Compass Festival, Central Library, Leeds
16th – 19th November 2016
Leeds 2016
We first took Of All The People In All The World to Leeds way back in 2005 in the very early days of the show. Annie Lloyd, a long time supporter of the company, booked us then in her role as programmer at Leeds Metropolitan University. She booked theshow again this time in her new role as co-director of Compass Festival. It was lovely to be able to retrun to the city in our 25th year. Compass is a great festival and this year it brought an exciting rangeof live art and performance projects to an eclectic range of public spaces around the city. We were based in the gallery space of Leeds Central Library and so our audienceincluded both people coming specifically to see the show and regular library users. With some statistical input from the library itself and the Leeds Data Mill we were able to include a wide range of interesting local information alongsideour usual range of national and international statistics. Jack did a great job of examiming data related to the recent election of Donald Trump as President of the USA, with a range of statistics around the candidates’ rallies and previous presidents elected without winning the popular vote. Visitors enjoyed the range of information contained in the show from the more serious topics to the more humorous. They were most surprised by our largest pile – the people who watched the final of The Great British Bake Off a few weeks before the show.
As part of our visit to Compass Festival Craig took part in a discussion entitled “At It A While’ with fellow long term theatre survivors Lone Twin and Third Angel. During the informal discussionwe talked about our respective longevity and approaches to sustaining our practice. It was great to be sitting in the same room at the same time with colleagues who we see only occasionally and fascinating to share memories and thoughts and to see where decisions made or forced upon us over theyears had led us.
Credits
Performers: Rochi Rampal, Craig Stephens, Amy Ann Haigh and Jack Trow
Concept: James Yarker