Three years. 80 workshops. One thousand speeches. One pub.

As Our Public House takes its final bow, so too does Albion; our long exploration of who we are as a country, and who we might yet become.

In this closing episode, Josephine reflects on the whole journey: from a tent in a field at Latitude Festival in 2019 to stages across England, from the first hesitant speeches in community halls and prison workshops to songs performed live every night on stage by a cast who made those words their own.

She's joined by composer Jonathan Walton, who talks about the extraordinary challenge of finding music inside real people's words and what it means to turn a speech written in a working men's club or a prison into a song that stops an audience in its tracks.

And together with several of the speech-makers and audiences, they ask: what does it mean to have been heard? What have we learned about the country we live in? And what happens next?

Find out more on the Dash Arts website: dasharts.org.uk/our-public-house

Our intro music is Fakiiritanssi by Marouf Majidi. You'll also hear extracts of I Dream Of A Bin and Woman Like Me by Jonathan Walton, arranged by Yaniv Fridel.

Our Public House was written by Barney Norris. Created and directed by Josephine Burton.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of OffScript, Dash Arts' Artistic Director Josephine Burton heads out into the land itself and into the long, tangled history of who has felt at home there, and who has had to fight to claim it.

Join us to explore connection, place, and the ever-evolving landscape of English identity.

First, she talks with Toni Murphy, founder of Touching Grass, a community creating space for queer women, trans and non-binary people of colour to experience the outdoors as somewhere that belongs to them. Toni describes the hiking trips, camping and the careful acts of presence in landscapes that haven't always felt welcoming.

Then Josephine takes the longer view. What does history tell us about who has always assumed the countryside is theirs and what have people done when that assumption has been challenged? With Professor Alan Finlayson, one of the UK's leading political and social thinkers, she traces the deep roots of England's relationship with its land, all the way to the present and to Andy Burnham MP's recent journey down from the north to Westminster, reclaiming something as he went.

Find more information on Touching Grass and their latest events: www.touchgrasscamp.com

Our Public House arrives in London this week at the Marylebone Theatre for its final run, after a national tour through Leeds, Prescot, Coventry and Sheffield. Find out more

This episode is part of Dash Arts' Albion series - an ongoing exploration of what it means to be English today.

Our intro music is Fakiiritanssi by Marouf Majidi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of OffScript, Dash Arts' Artistic Director Josephine Burton is joined by Dr. Neil Buttery—food historian, cook, and the voice behind The British Food History Podcast—for a delicious and wide-ranging conversation about the edible stories that define us.

Josephine and Neil trace the history of English food from the kitchen outwards, exploring how our national palate has been shaped by invasion, trade, and social change. They discuss how the ingredients on our plates reflect the class fault lines of history, the evolution of the "traditional" English diet, and why food is perhaps the most intimate way to understand the changing identity of a nation.

They talk about the culinary "soft power" of the dinner table and who gets to define what constitutes "proper" English food. From the voracious appetite of early global trade to the regional dishes that have stood the test of time, they unpick why our hunger for new flavours, far from diluting our traditions, is precisely what keeps our food culture vital and alive. Plus Neil designs a small plates menu which tells a story of English food today

And because the conversation sits alongside Our Public House, Dash Arts' new touring theatre production, a state-of-the-nation play set in a pub, Josephine and Neil discuss the role of the pub as part of our culinary history!

The British Food History Podcast can be found here: britishfoodhistory.com

Our Public House is currently touring England. Find out more at https://www.dasharts.org.uk/our-public-house

This episode is part of Dash Arts' Albion series — an ongoing exploration of what it means to be English today.

Our intro music is Fakiiritanssi by Marouf Majidi

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.