Street Theatre

As part of Southend Arts Festival, the high street will be bought to life with tons of amazing theatre acts! From giant puppets stilts to theatre acts

The High Street will be brought to life each Saturday and Sunday Afternoon.
Interactive, fun, colourful and all very entertaining! Charge your phones – plenty of photo opportunities to be had!

Saturday 4th & Sunday 5th

Mandinga Arts

12pm – 4pm

Walkabout – throughout the High Street

Mandinga Arts participated in Notting Hill Carnival for 8 years and has showcased new work at London’s Mayors Thames Festival Night Carnival annually since 1997. In 2012, the Company delivered a European Culture Funded exchange project with partners in Spain and Bulgaria, as well as presenting work at various events across the UK as part of the Cultural Olympiad celebrations, including London, Nottingham, and Bath. Mandinga Arts worked in exchange with artists among Colombia, China and Denmark endorsing and engaging communities into arts and Carnival. The Company has sustained regular portfolio funding from Arts Council England since 2008.

Pre-pandemic, Mandinga Arts has expanded the reach of its work, developing projects with partners across the UK and overseas, such as: facilitating workshops, producing gigs and walkabouts, and developing artistic commissions. Mandinga Arts reached, discovered, and expanded the way of using its costumes and puppets and bringing its unique Carnival community environment with engagement to diverse audiences. During pandemic, Mandinga Arts had an extended period of redundance having only one walkabout in August 2020. Operations are getting back to normal from June 2021.

Saturday 11th

6FT Stories

Under the bridge

6FootStories is a band of theatrical vagabonds, purveyors of fine festival entertainments, interactive experiences, and touring productions of excellence since 2011. They have toured the land with shows like the Swap Shop Game Show, the Potato Puppet Playground and their raucous reworked three-man Shakespeare, Macbeth: A Tale of Sound & Fury. Their recent work includes curating stages for Standon Calling and Valley Fest, as well as bringing their spoof art gallery, The Tat Modern, to nearby Basildon for a 6 week residency.

The Time Technicians are out and about, opening portals in spacetime and summoning great minds from times-gone-by and times-yet-to-come. See an all-juggling Einstein! Meet the Lovebot-1000 from 2051! Let Marie Antoinette show you how to really eat cake! Each of our visitors has an important message for our present day… will you be there to hear it?

Saturday 11th

Jumbo Stilts

11.30am – 3.30pm

Info coming soon

Sunday 12th

Hodman and Sally/Flying Buttresses

12pm – 3pm

High Street

An enchanting interactive puppetry walkabout. Hodman and Sally have lived happily by themselves for hundreds of years, blissfully unaware of the changing world around them. Now they have ventured out in search of fame, fortune and friendship, enjoying a second youth touring the world with their possessions strapped to their backs.

The delightfully captivating Hodman and Sally are a wee pair of wonderful wanderers from the proud country of Oblivia.  Despite being completely ‘Oblivious’ (and proud of it!) Hodman and Sally will comically attempt to understand the new and baffling world around them, chatting with everyone they meet along the way. The effect of meeting this unique and memorable couple is often described as ‘spellbinding’, with people of all ages becoming completely captivated by the ingenious illusion and witty personalities of the two characters. A totally heart-warming and magical walkabout performance.

Saturday 18th

In conjunction with A Better Start Southends’ Festival of Conversations – we have a couple of wonderful acts that will be roaming around our High Street

Circus Rambaba – stilt pirates

12.00pm – 12.30pm

1.30pm – 2.00pm

3.00pm – 3.30pm

High Street

Jolly Rogers

11.30am 12.00pm

1.00pm – 1.30pm

2.00pm – 2.30pm

High Street

 

Sunday 19th

Acrojou

Acrojou present – The Wheel House

12 – 4pm

A ‘tender, post-apocalyptic love story’, the Wheel House is an acrobatic promenade show, which unfolds inside and around a circular set as it rolls with the audience walking along.
An enchanting story set in a dystopian future, at a time where survival relies on sharp eyes, quick hands, and above all, friendship. Join these traveller-gatherers on the road to nowhere: treading lightly, enduring quietly, and always, always moving onwards.

Acrojou’s flagship show, The Wheel House, has been touring worldwide since 2008 and is the most widely toured Without Walls commission to date.

Stunning design and theatrical acrobatics, housed in an exquisite, hand-built rolling theatre set. The Wheel House is a unique performance that has captured the hearts and imaginations of audiences around the world.