The old and new collide as award winning theatre company Periplum explore the 1842 Stoke-on-Trent pottery riots.

Reading the Riot Act is an interactive performance where the audience use headphones, i-Pads and visual installations to travel through a portal back in time to an explosive moment in local history.

This unique performance, which takes place at Fenton Library on Saturday and Sunday (28 and 29 November), is supported by the art programme, Appetite.

The Potteries was a stronghold of the Chartist movement. Chartists were working class people, including miners and potters, who campaigned for a series of political reforms centred on giving the vote to every man aged 21 or over.

Failure to meet the Chartists’ demands led to a General Strike and the riots of 1842. Historians agree that the insurrection started in the Potteries and spread across the Midlands, the North of England and Scotland.

Reading the Riot Act allows audience members to explore the experiences of local miners and pottery workers caught up in these turbulent events.

Karl Greenwood, Project Director at Appetite, said: “This is a unique performance produced for Stoke-on-Trent from the groundbreaking visual theatre company, Periplum.

“People may remember The Bell, by Peripum, a grand-scale production which played to large outdoor audiences in Stoke-on-Trent in 2014.

“Reading the Riot Act is a more intimate production which uses the historic setting of the historic former Fenton Library as the backdrop for an exploration of an important piece of Potteries’ history.”

Tickets are available from the Appetite website: www.appetitestoke.co.uk.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:
Appetite is part of the Creative People and Places programme, initiated and funded by Arts Council England. Creative People and Places is about more people taking the lead in choosing, creating and taking part in art experiences in the places where they live. There are 21 independent projects, each located in an area where people have traditionally had fewer opportunities to get involved with the arts.
www.creativepeopleplaces.org.uk
The Appetite programme is supported by funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England and is led by the New Vic Theatre in partnership with B Arts, Brighter Futures, Partners in Creative Learning and Staffordshire University. It is supported by Stoke-on-Trent City Council.
For further information on Appetite contact Karl Greenwood, Project Director. Telephone 01782 381373 (ext. 310) or email [email protected]
Visit the Appetite website at www.appetitestoke.co.uk ​