The Paper Birds - Mobile Theatre & Performing Arts

Staged in a caravan, Mobile is an inventive and intimate piece of verbatim theatre about class, family and belonging.

New dates for The Paper Birds’ tour of Mobile have just been announced. Continuing to make theatre as accessible as possible, they will caravan the breadth of the country popping up by the seaside, on high streets, at schools, and in arts centres and theatres across the UK.

Staged in a caravan, Mobile is an inventive and intimate piece of verbatim theatre about class, family and belonging. Based on personal testimonies collected in the community workshops, from research by collaborator Professor Sam Friedman, and the company’s own lives, the play explores our sense of home, aspiration and the realities of social mobility.

We are taught from a young age to aim high, to reach for the stars, to want more, more than our parents, more than the generations before us, to climb the social ladder. But, as we surge forward, what are we leaving behind? And, if we look back, what do we see?

The Paper Birds will take Mobile to new locations for the very first time such as HighTide Festival in London and Aldeburgh, HOME in Manchester, Festival of Thrift in Redcar, and Arts Depot in London. The company will also make its debut in Wales at The Ffwrnes in Llanelli and The Miner’s Theatre in Amanford.

Jemma McDonnell, Artistic Director of The Paper Birds and director of Mobile, comments, Mobile explores class with both head and heart. Whilst social mobility is highly political, at the root of it Mobile is about family. Who we are is so deeply influenced by where we have come from; the homes we grew up in, the food we ate, the jobs of our parents, the holidays we did or didn’t go on, they all affect our seating in the world. Mobile aims to transport its audience to board games on rainy family holidays or busy Christmas dinners with not enough chairs, to question how these long-forgotten childhoods have shaped who we are today.

Mobile is The Paper Birds’ second show in a trilogy about class in modern Britain. Made for audiences of up to eight people at a time, this intimate 40-minute show incorporates stunning digital visuals by The Media Workshop and original music composed by Shane Durrant. As the caravan comes to life so do stories of origins and aspirations.

Mobile neatly turns the caravan into a magic box where every cupboard and drawer springs a surprise in a piece that explores social mobility, class and what going on a caravan holiday says about you (the Guardian).

This is a co-commission by Live Theatre and The Marlowe Theatre that has been supported with public funding by Arts Council England.

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