It all began in 2016

Hidden History started off as an idea in late 2016 and took several months of planning and refining to convert the idea into a working project. Some people might find this daunting, but I love this part of creating a project. It took a while before I met Producer Deborah Dickinson and we put together an Arts Council England application, and luckily, we were successful!

We brought a fantastic team of creatives together, Tom Wright (Director Mentor), Mary Cooper (Co-Writer and Writing Mentor), Chris Singleton (Creative Enabler), Ema Pightling (Stage Manager), Uzma Kazi (Designer) to research and develop Hidden History in 2017 and it was one of the most memorable and wonderful experiences of my life.

For the research, I made several trips to historical archives and talked to historians, which helped to inform the narrative. Together we created three dramatic stories from Bradford’s past to bring back to life in one of Bradford’s oldest building, Bolling Hall Museum.

We have now developed the project with funding support from Arts Council England and we will be performing different historical stories at Bolling Hall Museum in Bradford again, The Piece Hall in Halifax and Elsecar Heritage Centre. With a global pandemic and the difficulties that has caused we are delighted to be going into rehearsals. Our stories include an Earl, suffragettes and a man hidden away in an asylum; more hidden history has been unearthed and more drama added.