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Step 01
Venue and host city
We choose each city for an existing custodian community and a venue with the right acoustics, history and access. Local cultural offices are written into the brief from day one, never invited at the end.
Programme, Vol. VI
Whispers of the Kingdom.
A live-action cultural spectacle and an intimate companion programme of screenings, talks and after-hours gatherings, touring historic venues across the UK and the Middle East through 2026.
Echoes of HeritageEvents and ScreeningsBespoke Custodians
Overview
What happens when a centuries-old story is allowed to occupy a room again, in real time?
Whispers of the Kingdom is a touring spectacle, part theatre, part procession, part rite, built with custodian communities from West Africa, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. Each staging is co-authored, paid at master rates, and held in a venue chosen for its own historical weight rather than its capacity.
Around the spectacle we host a quieter programme of screenings, post-show conversations and private dinners. These smaller rooms are where audiences meet the practitioners face to face, ask the questions that do not fit the stage, and begin the kind of long relationships that fund the next season's work.
Plate I
Ancient stone architecture at golden hour.
The Process
How a programme moves, step by quiet step.
02
Step 02
Co-creation residency
Four to six weeks on the ground with custodian artists, dramaturgs and a small technical crew. The script is workshopped in the languages of the makers before any translation is attempted.
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Step 03
Production and rehearsal
Sets, garments and instruments are made locally where possible, with materials sourced through the same artisan networks that animate our crafting workshops.
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Step 04
Performance run
Three to seven evenings per city, each followed by a moderated conversation. Tickets are tiered so that local audiences are never priced out of their own heritage.
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Step 05
Travelling archive
Stills, recordings and an edited film travel with the production to the next city, building a layered record that future cohorts can study and respond to.
What You Take Home
Deliverables, made to outlast the season.
Authentic discovery
An evening built on years of fieldwork, not weeks of rehearsal. Every gesture on stage has a named custodian and a verifiable lineage.
Unique perspective
Programmes are co-curated with the host community, so the story you watch is the one they have chosen to tell, in the order they have chosen to tell it.
Engaging storytelling
Spoken word, music, projection and live craft are braided into a single ninety-minute arc, with surtitles available in three languages.
Community at the heart
At least forty per cent of every house is reserved for community partners, students and elders from the originating tradition, at no cost.
Screenings and Q and A
Companion screenings of our documentary series run alongside the tour, with custodians on stage for moderated conversations.
Patron evenings
Small, ticketed dinners after select performances bring patrons, scholars and custodians into the same room, with proceeds returned to the host community fund.
"Portrait from an African cultural tradition."
Host a city
Bring the tour to your venue
Museums, festivals and historic venues: tell us your dates, your audience and your local custodian partners. We will return a feasibility note within two weeks.
Open a conversation
Reserve a seat
Join an evening
Audience announcements, patron evenings and limited community holds are released by season. Tell us where you are based and we will write when we are near.
Request the diary