Since 2016 we have been curating Red Ladder Local, our network of alternative venues – village halls, working men’s clubs, and community centres – across West and South Yorkshire. In collaboration with the people who run these venues, we plan a regular programme of theatre performances and creative activity, bringing theatre to the doorstep of each community.

This time last year, we were approached by one of our partners, Belle Isle Tenant Management Organisation (BITMO), who run The Gate in South Leeds. They asked if we could create a piece of theatre that shone a light on positive stories from within their community. And so – after the securing of some serendipitous funding – “Belle Isle Stories” was born in the Spring of this year.

The project saw professional writers, actors and creatives collaborate with tenants living in properties managed by BITMO to create some short pieces of writing, based on their stories and experiences. Parallel to this, we ran two courses: an Acting course, and a Writing Group.

Four short pieces were produced; one of them, the epic poem ‘Belle Avenue’, was co-created between a professional writer and the participants of this Writing Group. All were inspired by the stories that people told us. We came across accounts of phenomenal strength, resilience, kindness, and community – the senses of which have made their way into every piece. It was a bloomin’ pleasure.

You can view ‘Belle Avenue’ below.

It felt like a waste not to document them more permanently – and so, we filmed each piece, with the help of a few familiar faces. All four films are now available to view in full on Red Ladder’s YouTube channel.

The films are a “Who’s Who” of Red Ladder success stories: previous participants of community productions such as ‘Leeds Lads’, and graduates of our free-to-access Red Grit Actor Training course. See who you can spot!

Too often, work in communities doesn’t receive as much fanfare as it should. But delivering more work like this forms a large part of our most recent National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) funding promise, and is the crux of the uplift we received – building further on Red Ladder Local’s network, and extending it further into the Barnsley district. I’m very excited about it, so watch this space.

Thank you to the incredible Belle Isle Stories team, who with very limited time and resources, but a great deal of goodwill and passion, have made this project possible.

We hope you enjoy what we created, and we hope we’ve done the community proud. If you want to watch all four films, they’re now available on our YouTube channel. Click here.

BITMO & Red Ladder’s Belle Isle Stories is kindly supported with funding from Let’s Create Jubilee Fund, Leeds Community Foundation, National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England Funding.