How to Survive the Blitz and Other Things

Director: Malaika Cunningham
Writer: Joseph Houlders
Producer: Charlotte Mountford
Stage Manager: Michelle Broomhead
Sound Designer: Lee Affen
Lighting Designer: Will Monks
Set Designer: Sarah Lewis
Performers: Laura Lindsey, Rose Gray, Ray Castleton, Jennifer Derbyshire and Tom Tunstall

Part of Inside Out Festival, produced by the University of Sheffield, as part of the Festival of the Mind

A site specific performance exploring survival and resistance, inspired by the sheer scale of traumatic and chaotic threats which have faced Portland Works (an iconic cutlery factory) throughout its lifetime.

Portland Works was the first place in the world to produce stainless steel cutlery, and stainless steel was itself invented in Sheffield. It is a grade II* listed building, and it is now community owned, and co-operatively run, with many active, highly skilled, craft tenants. But it was not an easy journey getting there. The building was bombed in WWII, almost burnt down by Def Leppard, the site of many raves in the 90s and 00s, and more recently, has been under threat from housing developers. This show was about those stories and how it survived them all.