Interactive theatre, evocative songs, and a whistle-stop tour through 250 years of the Trent & Mersey and Caldon canals.
In 2025, we worked with B-Arts in Stoke-on-Trent to celebrate the city’s centenary with a brand-new performance inspired by the stories of its canals.
We gathered in the stories, memories and impressions of the canals from news archives, social media and interviews to create a one-hour promenade performance that brought to life 250 years of canal history through music, theatre and storytelling, all in the atmospheric setting of Middleport Pottery. The work was created in collaboration with a community company and featured songs performed by Clay Chorus.
From Josiah Wedgwood’s determination to transport his pottery safely to London and James Brindley’s engineering vision, through the everyday lives of the men, women, and children who lived and worked on Stoke’s waterways to what the canal meals to today’s Stokies – we packed a lot into an hour!
Performed at the historic Middleport Pottery – once employing 10,000 workers and still home to Burleigh ware today – the audience moved through different spaces, meeting characters from the past and present along the way. Interactive theatre, evocative songs, and a whistle-stop tour through 250 years of the Trent & Mersey and Caldon canals.
