From wheelchair to 3,560 feet

Long time friend of Islington Community Theatre Fred Kingham will attempt an audacious fundraising challenge next week as he attempts to climb Mount Snowdon.

For the last eight years Fred has used a wheelchair after an accident and it has only been in the last year that he has spent more time out of the wheelchair than in.

His 5 mile climb takes able bodied walkers around 3 or 4 hours - Fred expects that the climb will take him three times as long.  

It's an awesome challenge and we're incredibly touched that he's doing in aid of ICT's future projects.

Read more about Fred

In the centre of things

This Monday we start intensive rehearsals on The Centre, a new play we've been  thinking about for 18 months and that has been made possible by a Grant for the Arts research and development grant from the Arts Council.

We started thinking about The Centre (though we didn't know it would be called that then) two weeks after the Tottenham riots and a year before the Olympics.  A year and a half later we've been developing a piece that wears those origins lightly, but talks to a world of financial meltdown and individual greed.

Over the last three weeks we've been putting the finishing touches to a scratch draft of the play through workshops, discussions and research with our young people.  It's been expertly written by Alexandra Wood (who has been interviewed by our literary associate Guy Jones on this site) and we've now got a week to get it on its feet and ready for 3 scratch shows at the Pleasance Theatre and then Platform.

You can book tickets for the Pleasance shows here or if you call up on 020 7609 1800 and quote 'Stephanie' there are a limited number of bargain £5 tickets.  Don't miss out.

Occupy

This Friday and Saturday see the culmination of a long-term project that we've been involved with at Islington's Platform Arts Venue for young people.

OCCUPY PLATFORM is a new show created by young people working in collaboration with some of Islington's leading arts companies: All Change, Cubitt Education, Wayne McGregor|Random Dance, Apples and Snakes, Islington Community Theatre and The Lovebuzz Project 

Our part of the project is a flamboyant new piece of theatre called The Leader, directed by Ola Ince and written in collaboration with the young participants by the playwright and poet Joseph Coelho from Apples and Snakes.  The play is performed by fifteen young people from across Islington.

Occupy Platform takes place on Saturday at 1pm, 4pm and 7pm at Platform.

Click here for more information and to book tickets