Our first year at Park Bench Theatre
Twelve months ago, Lolly and I were in the kitchen at two different points in our day. He was cooking breakfast (bacon, beans, eggs, toast) and I was clearing up lunch (green salad, haloumi, tomatoes). Two generations, two meals, one room. And one question: what if we pooled resources?
Lolly had just finished at UAL, where he’d studied Technical Arts for Performance and Screen, and was setting out as a freelance set designer and prop maker. I was looking back on a career supporting other organisations with operations, fundraising and governance, and wanting to do my own work. What if we made a theatre company that talked to both of our stages in the game?
The play arrived almost immediately. We could both see it: two boys arriving at a fictional school in South East London, a hundred years apart, and in the archive an older figure afraid of what digitalisation might do. We could use puppetry to bring history alive, said Lolly, leaping about the kitchen with his hair tied up in a towel. I’ve got some ancestry research, I said, waiting for my tea to brew.
Park Bench Theatre was born. Here’s how our first year went, in six two-month chapters.
December and January: Setting Up (and Holding Our Breath)
First came the big question: charity, CIC or CiO? We read, we compared, and we chose a Community Interest Company. Why? Freedom. A CIC lets us trade, earn and experiment, while a legally binding commitment to community benefit keeps us honest. We wrote our Articles, paid our fee and set our objectives: to tell intergenerational stories too often left untold. We started as two directors, though that would change.
On 19 January we applied to Peckham Fringe 2026 and held our breath. We set up the company email address and the Instagram page, and then we had to write. We did it from the heart: real personal stories, revenge autobiography, everything we’d both carried from school. Miscarriage, abuse, suicide, injustice, racism. The trigger warnings ran to pages. The writing was passionate, muddled and authentic, and at the end of the day that’s exactly where a first draft should start.
February and March: First Light
In February we auditioned and chose five actors for a rehearsed reading at the Telegraph Hill Festival. Steve Carrig Davis, a true community legend, gifted us Hatcham House for a day. Then came the news that we’d been accepted to show work in progress at Peckham Fringe in June. Finance isn’t our favourite thing, so we teamed up with LTG Accountants, who use Apron and QuickBooks to keep us in order. Our very first payment was £75 for marketing. We took our courage in both hands and asked a private donor to invest in our work and he did. We also invested in SASOLO to help us with our Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant application, so we could focus on the creative work and keep the equity in the project.
On 17 March (St Patrick’s Day, and my birthday) we had eight hours to put together a script-in-hand performance. We argued passionately for contracting and trust exercises at the start of the day, even with the clock ticking, and we were supported throughout by our drama therapist, the brilliant Anna Crump, whose ethical kindness and care underpin everything we do. That evening we shared the story with friends. We learnt that this is a very exposing thing to do. The feedback was full of interest and the desire to know more, and it also showed us where people got confused.
April and May: Finding the Shape
At Peckham Fringe we had the good fortune to work with Jessica Siân, Royal Court writer, as our dramaturg. She arrived with her baby daughter and we spent an hour working out what the script needed. Every character needed their own story arc. Back at HQ we put up a blue painted pin board and mapped who was doing what, and why. A stronger story emerged: two timelines, two themes, racism and violence against women and girls.
Then came two weeks of paid rehearsals. Our five actors were paid Equity minimum and joined by Thabo Kona, Sarah Priddy and Richard Bob Semple (brought to us by casting director Jo Farrugia), plus Dé Jean Brown and Belenus Johnson from the rehearsed reading. We learnt about contracting, about respecting the actors while fighting our corner, and about running a marketing campaign while writing technical specs, risk registers and ticketing with Theatre Peckham. Inés Aresti led movement, Anna Crump supported us again as drama therapist, and Kai Richie Kassell ran our social media, with a little help from Dé Jean, whose first post reached over 4,000 views.
June and July: Sell-Outs and Setbacks
Two sell-out performances! A review that picked up one storyline more than the other helped us see what matters most in our original pre-Windrush story of migration, and what was still missing. It was a thrilling couple of days, but Arts Council England turned down our application. We went back to SASOLO for the resubmission. In for a penny, in for a pound.
In July we began building a partnership with The Somerville Adventure Playground to run workshops with their young community, learning from their experience of migration. We built workshops, held meetings and almost landed a collaboration with Goldsmiths University.
August and September: Learning the Hard Way
A second decline from Arts Council England followed, but we had the right to a third application, and this time Lolly took on the lion’s share, rewriting the sections on who we are and why this story needs community input around migration and language. We also began preparing a National Lottery Heritage Fund application and got a real education in the process. We submitted a project enquiry and received genuinely insightful feedback. We welcomed two new directors, Dé Jean Brown and Inés Aresti, and connected with Sarah Limb, a historian of migration, education and empire.
In September Lolly bypassed email communication altogether and simply turned up at Southwark Archives to ask them to partner with us. Our project fills a gap in their collections and they agreed to host our heritage outputs, including oral histories, a new and exciting strand of work we’re developing with 16 to 25 year olds.
October and November: Back to the Story
A second NLHF project enquiry helped us refine what we’re doing, and our application progressed to assessment. We started on the website, with Lolly in charge of design and visuals and me on the copy.
Now it’s November, and the most important thing to remember as we close the year is this: without a story, there is no play. We have worked together, cried and laughed together, had a great time and got through some tough family stuff. Now it’s time to get that story really rocking, and we’re out on the road, interviewing people who knew Dr IOB back in the day to see how they’ll shape what we write.
What We Learnt (in Alphabetical Order, Naturally)
Believe in yourself and your story. Take feedback with a pinch of salt, and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do this.
Collaborate. Our young actors brought insight, commitment and fresh interpretation.
Don’t let the operations take over. There’s a lot of it, and it can crowd out the writing.
Expect a no, then go again. Persistence is a creative act.
Invest in support where you can’t do it yourself. For us, that was finance and accounting.
Kindness and intent come first. Our drama therapist was a game changer.
Pay fairly. Creatives deserve support financially, emotionally and psychologically.
Play, always. The play came alive when we imagined animating an archive with puppets.
Remember the rehearsal room. Being in it with brilliant people makes all the fundraising and negotiation worth it.
Turn up in person. Sometimes the best meeting is the one you walk into.
Thank you to everyone who has been part of this first year, from the actors and artists to the funders, friends and community champions who opened their doors. We’d not have made it without you. As November progresses, we’re getting ready to complete our first year accounts. Does this resonate with you? Have you any advice for us? Please do get in touch and let us know your tips and suggestions.
More soon. The kettle’s on.
Siobán and Lolly
Park Bench Theatre
