48-hour Immersive Theatre Project Recreates The Care Home Experience

Today, The Albany, Entelechy Arts and Christopher Green announced a groundbreaking immersive theatre experience The Home, the centrepiece to Age Against The Machine, the new cultural festival focussed around the subject of ageing and creative approaches to the issue of growing old.

This large scale and ambitious project, created by multi award-winning artist Christopher Green, will see audience members immerse themselves as residents in a theatrical care home over the weekend of 13 September. Just 30 audience members will enter The Home for a Durational Stay, checking in as 'residents' for 48 hours. Each participant will have a customised experience in this specially created theatrical care home, with their own room, key-workers and treatment, entertainment and wellbeing schedules.

This radical and immersive theatrical experience will blur the lines between performer and audience as 'residents' and 'staff' mix, sharing communal space, meals, and activities.

The Home blurs the lines between theatre and audience, exploring how we support and care for our older people and how we can reinvent practices to significantly improve quality of life.

Christopher Green says -
"That's hardcore!" is the most common response I get when I tell them the idea for The Home. Yes. It is hardcore. Theatrically, in terms of pushing the form, it's both a logical extension of my previous immersive work, but also gutsy. But the form absolutely matches the content. Being cared for, living communally, relying on an organisation to provide our wellbeing can only be really discussed when we have experienced it. I say that it has to be experiential, in order to start to change the cultural conversation of caring for the vulnerable. The ways we talk about it now, just scare us into inaction. Through the invitations issued to a range of stake-holders in the sectors, from civil servants to journalists, this is a campaigning piece. We are letting down our elderly, and our vulnerable, by being too fearful to act. Welcome to The Home. It's time to act!"

For those who don't want to 'check-in' for the whole weekend, there are four, 90 minute, standalone events across the weekend. They allow the public to catch a glimpse of life inside The Home with the cast of performers and those taking part in the full experience whilst gaining a new perspective on ageing and vulnerability along the way.

The Talent Show shows off The Home's integration within the community. 'Residents' and visitors will be invited to compete for big prizes.

Saturday night is Bingo Night at The Home! Bingo is a cliché of entertainment for the elderly, but this comes with a twist. Visitors are invited to partake, to win prizes and enjoy drinks and good times with a group of great people.

On Sunday morning visitors are invited to Non-Denominational Worship and Mindfulness Session. The Home takes its spiritual responsibilities very seriously and the more souls present for their morning of meditation, the merrier. This is a chance mix with the residents and the local community in a relaxed and contemplative atmosphere.

The Home Open Afternoon and Cupcake Day welcomes visitors to integrate with residents for games, entertainment, mingling and award-winning cupcakes.

The Home explores how we look after those in residential care, and ways we can reimagine and reinvent care homes as places of possibility.

'Staff' in the care home will be made up of a cast of older participants and professional actors of all ages and it has been developed with older people's experiences and views at its heart with support from experts, activists and communicators in the field of ageing and residential care.

Tickets for the 48 hour durational stay are available via a lottery system (over 18s only) and cost £100. Apply by sending the Albany your name and contact details by phone: 020 8692 4446 or email: thehome@thealbany.org.uk . The deadline for applications is Friday 16 August.

The durational stay can be adapted to be suitable for any and all access needs.

Tickets for the short events are Pay-What-Makes-You-Happy. This means you book a place to attend in advance with no charge, but pay what you decide after you've been to the event, based on how much you enjoyed it.

The Home is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Produced by south east London's arts centre, the Albany and participatory arts company Entelechy Arts, Age Against the Machine -- Festival of Creative Ageing comprises nearly seventy different events ranging from live music, theatre, dance, film and exhibitions, discussions, pop-up choirs and large scale outdoor performances, almost all of which all are free to attend or "Pay-What-Makes-You.Happy". Age Against The Machine has at its heart a mission to open up the subject of ageing in our society. The festival is packed with events aiming to challenge perceptions and attitudes towards ageing, celebrate older people as artists and highlight the ways in which creativity can help us age well and make a radical impact on quality of life. The series of symposiums, talks and workshops will explore ways the arts can contribute to current debate and practice in care for older people. The festival as a whole addresses a subject and section of society that is often invisible in the public eye.

The festival is supported by a Cultural Impact Award made to the London Borough of Lewisham as part of the Mayor of London's Borough of Culture programme.

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