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About us
A different kind of production company
We celebrate real life stories of women (and occasionally men) on the canals in thoroughly researched, accurately presented performances, publications & audio.
Kate
Boater, writer, storyteller and actor, Kate Saffin has lived on a narrowboat and told stories of the waterways as solo plays since 1999.
She trained as a writer for stage and broadcast media at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (MFA). She adapted the waterway classic Ramlin Rose: the Boatwoman’s Story by Sheila Stewart and has performed at canal festivals, in pub gardens and at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Other canal based plays have retold the apparently true story of a brothel on a boat (The Mary Rose: A Boat of Ill Repute), a late coming of age for a pensioner who finds herself on holiday on a boat (Finding Libby) and a musical based on Midsummer Milly, a story for children by Dan Clacher.
Joanna
Joanna became a Director of Alarum Productions in 2023 but first worked with Kate in 2013 on the Alarum's Now is the Winter (Edinburgh Festival).
Starting her theatre life running a schools touring puppet theatre and Directing Community Theatre in Leicestershire she trained as a Stage Manager in the mid-1980s and then in Writing for Performance and Dramaturgy at Goldsmith’s University (MA 2020). Her play Hole was performed at North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford, 2019.She works with Oxfordshire company Café Reason Butoh Dance as a production manager – most recently Tipping Point (Oxford 2020). As a Disabled person she has a keen interest in both writing shows for other Disabled people as well as ensuring the theatre she is involved in is accessible for all.
Heather
Heather Wastie is a founder member of Alarum Productions with Kate. Although she decided to step down as a Director in 2023 you may still catch an occasional performance in a future show.
She is a poet, singer-songwriter and accordion player and has been involved with canals since childhood, when her family took part in campaigns to save them. Heather co-wrote and performed with Kate in their shows Idle Women and I Dig Canals, and her voice and music can be heard on the Alarum podcasts on sound cloud. Heather continues to write and publish. Her most recent poetry collection is To the Future, Love Cropredy (Lapal Publications).
Mission Statement
We are passionate about celebrating the history of the UK waterways, seeking out the stories of women’s involvement, and sharing this history with others through artistic engagement.
We believe in preserving this history for future generations, enabling local communities to come together to celebrate their heritage, and strengthen these communities through attendance at live performances and workshops, as well as engaging in audio, video and written material.
We create artistic spaces in settings that would not normally support the arts, such as boatyards and other historic waterside locations, bringing communities together to see their history in new and exciting ways, focusing on inclusivity and affordability.
We create and strengthen partnerships with historic waterside locations, and in doing so enable thorough research and archiving to take place, ensuring local history is preserved.
We support and encourage collaboration with and between other solo performers and small companies, thereby building a strong waterways theatre presence and promoting excellence in performance-based work that responds to life on or around the water
