McKay, Samantha Jones, Roselyn Groves, Bob Blanchard, Andrea Jones, Patrick and Carol McKay, Maria Brewster and Franny George
The Anfield Home Tour was conceived by Jeanne van Heeswijk and developed by Britt Jürgensen as a way to provide a window into the the socio-political landscape of the area, serving as an introduction for Biennial (and other) visitors to the broader context of the emerging initiative Homebaked/2up2down and its proposal for local people to ‘Take matters into their own hands’ in regards to the development of their place. In this performance, audiences boarded a minibus for a guided journey through the streets surrounding the iconic bakery in the shadow of Anfield Stadium which served as the initiative's home. Local stories about the difficult history of regeneration in the area, narrated by community members and the character ‘your local tour guide’ Carl (played by actor and comedian Graham Hicks) and his uncle, the bus driver Alan (played by local bus driver Alan), provided a window into the socio-political landscape of the area, serving as an introduction to the project's broader context.
In the press
“In the hierarchy of needs in austere times in deprived areas, art may come pretty low, but if art can help regain food and shelter, pride and spirit, then it has a purpose both practical and ephemeral. This was a story that could have been complex, technical, dull and aggressively ideological; instead it has been brilliantly reduced to its actual simplicity: what has been done to a community, and what needs to be done to repair the damage. Its message is simple, and one we should all have learned long ago: The people who know what is best for communities are communities themselves and they are the only people who can truly regenerate an area.”
(Kenn Taylor, The Guardian)
Liverpool Post Arts Awards 2012
“Special award IT’S hard to put this winner in a single category – is it art, theatre, documentary? – so we’ve created an award especially for it. Part of the Liverpool Biennial contemporary art festival, the Anfield Home Tour used the residents’ experiences to tell the story of housing in the area on a bus tour. Written by novelist Deborah Morgan and theatre maker Britt Jurgensen, it was full of cheeky Scouse humour, lump in the throat moments, tea and cake, while making a serious political point. It should be compulsory for all local politicians – heck, it should be compulsory for everyone.”