From teacup stories to tiny discos

The Mighty Booth So Far…
Settle in — about a 5 min read

Hello, Melanie here, Artistic Director of The Six Twenty.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been back in Trimdon and Blackhall, sharing The Mighty Booth with the communities that helped come up with the idea in the first place. And it’s been utterly joyous.

There’s something about bringing an idea back to the spaces where it all began. Especially when that idea has grown out of people’s stories, hobbies, passions and brilliant imaginations.

If you haven’t come across The Mighty Booth yet, it’s grown out of our earlier work with Men’s Cree groups in Durham, as part of No More Nowt’s Untold Stories programme. It’s all about exploring fandom, identity and the things people love. That bring them joy.

The idea for the Booth came from those conversations. A move away from a traditional theatre show, on a stage, into something smaller, more intimate and closer to people’s everyday lives. Something that can pop up. Something that can time travel a bit.

If you look closely, you might spot some of those roots in the design. There are echoes of pigeon crees, and those old listening booths you’d find in record shops… remember those? Small spaces, full of stories and music, where you’d step inside and discover something new.

And now, we’re bringing those early ideas back into the places they came from and building on them together.

The Mighty Booth is a tiny, magical space in progress. Part theatre experience, part listening booth, part exhibition, part living archive. We’ve been running hands-on sessions where people can make things, try things out, have a chat, and a laugh, and help shape what it becomes.

We’re also back working with the brilliant designer Alastair Flindall from Neck of the Woods, who helped bring the first version of the Booth to life. Together, we’re working with people to turn their ideas into something real and, hopefully, a little bit magical.

Some people have been helping us think about how the Booth looks and works. Others have been sharing stories, memories and objects that might live inside it. A lot of the best conversations have happened in our favourite way, over cups of tea, plenty of bikkies, and making things side by side.

There’s also something we’ve started calling Object Alchemy.

We’ve been calling it that… which feels kind of right. It’s about taking everyday things and turning them into something else entirely. Or just looking at them differently. What happens if a watering can or some LPs become a seat? Or something you’d usually walk past becomes the thing you stop and spend time with?

It’s playful, a bit scrappy, and still revealing itself… but it feels like a big part of how the Booth might work and be made.

We’ve had all sorts of brilliant suggestions already. Teacup stories from the Crafty Witches. Meccano-style signage. A bowls green or proggy-style welcome mat. A curtain or collage-style entrance.

And one of my personal favourites so far: the smallest line-dancing disco in the world. Thank you Blackhall. You know we love a mirror ball.

Someone also suggested adding a big roll of paper to the side of the Booth, so people can leave their names, doodles and little fragments of stories as they pass through, which we absolutely love.

There’s also been a lot of thinking about how the Booth can grow and change over time. Things that clip on, fold out, reveal surprises. Things that change as it travels.

One idea we keep coming back to is how quickly it can appear. At the moment, we can get it up in about 20 minutes. And that’s become quite an important question for us. How complicated do we want it to become, and how important is it that it can still just… arrive, almost out of nowhere?

It feels like we’ve only just scratched the surface of what’s possible with these object alchemy sessions. Taking everyday things and turning them, or sometimes smashing them, into something new. Things that shouldn’t quite work, but somehow do.

But alongside all of that making, something else has been happening too.

We’ve been sharing where the idea for the Booth came from in the first place. Pigeon crees. Record shop listening booths. Hobbies, collections, sheds, social clubs. All the small worlds people build around the things they love.

And that’s opened up all sorts of conversations. About music, memory, analogue technology, belonging and place. The kinds of things that stay with you. The kinds of things you don’t always get asked about.

We’ve started gathering some of those stories together, if you fancy a little ganders at what’s been shared so far.

We’re also beginning to get a clearer sense of The Caretaker. A performer / character who will guide you through the Booth and look after its stories.

Alongside all of this, more and more stories are finding their way in. Line dancing and tai chi. Crafting, music, local life. Not just shaping what the Booth might look like, but also what it might be like and feel like to step inside.

As this grows, it feels important to us that you can still see where it all began. Especially the men’s stories and fandoms that started all of this. But it’s also opening out now. Making room for more voices, more ages, more ways in.

We’re really lucky to be doing this with support from No More Nowt and Arts Council England. It’s meant we can spend proper time with people, making, testing and figuring things out together, and letting the project grow in the way it needs to.

If you’ve got a story, a hobby, an obsession, something you love, or something you haven’t done in years but still think about, we’d love to hear it.