Laggin' Behind?

An evening with choirs, photographs, film and instrumental music exploring the impacts of living in fuel poverty.

Alongside food banks and homelessness lurks the ever-present threat of fuel poverty for families, and people of all ages who are cold in their own homes and who are without the resources to change their condition.

‘Laggin’ Behind?’ is a specially commissioned suite for choir and band inspired by new and archive film and photographs: a creative exploration through imagery and music of the changing housing landscapes in the North East of England from the 50’s until now.

Composers Ken Patterson & Richard Scott have collaborated with Amber Films to produce the new work, responding to old and newly digitized photographs in the AMBER Archive, including Sirkka Liisa Kontinnen’s recent work ‘Byker Revisited’, T.Dan Smith’s own photographs of the transformation of the West End, John Davies’s images of the brutalist towers of the 70’s and the paintings of mining family life by Herbert Cooper.

Further material includes newly filmed testimonies outlining the experience of fuel poverty and poor housing conditions, as well as a filmed interview of T.Dan Smith himself.

The songs are performed, live on stage, by a massed choir of Heaton Voices, Wansbeck Voices and guest choristers alongside musicians Gerry Hunt, Keith Hill and an ensemble from local community groups.