In 2020, Kestrel united with some of the UK’s leading touring theatre companies to present Signal Fires, a nationwide project inspired by one of the original forms of theatre – storytelling around a fire.
Each company self-produced an evening of work – a signal fire – at a different location across the UK in celebration of our fundamental need to tell stories, to help make sense of the world around us and reimagine the future.
Kestrel presented an evening of storytelling online where four Kestrel alumni shared After Time, a collection of fictional stories created in collaboration with writer Simon Longman, that explored the experiences of finishing a prison sentence and the problems and possibilities of finding yourself in a new life.
Collaborating companies included: 45North, Boundless, Eastern Angles, English Touring Theatre, Fen in association with Out of Joint, Fuel, Graeae, Headlong, Hightide, Kneehigh, Macha Productions, National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, Paines Plough, SBC Theatre, Scottish International Storytelling Festival, Slung Low, Spare Tyre, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men and Yellow Earth Theatre.
Signal Fires was an unprecedented project born out of unprecedented times. It has been incredibly inspiring and humbling to connect with so many different touring theatre companies.
Holly Race Roughan - Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre
Theatre and films from Kestrel.